B-Day +1

The Scarecrow IPA is bubbling away as expected so hopefully this brew will be successful. Not much else in the way of real ale news or info. Except I have been watching a programme called Save Our Boozer I thought that this was a really interesting programme but also very worrying. Somewhere in the region of 50 pubs are closing every week. Many will close forever and be bulldozed to make way for housing or shopping centres. Sadly some will just lie derelict for years and years. The pub is often the centre of community life, especially in rural areas. If your local boozer is under threat and you feel you ought to do something about it then look at these sites.

Community Pubs
More Community Pubs
Even More Community Pubs

I could have a good old rant about this because I do feel passionate about local communities and their pubs. However, I shall reign in my natural enthusiasm and just say take up thy pen or email and contact your local MP and ask them what they are doing about all these unprecedented pub closures. Is it right that city centre drinking dens can sell cheap alcohol that fuels violence and anti-social behaviour and costs a fortune to police, while good, responsible well run pubs are closing. OK, so I had a little rant but it does make my blood boil. Thats all for now, ffffoolks!

Brew Day

Visited Weatherspoons Staple Hill yesterday evening. A few of the usual suspects were missing but a good evening nonetheless. A couple of pints of Golden Bolt 3.8% with my chicken bhuna curry went down a treat. After curry I had a Doombar 4% a very nice ale and finished up with another Golden Bolt. All this rounded off by Pete giving me some lettuces. Ta Pete!

And now to the subject matter. Started Scarecrow IPA today. Dissolved 1.850 kg of light dried malt extract in 17 litres of  water at 40C. Added a filter bag containing 275 grams of crushed crystal malt and 22 grams of whole black malt and brought to the boil. Took out the filter bag and added 19 grams of target hops. 45 minutes into the boil added 295 grams of caster sugar. 80 minutes into the boil added 9 grams of styrian golding hops and 3 grams of Irish moss (as opposed to Kate Moss, a little joke there). After a total of 90 minutes boiling turned boiler off and allowed the trub and debris to settle. Meanwhile I sterilised a fermenting vessel (fv) ready for the wort. About an hour later I ran off about 5 litres of cold water (which I had boiled the day before and allowed to cool overnight) into the fv. Then I ran off the hot wort from the boiler and topped up to 23 litres with the remaining cooled water. The fv is now in the fermenting cupboard with the doors open. When the wort is below 30C I will pitch the yeast and leave to ferment, probably for 7 or 10 days depending on the gravity readings, into lovely beer. Just took the gravity (1.035) and temperature (36C) of Scarecrow IPA. Looks like I won't be able to pitch the yeast until later tonight. I will keep a beady eye on the temperature and pitch the yeast as soon as I can. There is a danger, though in my view slight, that the wort will become infected before the yeast has time to start making alcohol and lead to a bad, undrinkable brew. Its not happened to me yet, fingers crossed, but why take chances?

Brew Day Minus 1 (B-Day -1)

Doubled checked all my ingredients and found no problems. I have just put 20 litres of liquor (tap water) in the boiler. I expect to get about 15-17 litres out of this due to steam and evaporation. There is not much else that I can do at this stage except to keep checking the boiler to make sure that there are no over spills as the liquor begins to boil. A rigorous boil of about 15 minutes will be enough to kill off any naughty bugs, wild yeast and to drive off the chlorine

Is it really Thursday again so soon? Ah! Time once again to visit Weatherspoons in Staple Hill this evening. They say that as you get older time seems to pass much more quickly. Well I can attest to that, it is true. According to Albert Einstein time is subjective and passes at different rates according to the speed at which you are travelling relative to an observer and could, at least in theory, pass at different rates for different individuals. So perhaps I am actually travelling in time at a faster rate than others. Maybe I am a time traveller or perhaps horror of all horrors I am being abducted by aliens. Now theres a thought! Or is that lack of clear, logical and reasoned thinking? You dear reader can decide for yourself. If you have any thoughts on this please leave a comment.

