21 December 2017 - Been a while......The last few months have seen a run of lagers for summer. First was a Mexican style Cerveza, which was part of an experiment and tasting trial with lemon, lime and salt used in the bottling process. The bulk was kegged straight without any additives, but bottles were done and compared; verdict being lemon juice was preferable to lime juice and a small amount of rock salt added a nice summery twist. This batch was brewed with White Labs Mexican Lager and W34/70 yeast at standard lager temps with a rise in temp introduced after 5 days to help it finish a bit quicker. this brew is going down well with tasters. The follow up to this was a straight up Fast Fermented Lager. I took what would normally be my summer ale and twisted the hops a little; Motueka and Mosaic late in the boil for a bit of fruit. I pitched a slurry of the Lager yyast from the Cerveza and started with a quick temperature program. Starting at 9° and raising 1 degree a day till 18°, held for 3 days then dropped to 0° over 4 days to sit before bottling at day 18 from brewing. This has produced a very clean and tasty summer beer. I will probably use this method on most of my lagers from now on, it saved around 2 weeks in the fermenter and got the beer in and out quicker than I would normally turn over an ale.
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6 September 2017 - The Imperial Stout has made its way into bottles and starts its long aging process, i plan to leave this until around Xmas before cracking a first sample, but anticipate a much longer conditioning period before it hits its best.
The first Little Johns FWK is in the fermenter. A standard Pale Ale grain bill teamed with Fortnight hops, this is coming along nicely, sitting at 1.010 and just cleaning up at 20° before I cold crash and get it into a keg and some bottles.
The Hop Hash Ale is on tap and after some trepidation caused by a no sot so successful run of bottles; the kegged version is showing great promise.
The Arrogant Bastard Clone has been a big fail. Due to what now appears to be a major miscalculation in regards to Alpha Acids the finished beer had no hop profile to offset the massive malt body, as such it is incredibly sweet and essentially undrinkable. I will have another attempt at this down the track, but not in a big hurry.
I have to get busy with brewing to get some very soon to be empty kegs, filled and back on the line.
A run of experimental brews has put a dent in production, so coming up after the current batch will be a revised Gecko's Foot IPA and the first of the brews preparing for summer.
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22 August 2017 - Some upgrades have taken place recently. A new HLT with built in HERMS coil has increased sparging capacity and temp control in the Mash Tun. A new boil Kettle with in built pick up tube has streamlined the cooling process and reduces the amount of vessels and transfers required at the end of the brew day. Capacity has increased enough to knock out 2 x 16 litre FWK's. Next upgrade will be a new mash tun which should help with an efficiency increase and make sparging easier.
Beer wise its been a busy little while.
I have made my first serious attempt at producing a FWK, or 2 to be precise. So after some playing with numbers, I knocked out 2 FWk's on the new gear, hopped with the new Fortnight hop mix. I will be getting one of these into a fermenter very soon.
As part of the Brew School vids on my youtube channel I knocked out a kit Stout, which i then split and added a grain steep and extra hop boil and turned out 12 litres of Imperial Stout. Starting at 1.090 and sitting at 1.026 for the last week, its waiting to be bottled. It's big, bold and tasty but will need a while to reach its best. I will probably stick it away for at least 6 months before doing some sampling. With a finished ABV around 9%, it will have some kick. Looking forward to trying this one.
7 July 2017 - Been a busy few weeks in the brewery. The Ginger Beer I brewed back in January has finally made its way onto a tap; its held up fine in the keg and is pouring well. It goes down nice on ice with a shot of Kentucky's finest. Hop Hash Ale has been kegged, finishing at 1.017 it holds a big body and is showing a good hop flavour; it may take a few weeks to get this on to a tap. It has gone into the new 9 litre keg but now awaits an opening in the fridge; which should not be far off. Little John's A Cranky Bastard was brewed today; my own version of Stone Brewing's Arrogant Bastard Ale, big malty and chock full of Chinook hops, not a beer to be taken lightly with an expected ABV around 7%.
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30 June 2017 - ​It's been a while since the last update. So I continue with the brews, new and tweaked. I have started my youtube channel and that has seen a range of experiments and trials; from yeast to carbonation methods and glass washing. I am starting to make a few changes in equipment; I have ordered a new boil kettle, 50 litres with an inbuilt tap and thermometer. This will improve the back end of brew day, with 2 less transfers, I will be able to chill, whirlpool and transfer to the fermenter from the one vessel. A new mash tun is not far off either, should be introduced in the next few weeks, this should improve efficiency and output as well as making brew day a little quicker. My thrown together Hot Liquor Tun will get a major upgrade some time before the end of the year...or maybe around xmas, which will bring me up to a streamlined purpose built 3 vessel brew rig. Exciting times.
I have also come to the decision that my keg mix is in need of fine tuning. I currently run 3 x 19 litre kegs and 3 x 9 litre kegs off 6 taps. I am in the process of replacing 2 of the big kegs with smaller ones to allow for a better rotation of brews; I'm not getting through the big kegs quick enough and its putting a blockade on production. So 1 new small keg in the next week or 2 which will take the current batch of Hop Hash Ale.