Hey boys and girls,
Quick run down of my process with recipes at the end.
I Biab in a 70L gas fired kettle. Usually do double batches unless its something bigger than about 6%.
I mash in 50L of water and then top up post boil if doing a double or all the water goes in at the start for single batches.
Last Perth water report looked like:
Ca- 20
Sulfate- 8
Chloride- 34
Magnesium- 2
Sodium- 22
Bicarbonate- 64
Total Hardeness- 58
RA- 37
I add some gypsum to almost everything I make to increase the calcium. If its something hoppy, I shoot for 250-300ppm sulfate. Pretty much the same as what Tasty from the BN does for his hoppy beers. Gypsum goes into the mash.
Pale beers generally need a few ml of 88% lactic acid to hit a mash pH of 5.2. Dark beers usually hit 5.2 without adjustment. Really dark beers like the RIS will have the darkest grains (roasted barley, black malt) held out of the mash and then added at mash out to help keep the pH in the right spot.
I whirlpool and let settle for ~20 min before chilling through a cfc. Run wort into 2 better bottles with a foil cover. Wort goes into a pre-chilled fridge until down to pitching temp. Generally 18C for something like 1056/ US-05.
Depending on how organized I am, I will use liquid if I have enough time to build up the right pitch, or use dry yeast. Dry yeast gets rehydrated.
I pitch, then add pure O2 using the benzenomatic cylinders. Bottle, reg, sterile filter, stainlees tube, 2um stone. The stainless tubing works really well, instead of having the hose trying to curl up. One thing I would like to add is a flow meter. Im cracking the reg until I see bubbles then start the timer for 60 seconds. Big beers get another 30 sec dose 12 hours later. Thinking I will upgrade to the tradeflame bottle in the near future.
Ferment for a few days @18 then let beer free rise to 20 to help finish out.
Once FG is reached, I cold crash for a few days. If I'm dry hopping, I will add hops (loose) to another better bottle, purge the shit out of it with CO2, then rack across. I dry hop at ferment temp.
Pretty much everything with the exception of big beers 9%+, sours, and belgians get kegged. I noticed a huge improvement in my hoppy beers after I started kegging. Being able to purge your kegs with CO2 and keeping them cold while carbonating makes a huge difference in my mind.
When I do bottle, I purge, rack to my bottling bucket, note the volume, work out the sugar addition (table sugar) with a calculator, dissolve sugar in a small amount of just boiled water, cool a bit, pour into bucket and gently stir.
Beers that go into comps that have been kegged get filled using a Blichmann beer gun. Once you get comfortable in your process, its really easy to use.
Now for the recipes.
IIPA
Recipe based of Pliny The Elder with some hop substitutions.
OG- 1.074
FG- 1.011
IBU- 241 (calculated)
ABV- 8.3%
21L batch @ 65% efficiency
90 min boil
Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
18.00 g Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash)
6.432 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (Simpsons) 87.0 %
0.296 kg Caramel Pils (BestMÃlz) 4.0 %
0.296 kg Caramunich II (Weyermann) 4.0 %
100.00 g Columbus (2014) [13.80 %] - Boil 90.0 min 151.3 IBUs
21.00 g Columbus (2014) [13.80 %] - Boil 55.0 min 30.8 IBUs
28.00 g Experimental Pine Fruit [17.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min 27.7 IBUs
0.50 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 8 -
71.00 g Experimental Pine Fruit [17.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 26.9 IBUs
28.00 g Centennial (2014) [8.30 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 5.0 IBUs
2.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) Yeast 11 -
0.370 kg Sugar, Table (Sucrose) 5.0 %
40.00 g Centennial (2014) [8.30 %] - Dry Hop 12. 0.0 IBUs
40.00 g Columbus (2014) [13.80 %] - Dry Hop 12 0.0 IBUs
40.00 g Experimental Pinefruit (2014) [17.70 %] - Dry Hop 12 0.0 IBUs
40.00 g Centennial (2014) [8.30 %] - Dry Hop 8.0 0.0 IBUs
40.00 g Columbus (2014) [13.80 %] - Dry Hop 8.0 0.0 IBUs
40.00 g Experimental Pine Fruit [17.00 %] - Dry Hop 8.0 0.0 IBUs
20.00 g Centennial (2014) [8.30 %] - Dry Hop 4.0 0.0 IBUs
20.00 g Columbus (2014) [13.80 %] - Dry Hop 4.0 0.0 IBUs
20.00 g Experimental Pine Fruit [17.00 %] - Dry Hop 4.0 0.0 IBUs
Mash @ 65C
Pitch @ 18, O2, rise to 20C after 4 days.
