Port-oak Porter Bottled

 

Finally got around to bottling the port-oak matured porter tonight, should be just in time for New Year's Eve.

 

We siphoned it through a nylon bag to ensure all wood chips were taken out, was a bit worried about splinters in the final beer.

 

The new bottling stick valve thing is just brilliant. It cuts down the bottling time by a quarter and there is hardly any mess compared to before.

 

Ended up with 58 x 500ml bottles at 6.7% in total. Not made anything this low in alcohol before so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.  

These are the labels:

 

Also I noticed that the Pilsner yeast was growing; interesting to see it forming at the bottom of the bucket rather than the top. Tonight it was merrily bubbling away so I moved the bucket to the conservatory which is pretty cold this time of year.

Bohemian 2124 Pilsner

I've been meaning to try another pilsner for some time. Strange that what seems to be the most simple basic beer from a taste point of view, is actually the most difficult to make for the homebrewer. The yeasts are bottom fermenting cool temperature types, long cool maturing period (lagering) is needed, and the light flavour reveals all off-flavours - a thorough diacetyl rest is needed after fermentation has finished. Unless you have some serious refrigeration equipment, the best time to make lagers is when you can make use of low temperature weather. The one we're attempting here should be around 6.5-7%ABV when done. The main ingredients are dried pale malt, cara-pils crushed malt, Saaz hops and Hallertau hops which I believe are the classic pilsner hop types. Also I've got the Bohemian 2124 yeast strain commonly used for commercial pilsners.

 

Into the dragon pan then, we added 26 litres of water.

 

A couple of teaspoons of gypsum

10 oz cara-pils malt were put into a grain bag and added to the pan and the heat turned up

 

When the temperature reached 77˚C the bag was pulled out and drained for 1 minute.

  

When the wort was on a rolling boil, four kgs of dried malt were added. Last time we tried it with syrup stuff from a tin which was really not good - never again.

The malt was boiled for 15 minutes

In total we made three additions of Saaz hops after 10 mins,  50 mins and 60 mins, 2.5oz in total.

In the last 10 minutes a teaspoon of Irish Moss was added to clarify the beer and an oz of Hallertau hops in two doses, the last one added as the heat was turned off.

After 10 minutes to settle, as quickly as possible, the wort was transferred by a 2 litre jug to the fermentation bucket through a nylon bag.

As the temperature outside was around 0˚C we fitted an airlock in the lid and took the bucked out immediately into the snow. It's important to cool the wort as quickly as possible to decrease the chance of spoilage and improve the flavour.

 

The yeast was one of those slap packs that you have to smack to activate. I always like to get a yeast starter going first, generally it's better to overpitch yeast than underpitch, particularly with higher gravity beers

The starter wasn't really bubbling when we added it to the main wort but I was worried about getting the fermentation going in the main wort to prevent unwanted bacteria, and the starter must have allowed more yeast to grow than if the slap pack had just been tipped into the main bucket. I should have got the slap pack going a few hours earlier really. The bottom up-lager yeasts seem to take a longer time to get going than ale yeasts, once it's going I'll move it to the garage where the yeast fermentation temperature should be ideal at around 12˚C. Last time we used a lager yeast, fermentation didn't become vigorous for around 3-4 days.

Some new gear

Phil from Brew2Bottle kindly called round tonight with my brewing order including a new 60 litre bucket for larger bottling operations and a bottling stick.

 

Very pleased with the bottling stick thing. Bottling takes more time than any other brew job so far. This gadget has a push-valve on the end to automatically fill the bottles from the bottom up.

Licorice Stout - tasting

Very pleased with the Licorice Stout. It doesn't taste at all of licorice, it's just like a robust ale without being too roasty.

 

It is slightly under carbonated though as I miscalculated the carbonation sugar; 5oz of sugar went in the bottling bucked and as we diluted it down to 7.7%, more bottles were filled than the usual 40 out of a single batch so there should have been an increase in the bottling sugar quantity to match. It's barely noticeable though and still pretty fizzy. Bottles now all labeled and stored in garage which is around 10°C .

Licorice Stout - bottling day

 

Finally got the licorice stout bottled. We purposely diluted it down to below 8% as it just tastes better and bottle conditions at slightly lower gravities. It ended up at 7.7% ABV which is quite respectable and will keep well. Beers are sometimes matured for a couple of weeks. I believe that an ale is classed as an old ale when it has been matured for around 4 weeks. This was matured for 7 weeks so hence the term 'Vintage' coined by Sara.=

 Labels by Sara and Emily

 

We sterilized 60 bottles as weren't sure how many would be needed after diluting the stout - our biggest ever bottle tree.

Really looking forward to it, the taste is very rich but smooth and not too roasty with the licorice root and chocolate malt. The bottles will rest in the utility room for a week for conditioning and then go in the garage which is cool and dark. It should be ready to go around mid December.

Raisin and Maple Dubbel - Tasting Day

Was very excited about tasting the Raisin and Maple Dubbel and it is superb. Goes very well with chocolate cake. Rich, smooth and chocolatey.

I think though that there is an optimum gravity for beers and once the ABV gets above 8% there is a law of diminishing returns. Although lovely beer, the stronger beer doesn't carbonate as well and is not quite as refreshing.I'm going to make the maximum strength around 8% in future.If the beer is ending up stronger than 8%, I'll dilute it down a little to 8%. The licorice stout is looking much higher than 8% so I'll have to adjust with cooled boiled water. The higher gravity beers certainly keep better, are tastier and are much safer resisting contamination though so I'll be keeping the ABV higher than 6/7% generally.

Romanesco Broccoli - harvesting

Tried the Romaneso Broccoli today. It's lovely, creamy and nutty. I've not grown it before. Apparently it's closely related to cauliflower. I steamed it like broccoli with the sunday roast. Will definitely be growing more next year

Port-Oak aged Porter - Oak chip addition

I had a taste of the port around the oak chips before putting them into the porter; it wasn't too good really, very high in tannin. I added the chips to the porter demijohn, those that would fit through the neck anyway, which was around 2/3. Must bash them up smaller next time.

 

 The top of the beer quickly became quite murky, like an oil slick. Hope everything is ok with it. I gave it a shake and topped it up with cooled boiled water. It's in the garage now for a month. We'll bottle it at the start of December, ready for Christmas.

Oak-aged Porter - Racking Off

The inside of the brew bucket looked like something off an oil tanker when I took the lid off 

Then I noticed a tiny fly in the air lock and was worried about contamination. Decided to make sure I put a quarter campden tablet in the sterilized water in the airlock in future, as I do with wine

We use a straw as a mouthpiece on the siphon tube to reduce contamination; as soon as the beer is flowing down, the straw is pulled off and the valve end of the tube pushed through the neck of the glass demijohn.

The beer taste pretty good really, bit raw of course yet, but rich roasted chocolate flavour.

 

The airlock was topped up with cool kettle water and a piece of campden tablet dropped in.

The the demijohn put in a cool place to age for a couple of weeks. I'll top it up with cooled boiled water tomorrow as the level is a bit low, after I've added the port soaked oak chips of course! Checked the SG - by the time it's topped up the ABV will be around 7.8%