Friday and its Brew Day

I decided on a simple single hop bitter this time around. Dissolved 1870 grams of light dried malt in 10 litres of water. Put this into the boiler and topped up with another 17 litres of water. Put 235 grams of crystal malt into a filter bag and turned on.  Added 51 grams of fuggle hops at the start of the boil. Will add 270 grams of sugar after 45 minutes of the boil. The Irish moss will go in after a further 30 minutes. The whole mix will then be allowed to boil for a further 15 minutes. The boiler will then be switched off and the wort allowed to settle for about 90 minutes. It will then be run off into a fermenting vessel and topped up to 23 litres with previously boiled cold water. After about 7-10 days in the fermenting cupboard it will be transferred to a barrel and allowed to settle and mature for a further 2-3 months. With various tastings along the way. Just to make sure that the beer is OK you understand.

Curry on a Thursday

It was a good turn out at the Staple Hill Oak last night for a Weatherspoon's curry. Jim, Pete, Geoff, Duncan, Mary, John, Alaniss and Channon and of course yours truely. I had the Chicken Jalfrezi (also jhal frezi, zalfrezi, and many alternative spellings). It was very good and not too spicey although on the menu it had three chillis on the hotness scale. However, enjoyed a couple of pints of Corn Dolly 5%. A really nice and drinkable pale ale. However, they ran out of Corn Dolly and had to go onto the Sneck Lifter 5.1%. A little darker than the Corn Dolly but drinkable. Then onto a couple of bottles of red wine. Los Romeros Merlot. A dark red fruity wine from Chile. Though I am sure the label said Produce of China. Chile is the place for Merlot, add into the mix a first-rate producer and you a have smooth, fruity, jammy little drop of heaven. Yes, a good night eating curry, talking bullocks with yer mates, drinking good beer and wine. Ah! What else is there except more of the same. Roll on next Thursday.

Its Thursday - Brew Day-1. Also Curry Night

I have decided that tomorrow Friday 8 Oct 10 will be another brew day. Although the ingredients that I have are a little limited it will be a good opportunity to use up some of the older ones. When I first started malt extract brewing last year I bought far to many hops. I didn't really appreciate the quantities that would be required. I have gradually working through them ever since. However, once again I digress. I will be attempting an amber bitter with an ABV of about 3.8%. So it is the usual routine. Boil about 23 litres of water today and leave to cool overnight. Tomorrow I will boil up the light dried malt extract with the crystal malt and hops. When the wort drops below 30C I will pitch the yeast and place the fermenting vessel in the cupboard and wait for it to do its thing. It is still fascinating to know that the yeast will eat the sugar in the malt and then belch CO2 gas and poo alcohol. How cool is that?
WILL I MAKE ANY MORE MISTAKES. READ TOMORROWS POSTING AND FIND OUT.

Curry Night I will meet some of the usual suspects tonight at The Staple Hill Oak and consume some sort of curry and a few pints of real ale. I expect we will talk our usual bullocks but we will have a good time. Don't know what curry I will have though. Their menu is changing on 20 Oct so I am looking forward to seeing some different curries then. Weatherspoon's will be holding a Beer and Cider festival from 27 Oct - 14 Nov. The beer will only be £1.89 a pint. With my Camra/Weatherspoon's voucher that equates to £1.49 per pint. Oh happy days!

Wednesday - Beer Never Sleeps

Grabbed a bus down to St Nichols market Bristol. Strangely the bus was on time. This is getting to be spooky. This bus, the 11.08 from Kingswood to Bristol has been on time for at least the last 6 weeks. Although welcome it is slightly unnerving. However, trawled the market and purchased Pieminister PM pie and some faggots. The pie will be wolfed down Friday lunchtime and the faggots will be treated thus:

Take off outer covering and break up faggots and place in a casserole dish. Mix in some onion gravy. Spread a layer of mashed potatoes on top and bake in the oven at 160C or until the top is golden brown and the edges crispy. Serve with home made mushy peas, eat and enjoy. Yummy. I am looking forward to those. But I digress. Back to Wednesday.