RIS
Could probably be simplified a bit, but pretty happy with this recipe. Same beer won first at National last year as well. Same batch. Has been kept in the fridge so I think that helped.
OG- 1.098
FG- 1.021
IBU- 94 (calculated)
ABV- 10.3%
21L batch @ 65% efficiency
60 min boil
Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
6.80 g Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash)
0.90 g Calcium Chloride (Mash)
8.593 kg Pale Malt (Barrett Burston) 71.5 %
0.589 kg Chocolate (Bairds) 4.9 %
0.481 kg Dark Crystal (Bairds) 4.0 %
0.481 kg Rye, Flaked (Swansea St. Market) 4.0 %
0.481 kg Wheat, Flaked 4.0 %
0.337 kg Black Malt (Bairds) 2.8 %
0.324 kg Special B (Cara 400) 2.7 %
0.252 kg Pale Chocolate (Thomas Fawcett) 2.1 %
0.240 kg Carafa Special II (Weyermann) 2.0 %
0.240 kg Roasted Barley (Joe White) 2.0 %
61.00 g Chinook [11.10 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 62.8 IBUs
40.00 g Chinook [11.10 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 21.0 IBUs
1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining
26.00 g Centennial [9.20 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 5.9 IBUs
26.00 g Centennial [9.20 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 3.7 IBUs
1.0 pkg California Ale (White Labs #WLP001)
Mash @ 68C
Pitch @ 18, O2 60 sec, 30sec O2 12 hours later, rise to 20C after 4 days.
Imperial English Barleywine.
This beer was a bit of a wild card. Brewed it with a mate of mine. Made for a really really long brew day on a sunny 40C afternoon.
Craziest beer I have ever made. It was so damn viscous, the hops wouldn't settle. Hop bags would have been a wise choice. To get a gravity, I brought a sample to the lab, vacuum filtered it and diluted it 3x. Gravity came in at 1.053.
It also pretty much refuses to carbonate. I had it cold and at 20psi for like 2 months and it still only like 1.5 volumes.
Drinks kind of like a port, or a Sam Adams Utopias with less booze and wood character.
OG- 1.159
FG- 1.037
IBU- 96 (calculated)
ABV- about 15.5%
21L batch @ 50% efficiency
240 min boil
Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
17.350 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter 84.8 %
0.180 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L 0.9 %
0.180 kg Caramunich I (Weyermann) 0.9 %
0.180 kg Carared (Weyermann) 0.9 %
0.180 kg Special Roast (Briess) 0.9 %
2.400 kg Light Dry Extract (15.76 EBC) 11.7 %
63.00 g Super Alpha [11.20 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 46.2 IBUs
44.00 g Magnum [14.50 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 41.7 IBUs
1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 9 -
96.00 g Goldings, East Kent [6.40 %] - Boil 10.0 8.0 IBUs
49.00 g Goldings, East Kent [6.40 %] - Boil 0.0 0.0 IBUs
3.0 pkg Nottingham Yeast (Lallemand #-) [25.10 m Yeast 12 -
1.0 pkg Super High Gravity Ale (White Labs #WLP0 Yeast 14 -
Double decoction.
63C, 70C, 75 mashout
Pitched @ 16C and held for 3 days. Was down to about 1.070 when we added the super high gravity starter. Finished at 1.045 and wouldn't budge from there. It was too sweet at this point. We each made a small (5L) batch of dry mead. Racked mead to keg and transferred about 8L of IBW to each of our kegs. I added 40g of American Oak cubes to my keg. Dropped the FG to 1.037 while keeping the alcohol up.
If I missed anything, let me know. Happy to answer any questions I can.
