A long post today because I have been neglecting my blog.
As previously blogged I passed some of my Small Stout to a professional brewer (who shall remain nameless) to get some feedback, when I pressed him on it at the launch of Metalman Pale Ale the reaction was...... a Gallic Shrug. When he was chided for this recently by his sister he said he was trying to be positive about it (I think this is funny its the sort of response I would give). We have mutually decided it was a kit brew so it was never going to be a winner anyway.
My wheat beer received a slightly more positive reaction but still a bit Meh! The next beer that I made was a St Peters India Pale Ale which was a 3kg kit so supposedly better quality than the "kit and kilos" I had made. This is a nice, bitter, but not noticeably hoppy beer although I dry hopped it with 30 grams of East Kent Goldings for 5 days. It think it still needs some conditioning due to the alcohol content although it is about 4 weeks in the bottle now.
I also attended the launch of Metalman which was a great night and a right tasty ale. At the launch I met MAF a friend from Beoir who gave me some Safbrew T-58 yeast and some gentle prodding to move on to extract brewing, which I did. I used the T-58 to brew a Belgian Dubbel although it is more often used for the golden Belgian ales I thought the peppery taste it imparts would work in a malty dubbel. I made this with dry malt extract and by steeping some Caramunich and Belgian Special B grains for flavour and colour and boiling with Styrian Goldings hops to give a balance to all that malty goodness. This is in secondary for 2 weeks now with 20 grams of crushed coriander seed after 2 weeks in primary. I have had a taste for quality control reasons and I would drink it from the fermenter. It is hard not to tap some every time I pass it.
This has proved to me that the quality difference between extract and kit beers is huge.
But why stop there? The extract/steeping grains brewing was so easy I thought how hard can all-grain brewing be? This was answered for me yesterday when I brewed my first all-grain beer. Tough but enjoyable. It may have been easier if I had shipped the family out for the day as there are so many distractions and I was just feeling my way around.
I have become a fan of American style pale ales, I just love those fresh zingy hops that they use. I had seen some Citra hops in an online brewing supplies store and the name suggests those citrussy flavours I like so I bought some for my pale ale. I wanted something a bit malty too and not as bitter as some of the American IPAs for easy drinking. I decided on an American Pale Ale which is not as bitter as an IPA but has plenty of hop flavour. I read somewhere that Citra can impart a harsh bitterness when used for bittering so got some cascade for bittering which reportedly has a grapefruit-like flavour, in the meanwhile I read that The Beernut had brewed an all-citra pale ale so decided to ask him at the Franciscan Well Easterfest how it turned out.
He thought it was fine and promised to open a bottle early to check but encouraged me to go ahead with the all-citra option anyway.
At the Easterfest there were 2 beers in the ball park for the beer I wanted to make Windjammer and Howling Gale, although neither of them had the hop profile I wanted they had the malty background with lots of - in their case - antipodean hops for that fruity flavour.
Brew day loomed large yesterday, so I re-read my recipe and weighed my grain and hops while Mrs Ciddytourist sewed my grain bags up. The grain bill for this ale is malted Pearl barley - a light fresh tasting type supposedly, Aromatic malt for that malty profile, Carapils malt for head retention and Biscuit malt for a light toasty flavour. 10 grams of Citra hops boiled for 60 mins and another 10 for 15 mins for 33 IBUs bitterness then 20 grams when I took it off the heat for flavour and aroma, there will be another 20-30 grams used to dry hop. The yeast is Nottingham Dry Ale yeast which is a relatively neutral yeast to let the malt and hops shine through. This smells very promising so far and it is hard not to give the airlock a sniff every time I pass.
I am glad I made the step up to all-grain brewing it is challenging and the rewards are huge. I never thought brewing beer could be as much fun as drinking it. Now I suspect that my fairly basic kit will not do me for long - I am already starting to wish I had better equipment mostly on the packaging side, kegs and gas etc.
Although as long as I, my family and friends like the beer I will be happy and one day if I get a better reaction than a gallic shrug from my mentor then it will have been worth it
No comments:
Post a Comment