Brew Day - Monday

Yesterday I attempted to brew a clone of Brakspear Special. I thought that the goblins were absent throughout the brewing process. They didn't make me lose things or spill vital ingredients. Starting at the top. I added 2700 grams of light dried malt extract to 10 litres of water at 40C. I topped this up with 8 litres of water to a final boil volume of 28 litres. I put 140 grams of crystal malt and 38 grams of black malt into a fine filter bag and added this to the boil. After 45 minutes of a rigorous boil I added 22 grams of challenger hops. And this is where the dreaded goblins struck. It should have been 59 grams of challenger hops. I didn't realise this until today. Well there is not much I can do. I will just have to wait until the fermention is over. Perhaps I will be able to add some hops to the pressure barrel to get back to the rich hop taste it should have. Oh well. Bloody goblins are everywhere. Anyway. After 45 minutes of the boil I added 380 grams of caster sugar. The boil continued for a further 30 minutes when I added 3 grams of Irish moss. I am not really sure this is necessary. Irish moss clumps together the protein molecules into heavier flocs which then settle out. This helps to clear the beer before it is run off into the fermenting vessel. It is probably a waste of time in the darker beers as protein haze will not be detectable. A further 15 minutes and I switched the boiler off to allow the wort to cool and the trub to settle to the bottom of the boiler.

An hour and a half later I run the wort off through a fine steel mesh covered in a muslin bag into a sterilised fermenting vessel containing 4 litres of cooled mineral water. I topped the fv up to about 21 litres with a further 4 litres of cooled mineral water.

My recipe was designed for 25 litres and to have an Original Gravity of 1.045 which should give a final ABV of 4.9%. However, I brewed it to 21 litres and the OG came out at 1.058 giving a final ABV of nearly 6.6%. This was too high so I added another 2 litres of water bringing the OG down to 1.042. This should achieve a final ABV of 4.5%. Not quite a session beer but not falling down water either. I added 12 grams of Styrian Golden hops contained in a hop bag to the fv which was then placed in the heated fermenting cupboard where I added 11 grams of reactivated Danstar Nottingham yeast.

On checking this morning I could see that the wort was bubbling away nicely. Apart from the hops fiasco caused by those pesky goblins another successful brew. I think that I will add some Target hops to the pressure barrel when this brew is casked, probably in about 10 days time.