Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hey boys and girls,

I'm going to get moving making some beer (first time in a year or so). If any beer guys have suggestions I'd love to hear them.

I'm thinking a mild quaffing ale, so my current plans are (for about 50L total) :
- 10 kg of pale malted barley
- 50g Amarillo hops for 60 minutes, 40g for 30 minutes, and 40g for 5 minutes
- S04 yeast

My mash/lauter tun can only really do 2 rests, so I'm thinking 40 minutes at 62-65degC followed by 20 minutes at 68-70degC. Followed by more time if needed after starch test.

Here's the mash tun I knocked up last weekend (after cannibalising the old one for still parts):

I'd recommend some crystal malt in the mix and you could make a nice American Pale Ale.

Not an ales man by first choice but if you want a simple pilsner, mid say <4% , slightly dryer done with a wine yeast instead, hopped for aroma mainly...lower IBC...Good lawnmower style slam it down beer let me know.

bt1

Yeah, I have liked crystal malt before, thanks for the suggestion.

Cheers bt1, I was thinking an ale for now, but I'd love to try lager some time soon. Unfortunately I don't have any cooling capacity to keep lager yeast happy at the moment. I might give it a shot next winter when the temperature stays more in their range.

If you have to pick up some crystal, may I suggest a very small amount of choc malt. It adds that something extra to an APA, I always have a small amount in mine.
Easy to over do it though. I use about 50g in a 23lt batch.

tipsy wrote:If you have to pick up some crystal, may I suggest a very small amount of choc malt. It adds that something extra to an APA, I always have a small amount in mine.
Easy to over do it though. I use about 50g in a 23lt batch.

I've definitely overdone chocolate malt before, it gets bitter and unpleasant very quickly, some awesome colour though.

Yeah you're not doing lagers in this weather mate:-) I'd argue it's even a little warm for ales.

Probably better off doing a gin eh?
:-)

BackyardBrewer wrote:Yeah you're not doing lagers in this weather mate:-) I'd argue it's even a little warm for ales.

Probably better off doing a gin eh?
:-)

Stop tempting me man, you know I need to expand my horizons.

Although... fancy making some Gin?

well,

Unfortunately I don't have any cooling capacity to keep lager yeast happy at the moment. I might give it a shot next winter when the temperature stays more in their range.

Yeah you're not doing lagers in this weather mate:-) I'd argue it's even a little warm for ales.

a few thoughts...
Agree it's well past the time for a trad pilsner normally. But let's have a chat bout the characters here...light coloured, lower carbs, clear, lower alco, light Saaz hopping, dry even... an easy drink shall we say.
Try starting it on 1035 instead of the traditional 1040+ as you'll get a dryer finish round 1.000 to 1.002 instead of the 1.008 -1.012 and use a yeast well suited to current ambient EC1118.

It ferments cleanly have virtually no offies like sulphurs, runs between 10 and 34+C, doesn't need chilling therefore, no Diacetyl rest, high flocculation type, done in under a week. Can use gelatine Polycar or just time...up to you for the clarity you want. Being a Bayunus yeast strain it's as tough as nails and loves high protein, pectin or most shite you can throw at it.

This yeast suits this style. True you sacrifice a tad of body easily compensated for by using either 25 -75gm maltodextrin or adding a spot more carapils malt grain and its dead simple BIAB AG to do.

Get out the square for a mo...pilsners in summer...why not :handgestures-thumbupleft:

bt1

Mash tun looks good mate and will work great , I had my slots facing down for a reason bit can't remember :doh:

1 2many wrote:Mash tun looks good mate and will work great , I had my slots facing down for a reason bit can't remember :doh:

Thats right mate have those slots facing downwards so when doing your first drain off you set the grain bed to act as a natural filter otherwise you my end up with a stuck sparge :angry-banghead: had one of those before and basicly fucked my beer. Looks great though love the idea of using ur boiler as your hot liquor tank :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Cheers guys, I used to run my old mash tun with the slots upward and didn't have an issue, but better safe than sorry. Luckily I built the thing with a compression fitting connecting the manifold to the bulkhead, so it's a second's work to switch it around.

That's a very interesting idea bt1, I haven't thought of using a yeast like EC1118, I'd always thought of that one as a white wine yeast. If I remember my white wine lessons correctly, white wine yeasts are bred to be able to ferment with very few nutrients (as the grape juice is typically clarified beforehand), and generally prefers a temperature below 20degC. Have you observed any problem with it have you observed any problem with it fermenting too quickly and generating off flavours (because of the higher temp and more nutrients than are typically available)?

