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By Posted on Posted in All Grain, Beer, Media, Recipes, Video Blogs, Yeast No Comments

So December just gone myself and the (much) better half celebrated our first wedding anniversary and being the romantic sort I decided to spend half the day hiding in the shed brewing! Not to worry I’m not a complete bastard she was at work during this time and the beer being brewed was her favourite style, a Hefeweizen, so it actually was a romantic gesture! Anyway my aim was a fairly traditional hefe with a slight twist in the form of some Summer hops from Australia to add a little fruity lift to the aroma and flavour. Summer seemed like a good option as they are quite mild compared to more pungent new world hops like Galaxy or Nelson and also have Noble heritage being a derivative of Czech Saaz so in theory would work well blended with the more traditional Tettnang hops that I was using without overpowering them and turning it into an American Wheat.

I like my wheat beers to have a decent body to them so in the grain bill I used some Pale Ale Malt, Munich and a dash of Melanoidin in addition to roughly 50% Pale Wheat, this also helped bring the colour up to a slightly more golden yellow hue. Yeast was an easy choice with the Mangrove Jacks M20 being my go to, I haven’t tried many different hefe yeasts and would like to explore the liquid options but out of the dry ones I have used this one has never failed me so in it went. The finished beer came out really well and the wife is happily ploughing through it! I also got some good feedback from Chris whose review I have included below (just incase you’re not convinced by Mrs Dudes endorsement!). So heres the full recipe and video…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0JOJcDEi5M&feature=youtu.be

Anniversary Wheat (Summer Hefeweizen)

Batch size: 20 Litres
Brewhouse efficiency: 78%
OG: 1.056
FG: 1.015
IBUs: 21
EBC: 11
ABV: 5.4%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

2.25 kg Pale Wheat Malt
1.74 kg Pale Ale Malt
0.47 kg Munich Malt
0.15 kg Melanoidin

HOPS & ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

15g Tettnang FWH
15g Summer at 30 minutes
25g Summer at 5 minutes
10g Tettnang at 5 minutes

YEAST

Mangrove Jacks M20

Mash at 66c

Ferment at 24c

By Posted on Posted in All Grain, Beer, Recipes, Yeast 1 Comment

A few months back I was kindly sent a sample of Vermont Ale yeast by a fellow brewer (Cheers Timmi!) and was keen to try it in a big hoppy ale. For those that aren’t familiar with this yeast it is reputed to be the yeast strain used in ‘Heady Topper’ one of the commercial American beers that helped start the trend for juicy hazy New England IPAs (NEIPAs), now I am not particularly excited by this style of beer for various reasons but I am excited about yeast strains that enhance the fruity flavours from hops and bring their own specific flavour profiles and from what I had heard about Vermont it is a real ‘character’ yeast in this sense.

So I decided to try it in pretty simple Pale Ale recipe with a big dose of Mosaic hops, their big tropical flavours and aroma seemed a natural fit for the Vermont not to mention the fact that they are featured heavily in many NEIPA recipes that use this yeast. I wasn’t interested in trying to create haze or anything like that so steered clear of any use of wheat or oats and started with a pretty standard mix of pale malt and crystals totalling about 7% of the grist. I had read that Vermont likes a bit of sugar in the grist to help it attenuate fully so I added a small amount of Dextrose and finally on a bit of a whim decided to chuck in a little Biscuit Malt to hopefully add a bit of depth to the malt bill so it might have some chance of being noticed underneath the big flavour of Mosaic. The final recipe came out as follows, as you may have noticed it also includes some Falconers Flight in the dry hop, this wasn’t originally in the recipe but when I weighed out the dry hops I realised some of the Mosaic I thought I had was AWOL so I subbed in some FF. This was a quick experimental brew so I was also using the 30 minute mash and boil method so I could get the batch done quickly.

