Centennial IPA - Drinking

Possibly one of my best beers.  I really liked this one.  With an IBU of approximately 66 it's nice and bitter without ripping your face off.  I tasted caramel coming through from the hops.  Good bottles from this batch poured with a head and left lacing in the glass.  This beer wasn't without fault, had a hard time getting the US-05 to drop and some bottles ended up with yeast floating in them.

A fellow brewer has given me some additional Centennial Hops so I'll be doing another batch of this soon.  I have given a bottle to someone for review and entered another bottle into a competition.  Hoping for some unbiased feedback.

Changes for a future brew are, adding Demerara sugar and gluten free maltodextrine.

Jaggery and Saffron - Drinking

Not a fan of this beer.  For it's appearance it's almost perfect.  It pours with a lovely head and retains it for a long time (15 to 30 minutes).  I'd say probably the biggest fault is that it ended too dry, could do with being sweeter.

Also the suggestion from Randy Mosher was adding the saffron to the secondary, which I didn't do.  And I should have put some orange peel and pepper (or grain of paradise) in the boil.

Belgian Beers - Having a crack

I think what really attracts me to Belgian Beers is there is no real retrictions on their styles.  Having read "Brew like a monk" and "Belgian Ale" I've been tempted to get my hands dirty.

Over the long weekend I've put down two different Belgian Inspired beers.  A Belgian Spiced and another of Dkershner's Belgian Tripels.  They're already bubbling away really well, and although the temperature in Brisbane is currently very cold (9 - 20 degrees celcius) the fermentation is keeping the wort above 16 degrees during the cold nights and early mornings.

For the Belgian Spiced Ale I used the "Delirium Tremens clone" as the basis for my beer.  You'll find the recipe here http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f73/pink-elephant-delirium-tremens-clone-112957/  Although I wound back the grains of paradise as I was concerned the spice may dominate.  I used the T-58 Fermentis yeast on this one.

The first time I brewed Dkershner's Blone Tripel, my only complaint was that it was a bit too easy to drink and missing some complexity.  At the end of the boil I added a teaspoon of crack coriander to the boil.  Hoping that it will add something to the beer, but not be enough that it can easily be picked out.  The original recipe from Dkershner can be found here http://brew.dkershner.com/2009/gluten-free-tripel-blonde/

The Spiced Ale is kept in a tub with some ice packs during the day so that it doesn't get too warm.  The Tripel is not being as closely controlled for temperature so I'll see how  the S-33 yeast handles getting up around 24 degrees (wort temperature not ambient).

First time using whirlfloc with these yeasts, hopefully it helps to clear them up a bit.


Centennial IPA update

This had a bit of yeast hanging around and some floaties made it into the bottles, some more than others.  If I can find a bottle with low floaties content I'll submit it to the local IPA competition for feedback.  If this beer turns out as good as I expect it could become a regular.



Saffron & Jaggery Ale

This beer has been bottled last weekend.  Will give an update on it's status in about 4 weeks.  Once it has had time to carbonate and age a little.  I used gelatine to clear up the suspended jaggery in this, it may have effected the end result.  Have to wait and see.

Honey Ale Drinking - Centennial IPA bottling

The Honey Ale has finished carbing up.  Very nice flavour, not overly sweet and a good balance of honey flavour and hop bitterness.  Deceptively easy to drink.

Yesterday I also bottled up the Centennial IPA "The Ex".  I think this will be a cracker of a brew.  Sadly some yeast got into some of the bottles as I kept this vegan friendly by omitting the finings.  I made up 6 bottles in the 330ml Schnitzerbrau bottles for some friends to try. I'm sure they'll go down a treat.  The aroma from the Centennial hops is quite strong as is the bitterness, although I think the bitterness might drop a little as it carbs up.  I hope to put this beer into a local brewing competition to get some unreserved feedback and to put it against gluten based beers.

<space reserved for a picture of the honey ale>

Jaggery and Saffron Belgian Triple - Update

This beer has been in the fermenter for about 6 days now.  A bit concerned that fermentation has stopped or slowed too much.  I've got a current gravity reading of 1020 last night, so I pitched an aditional sachet of S-04 Yeast.  Will see how that comes out.  In future I'll be using whirlfloc with these belgian style triples.

Flavour isn't impressing me at the moment but I'll wait till it's in the bottle before I decide.

Edit 27/05/11:
I'm happy to report that this beer still seems to be fermenting.  Now at 1017, so I'll leave it alone for another two weeks before getting it in the bottle.

Edit 30/05/11
Looks like I might have been too quick to be excited.  I think this beer might be stuck at 1017.  Will give it time to clear up, treat with gelatine and bottle in two weeks time.  But I think this might be another failure.
I don't think the Jaggery was as fermentable as I was expecting and I think I should have used whirlfloc in the boil.  Will be using whirlfloc in all future brews.

Jaggery and Saffron Belgian Triple

Edit:  This looks like a failure at this point.  I do not encourage anyone to replicate this.

I got the idea for this beer from Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing and combining that with DKershner's Triple Blonde as the base.

For those who haven't seen these spices before:
Saffron
Jaggery
If you are looking to copy this recipe, please use cane sugar based version of Jaggery, not the palm sugar variant.  My original recipe had the Jaggery at 500grams but I decided to roll it back a bit as I was brewing.

Now to the recipe

Jaggery and Saffron Belgian Triple - aka "The Darjeeling Limited"

1.4Kg Sorghum Syrup @ 60 minutes
250g Jaggery @ 60 min
250g Glucose Syrup (corn based) @ 60 min
21g Pearle Hops @ 60 min
7g Pearle Hops @ 30 min
30g Saaz Hops @ 15 min
1tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 15 min
1g Saffron (that has been soaking) @ 15 min
1.4Kg Sorghum Syrup @ 60 min
*** Cold Crash ***
Top up in fermenter to 21L
1 x S-33 Fermentis Belgian Yeast

OG:  1050
FG:
Est ABV:  5 - 5.5%


IPA update:
Yesterday I dry hopped the Centennial IPA with 10g of Centennial Hops.  Very much looking forward to this beer.

Honey Ale update:
I tried one of the Honey Ale bottles yesterday.  Still has more carbonation to happen but the initial taste on this is great.  It is sweet with a strong flavour of honey, but I expect both of these features to reduce as the bottle fermentation takes place.

Centennial Hopped IPA - Brewing

Busy day today, bottled the Honey Beer which required pasteurised honey and brewed a Centennial Hopped IPA.  The original recipe for the Centennial hopped ale is pulled from page 50 of the "250 Clone Brews" magazine.
The recipe is

Centennial Hopped IPA aka "The Ex"

1.4Kg Sorghum Syrup @ 60 minutes
14g Centennial Hops @ 60 minutes
14g Centennial Hops @ 45 minutes
14g Centennial Hops @ 30 minutes
14g Centennial Hops @ 15 minutes
1 x whirlfloc tablet @ 15 minutes
10g Centennial Hops @ 0 minutes
1.4Kg Sorghum syrup @ 0 minutes

*** Cold Crash ***

1 x packet of Yeast nutrient
2 x packets of US-05 yeast

Dry hopping with 10g Centennial Hops @ 7 days

OG: 1041 - Total volume 21L

The original recipe has this beer finishing at 5%, I think this will finish around 4%.  This is my first heavily hopped beer and will be my first dry hopped beer.  The Centennial Hops are 9.2% AA.

Big thanks to my wife for helping me clean up the malt extract I managed to get it all over the kitchen.