Met Pete in the Commercial Rooms and drank a pint of Adnams Broadside 4.7%. Pete and I, ever mindful of spreading our wings (so to speak) caught another bus to Westbury-On-Trym. We revisited The Post Office Tavern (The POT @ WOT) and had a pint of Doombar 4%. It was a little bit on the cold side for my taste but quaffable none-the-less. There were a few more people in the pub than when we visited about a year ago. We talked politics with a very nice man but decided to move on to the White Horse. We asked for a pint of Butcombe but got a pint of Bass 4.4% instead. We didn't bother to make a fuss as the Bass was delicious. This pub, serving mainly cider and lager, was quite lively and a debate concerning the payment of overtime and why no one should work extra hours for standard pay or in some cases no pay was hotly contested. Pete and I did not take part but were quite amused with the strong feelings concerning this topic. Onward then to The Mouse. Here we had a pint of Caledonian Mellow Yellow 4.4%. An enjoyable and very drinkable beer. I enjoyed this pub because the landlady overheard us talking, about real ale, and gave us a rather nice colourful leaflet which detailed the different Caledonian beers that The Mouse would be selling and the dates that they would be available. We will probably return at some pint in the future (pun intended) and try the different beers.

And so clutching my pie and faggots Pete and I bid farewell to the Mouse and Westbury-On-Trym and headed home. On entering the centre of Bristol I frustratingly saw my bus pull away and head for Kingswood. This meant that I had to wait about 20 minutes for another. This is doubly frustrating because that bus takes nearly an hour instead of about 35 minutes to reach Kingswood. At least this bus also picks up pretty young ladies as they finish shopping or working. At least I had something nice to look at as the bus stuttered and stopped from traffic jam to bus stop. Oh well. Next time I will just have to make sure that I catch an earlier bus or maybe I will just put up with it and enjoy the sights.

Brew Day + 3 and Brew Day +16

This brew is still bubbling away. I think that I will call it Dark Knight or maybe Dark Night because it will be kinda dark.

Took a gravity reading of the brew I made before on 24 Sep 10 it stood at 1.007 so that means an ABV just over 3%. Not very strong but early tasting is promising and should be a good session ale. I think that I will call this one Autumn Glory after all even though I had to change the recipe at the last minute. The next brew day will probably be this Friday 8 Oct although I may put it off for a week until 15 Oct. Will have to wait and see. No more tales of time travel or parallel universes this time. However, Wednesday will soon be here followed by Thursday when alcohol may trigger some baffling events.  Remember: Drink More Beer. Don't Spill Beer. Keep Calm and Carry On. Watch The Skies.

Friday - Brew Day

Decided to make a mild style beer this time. I done my best but I still made idiotic mistakes. I was undecided as to whether or not to fess up to even more mistakes after all who wants to admit that they are a bit of a plonker. However, my blog blurb does say that I would post the 'successes and maybe failures'. So here goes. Can you guess which part(s) was unintended?


Started off by dissolving 1720 grams of light dried malt extract in 10 litres of 40C water and put this in the boiler. I then topped up the boiler with another 7 litres of previously boiled cooled water. Turned on the boiler and waited for the magic to happen. Ten minutes later I realised that I had not connected the hop strainer to the inside of the boiler. Keep Calm And Carry On. So I emptied the boiler into a spare fermenting bucket, affixed the errant hop strainer and started to pour the wort back into the boiler. Curses and damnation I had left the tap in the open position and wort was pouring all over the floor. Quickly I closed the tap. All was not lost only about half a litre needed to be wiped up. After that it was all down hill. Added the first lot of hops when the wort came to the boil. Added 170 grams of caster sugar after 45 minutes. The second batch of hops and the Irish moss went in after 80 minutes. Although the Irish moss was not strictly necessary as this brew will be quite dark. After 90 minutes switched the boiler off and allowed the wort to settle for an hour. Transferred the wort to the fermenting vessel and topped up to 23 litres with the rest of the previously boiled cooled water. I am waiting now for the wort to cool to below 30C so the yeast can be pitched. It will then go into the fermenting cupboard for about 7 to 10 days until the the final gravity is about 1.008. With an original gravity of 1.034 this should give an ABV close to 3.5%.

Thursday and it's Curry Night!

Met Geoff, Pete and Jim  for our traditional Weatherspoons curry night at the Staple Hill Oak. I had a chicken bhuna and a pint of Wickwar IKB a very tasty darkish beer. I wanted to try a pint of Otter but unfortunately it was off. They put on a new barrel but there was something wrong with that as well so I stuck with the IKB. Apart from the quality of the company and the conversation there is not much more to say. Except that Pete voiced an interesting fact concerning the First World War and the reparation that Germany had to promise to pay as part of the surrender and the treaty of Versailles terms. It seems that this Sunday Germany will make the last of these payments. If you have the time you may like to read the relevant articles of the treaty. An interesting bit of information from Pete.