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Bottleweek

Posted by Fendog in Beer, Bottling and Kegging

Q’s mash tun in the foreground, and the propane burner with copper behind it

Abandoned by my siblings yet again for Christmas it was unlikely that I would be able to last until their arrival over the new year in the sole company of the Earl and Countess of Mendlesham.  Given a couple of dubious bags of Marris Otter from an unknown date (possibly even the remains of the wedding malts) still hanging around on a shed floor covered in a mixture of eggs, pig slurry, and chicken manure, it really was about time they were either thrown on the compost heap or put to a more noble cause!

My records remain on the farm, but I believe the recipe was something very simple like:

Brew length: 23 Litre

OG: 1.054

Malt: 5kg Marris Otter mashed for 90 mins at 67 degrees and batch sparged

Hop Schedule: 40g East Kent Goldings for 60 mins / 20g EKG for 30 mins / 15g EKG for 10 mins

I believe this was the first recipe I had made up with absolutely no external inspiration and was simply a result of what was available.  It was a delight to brew using Q’s mashtun, though I am certain my beer will not be in his league.  I put down two brews in two days and once fermentation was complete  I transferred the brews to secondaries before returning to Oxford and had been unable to return home until now.

With the return of my brothers Studders and (Fen)Dog Collar for Easter I had a supply of free labour for the irksome process of bottling close to 100 beers.  I was gutted to find that many of the bottles that family had been collecting for me for a while were in pretty bad shape.  Anyway, we were able to snap into action something of a production line and take care of them all in little time.

I returned the next day for the scheduled bottling of Trenchfoot’s APA, his solo (and first) all grainer.  Reasons for extremely low attenuation to a final gravity of 1.020, I will leave to him to surmise.  How he managed to produced a beer that was quite so cloudy again I do not know but I was somewhat uncertain as to the wisdom of bottling a beer in this state.  Anyway, now we have done it and having done some reading since I see perhaps making use of a cold crash might make sense for improving the quality of future brews.  Guess we better get on with them then.