Batch size: 10 Litres (Stovetop BIAB 30/30 Method)
Brewhouse efficiency: 70%
OG: 1.052
FG: 1.009
IBUs: 37
EBC: 14.6
ABV: 5.8%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

2 kg Pale Malt
0.1 kg Biscuit Malt
0.1 kg CaraHell
0.06 kg Crystal 60L

0.08 kg Dextrose (Added at 10 minute in boil)

HOPS & ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

5g Apollo at 30 minutes
10g Mosaic at 10 minutes
15g Mosaic at 5 minutes
15g Mosaic at 0 minutes

20g Falconers Flight Dry Hop 3 days
17g Mosaic Dry Hop 3 days

YEAST

Vermont Ale

Mash at 67c

Ferment at 20c

The result well it is probably one of the best beers I have made, hop flavour and aroma was fruitier than anything I have done before and the Mosaic was absolutely screaming out of the glass! Now Mosaic will make a great pale ale with most yeasts but the Vermont compliments it so well and really brought out the Mango character in this hop, the yeast has a lovely soft fruity ester character which really emphasises the ‘juicy’ qualities of a hop like Mosaic, I’m looking forward to using it with other ‘tropical’ hops like Galaxy etc. Vermont is definitely a unique strain and in my opinion you cant really substitute it and get a similar result, I highly recommend you try it out.

By Posted on Posted in All Grain, Beer, Recipes, Yeast No Comments

Given I’m still waiting for my order from THBC to be shipped across from Ireland, I’m having to look at alternatives for tonights brewvening and have come up with this. Any opinions before I mash in??

HOME BREW RECIPE:
Title: Dunkel
Author: Chem

Brew Method: BIAB
Style Name: Dunkles Weissbier
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 10 liters (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 13 liters
Boil Gravity: 1.035
Efficiency: 75% (brew house)

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.045
Final Gravity: 1.011
ABV (standard): 4.45%
IBU (tinseth): 14.03
SRM (morey): 16.32

FERMENTABLES:
1 kg – United Kingdom – Wheat (50%)
0.2 kg – German – CaraMunich II (10%)
0.3 kg – Belgian – Pilsner (15%)
0.5 kg – American – CaraCrystal Wheat Malt (25%)

HOPS:
10 g – Tettnanger, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 4.5, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 11.92
10 g – Hallertau Hersbrucker, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 2.2, Use: Boil for 10 min, IBU: 2.11

MASH GUIDELINES:
1) Sparge, Temp: 65.5 C, Time: 60 min

YEAST:
Mangrove Jack – Bavarian Wheat Yeast M20
Starter: No
Form: Dry
Attenuation (avg): 73%
Flocculation: Low
Optimum Temp: 15 – 30 C
Fermentation Temp: 20 C

I’m looking for a normal, standard weissbier with a good flavour from the yeast, so I might ditch the Hallertau and go purely with the Tettnanger, or ditch the tettnanger and go purely with a Hallertau 15g for bittering and thats it.

Its a fairly standard recipe, but am gonna mash at 65.5 for maximum fermentables to avoid a malty mouth…

By Posted on Posted in Beer, Recipes, Yeast 2 Comments

So, I’m looking at hopefully getting a couple of brews on this week, with maybe one more this weekend. I’m gonna be hitting up the recipes on here for inspriation, but I’m lacking some of the yeasts.

From the yeasts above, and bearing in mind I dont have a slants library floating around like some do, which yeasts would you recommend to work well with the Rye Amber? Maybe a yeast for a Dunkelweissen? (Confused between MJ20 and MJ21 for that one). I only have 1 pack of US-05 and a wife who is reaching the end of her tether with my brewing kit being all over the house, hence looking for alternatives rather than just buying loads more.

Also, does anyone have a recipe for a good Saison? Mine was a bit dark and clovey now I’ve had the last bottle, looking for something a little lighter…

Has anyone used BRY-97 before? What sort of profile does it have? Clean? Estery? That one was bought for experimentation, but I’m looking to get a stock of good quality tried and tested brews on…

Thanks in advance

Chem