I'm thinking I'll stick with an ale this time, I'm familiar with the recipe so I can be confident of getting some drinking stock up. I'll definitely be interested in mucking around with your recipe for the next batch though.

If I'm reminded next time i'm in SA I will grab my old note book of AG recipes (if I was a movies character it would be 10 second Bob from 50 first dates) :doh:

howdy,

EC1118 is good and spec'd for ferment temps of 10 - 30C so no issues running at current ambient temps in most locations indoors.

Just trailing another lalvin V1116 which reportedly is good for ferments 10-35C...we'll find out no doubt.

cheers
bt1

If you want to stick with an ale I would use an ale yeast.
I would personally use S-05 over the S-04 for the type of beer you are chasing. The S-04 is more of an early flocculator, which means the yeast will drop out more quickly, where as the US-05 will stay in suspension longer, leading to higher attenuation and a cleaner more neutral finish. The end result is a better session beer which will make the amarillo hops the hero not the esters left behind by the yeast.

Not to sound like a complete ponce/dirtbag/biatch, if you are brewing all grain beer and not using a custom liquid yeast for the beer style you are chasing, you are doing yourself (and more likely the finished product) a great disservice.

From my experience, you can definately get a great-ish session beer out of S04 or S05 but it's still a generic no name crap tasting thing in comparison to using the right yeast. When I started using liquid yeasts, I couldn't believe the improvement to my finished product - we are talking as good if not better than commercial craft beer.

I made a pure blonde clone about 12 months ago using one of those yeasts and it's taken until now to lose its nastiness and be almost drinkable and I know that the problem is nothing to do with my setup (does actually taste just like pure blonde with a tiny bit of what I call "dry yeast aftertaste) - for some reason the dry yeasts just seem to have weird off flavours I can pick a mile away unless your brew is served super cold which can disguise some of it.

Howdy,

I got two states of beer drinking. I like a soft pils to belt down, plain~ish not overly hopped and easy drinking. I reckon the wine yeast does a good job and avoids the lager yeast hassles of cooling. Winter yeh no probs back to the lager dedicated style yeast.

For a Saison used a dedicated Belle Saison yeast, wheat the Munich wheat yeast. The second state of drinking...looking for a specific taste. Palate can only take so many however. About to bang down a couple of Imperial stouts for winter so again the right yeast.

wed you reckon the Wyeast liquids are that much better than a dedicated style dry yeast? Fair ask for twice the price...but willing to give a wheat Wyeast a crack if you reckon the benefits are there?

cheers
bt1

I know its a little off topic but i just got a proper headmaster schooner from the LHBS and im amazed at how much better the head retention is.. gonna have to get 2 more :laughing-rolling: looks like the bottom of the glass is sand blasted creating places for bubbles to form..

on another note im putting down a punch and judy from murrays brewery ..... YUM !!! its a english bitter with NZ hops

bt1 wrote:Howdy,

wed you reckon the Wyeast liquids are that much better than a dedicated style dry yeast? Fair ask for twice the price...but willing to give a wheat Wyeast a crack if you reckon the benefits are there?

cheers
bt1

Yeah my tastebuds say it makes a massive difference. I mainly use wyeast and after smacking the internal capsule once it's about to explode I pitch directly into wort. I've also used the white labs ones and would make a starter for those just to get the yeast working before it gets into the wort, otherwise it can take 24 hours or so before it really gets going.

I guess it depends on what styles you like to drink.

Also, remember you can use a good quality liquid yeast over and over again. If I am fermenting something that works well with my next brew, I will bottle/keg that batch and then pour my next wort straight into the same fermenter. A lot of my brews for summer use the American ale strains so those works well. Can get about 5 or 6 ferments out of it before I start to notice any degradation in flavour. If you mainly drink the same styles, using a good quality liquid yeast and getting multiple ferments out of it will work out cheaper than dry yeast in the long run. Some people do multingenerations with dry yeast but I think they taste even worse again.

You can also harvest the yeast and maintain your own catalogue of yeast strains so you don't have to buy them anymore, but that would be getting entirely too OCD ... Or so I'm told :)

I should also mention that most of what I brew are specific styles like Russian imperial stout, English porters, Belgian golden strong ale and Trappist ales, IPAs, etc. if you are just looking to make "beer" then the dry yeast might be fine. I'm always looking to make great beer every time, and the dry stuff just don't cut it for me.