Casking Day

Took a gravity reading of River Dog and it was steady at 1.006 so decided to run the wort into it's cask. Placed 75 grams of granulated sugar into a sterilised King Keg top tap pressurised cask and emptied the fermented wort into it. Placed the cask into the fermenting cupboard and there it will stay for two or three days at a temperature of around 22C. It tastes rather good but not yet ready to drink. It should be ready in about 2 or 3 weeks. However I will probably leave it for about 3 months. It will go into the garage after its time in the fermenting cupboard. Then after 2 days or so I will vent it to release any oxygen that may be on the top of the wort.

I checked my stock of ingredients for brew day on Friday and found that I had enough malt of various hues and flavours, hops of the right variety and white sugar to render ordering unnecessary. The new brew will be called Scarecrow.

A New Brew Day Approaches

Measured the River Dog yesterday. It seems stable now at 1.006 so will barrel on Wednesday.

Friday will be the new brew day and it will be called Scarecrow in honour of the scarecrow festival that is held in Lynton and Lynmouth every August. I will order the ingredients on Wednesday. This time I will make sure that I have all the necessary to save having to rush up to the corner shop again. Also I will make sure that the water problem I made for myself last brew day is sorted out. I am trying for an IPA style ale with an ABV of about 3.5 to 4%.

This is a cider recipe if anyone wants to try it:

Cider Recipe.

This will work with the cheapest apple juice you can find in the cheapest supermarket. Or you could press your own apples until you have 17 litres of apple juice. The champagne yeast will make this cider dry. If you want it a bit sweeter try ordinary beer yeast. Try substituting pear juice and perry for the strong cider if cider is a bit too acidic for your taste or stomach.

17 litres apple juice

3 litres strong cider

champagne yeast

Half pound of sultanas

  

put in Fermentation Vessel, mix, ferment for 10 days

Barrel and leave for minimum 3 weeks

Drink!!!

Nick's Beer and Curry Afternoon.

Why are Saturdays so short of buses to and from the country. They basically run a skeleton service. From one every hour to one every 2 hours. With the last bus being at a stupid time of 4pm. I just don't get it. Saturday is probably the one day when most people want to get out and about. They want to visit the big city and do some shopping or whatever. Rant over.

Due to buses, or should I say the lack of buses. I didn't get to Nick's until 13:25. By then the usual suspects had started on the barrel of Wadworths 6X I am not usually a great of fan of 6X. However, this beer was excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Nick served up Cheddar and Stilton cheese with bread and grapes to keep Jim going until the curry was ready. Barry had prepared the curry which was a sort of chicken jalfrezi with pilau rice. Can't really go wrong with chicken curry in my very humble opinion. Extremely tasty and just spicy enough, at least for me. I had two good servings. Jim had three. An extremely nice afternoon drinking Nick's beer, eating his curry and talking the usual bullocks about everything from politics to food and back again. However the beer ran out about 6 o'clockish, so we packed up our troubles in our old kit bags and hit the road. Duncan had already left about fivish to cycle home. Beryl, John, Richard and Jim also got on their bikes and peddled home. I left in the company of Barry and Tony and walked to Warmley where Barry and I got the bus for the last mile or so up t'hill. I got home about 7.35 pm and rounded the day off with a pint of home brew, a clone of Ex Valley Spring Beer. A delightful way to finish a great afternoon out. When is the next one? Over to you lot.

Thursday Night Out

Accompanied Jim, Geoff, Pete, Duncan, Mary and John to Wetherspoons Staple Hill for a curry. This week they had the beef madras that I wanted. The curry was a tad too spicy for me but edible none the less. Had a few pints of Yellow Hammer from O'Hanlon's Brewing Company which was very much enjoyed until it ran out. So had to finish with Otter Ale from the Otter Brewery, Devon. A very enjoyable evening talking bullocks with friends.

The gravity of the River Dog is 1.006 today. There are still a few bubbles rising in the fermenting vessel so will leave it another two days and take a reading on Sunday. There will nsot be a Wednesday outing next week so I will probably barrel the River Dog then.

Off to Nick's beer and curry afternoon tomorrow at his house in Wick, together with the rest of the usual suspects. Barry, who is a great cook, will be doing the curry. So looking forward to that very much. Though the bus may prove to be a challenge in getting back. Still a 5 or 6 mile walk will not kill me after bellyful of beer and curry. I hope!