Disaster Strikes!

Well…it was bound to happen someday and today was that day.

After having just finished my final run-off into the brew pot, I gave my wort a good stir – it was looking mighty fine! A nice clear, golden liquid of nearly 35L was merrily on its way to a boil. I decided this was a great time to take a sample for a pre-boil gravity reading. As the sample went into the test tube, I was really pleased with the clarity of the wort at this early stage. My batch sparging and recirculation technique is really coming along.

Then, suddenly….CRACK!!!

I spin around thinking some dude has just thrown a rock at my garage door, only to find the burner and boil pot on a 45° angle and slowly getting closer to the ground – the piece of fibre cement sheeting that I use as a heat sheild for the burner had cracked under the weight of the pot. You see, I had placed a piece of cement sheeting directly on the ground, then placed 4 bricks on top of it to form a square at their centre. Then I placed another smaller piece of cement sheeting on top of the bricks for added protection. This provides a great heat shield from the concrete. But…..in my infinite wisdom, when I placed the burner on top of the ‘fibre cement creation’ I didn’t think to check that the bricks were directly under the feet of the burner – they were actually in the gaps between the legs! (Go me)

Under the weight of 35L of wort in the pot, the unsupported parts of cement sheeting gave way. For what seemed like an eternity, I watched as my pot hit the ground at an angle (right onto the ball-valve no less), then slowly tipped completely over – sending the entire pot of near boiling wort all over the concrete on my garage and unit-block carpark.

I was completely stunned and speechless…..I couldn’t fathom what had just happened. I watched as the concrete was covered in liquid that crawled across the carpark to the drain. An entire brew….lost in 2 seconds. In the end, there was nothing I could do. My mind automatically starting thinking how lucky I was that it hadn’t broken the opposite direction and spewed forth into my garage….and over my bare feet. Or that is didn’t happen 10mins earlier when my wife had been in the exact direction that the pot had spilled.

I am certainly not one to cry over spilt milk (possibly mothers milk in this case! ); at least it was at this stage of the brew and not after I had used up all the hops I was going to put into it. I am more annoyed at the fact the ball valve on my pot has bent and the pot is now misshapen. I am going to have to get the hammer out and wack it back into place so there are no leaks…… but I can tell you one thing…..cleaning up after a brewday is always the least fun part of the process – but it is EVEN HARDER at the end of a brewday where you have produced nothing! haha I had my camera handy today so was able to take some pictures of the incident just after it had happened.

I am not giving up on this recipe though – I AM GOING TO PRODUCE A PROPER SNPA STYLE BEER IF IT IS THE LAST THING I DO!!!!!

The newly created River Wort.

Very lucky it went in the direction it did – would have turned my garage into a bacterial fast-food takeaway.

My poor pot got a pounding when it toppled over. An my luck is such that it had to have landed right on the ball valve. Going to need to seriously panel-beat the dings out of this one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The culprit of this whole shenanigan. At least I now know how NOT to place the bricks underneath a peice of cement sheeting with 35L of hot wort in a pot on top of it!

All-Grain #2 – APA (SNPA second attempt)

After the fun and frivolities of my first all grain effort, I have decided that this weekend I want to have another crack at the original recipe that I used for the first all grain, but this time with a bit more knowledge and a few well ironed out kinks. Given that the first attempt didn’t get me the result that I was intending, I really wanted another shot to prove to myself that I can learn from my brewing mistakes.

The recipe for this attempt has remained largely the same. I have kept all four malts that I used in the previous recipe and the same hop types following the same schedule. I have just decreased the amounts of all to bring it into line with my new and expected efficiency. Recipe as follows:

• 3.2kgs JW Traditional Ale Malt
• 0.64kgs JW Light Munich Malt
• 0.34kgs JW Light Wheat Malt
• 0.15kgs JW Pale Crystal Malt
• 21g Pearle @ 90mins
• 30g Cascade and 1/2 Whirlfloc @ 15mins
• 20g Cascade @ Flameout
• 20g Cascade Dry hopped in secondary
• Proculture Sierra Ale Yeast – PRO 10 (Second Gen. – from previous brew)

Mash in @ 68°C, rest for 60min and batch sparge. Boil time is 90mins with the total volume in the fermenter to be 21L (hopefully! )

All-Grain #1 – American Pale Ale (SNPA)

ALL GRAIN TIME!!!

Many weeks of reading and researching about different techniques came to fruition last weekend with my first all-grain batch of beer being brewed. It was a lot of fun and went surprisingly well – but not without my fair share of newbie all-grain issues….mainly due to being overly cautious with Beersmith; read on to find out!

The Brewery Takes Shape….

Over the last few weeks, I have been doing a lot of reading and browsing of other brewers setups in preparation for beginning the journey to brewing my beer from scratch; otherwise known as All-Grain Brewing.

Bit by bit, I have been collecting the required (and some not really required equipment to being brewing all-grain. I have found this the best way to get into this aspect of brewing as it didn’t feel like a huge chunk of funds were being taken from my back pocket in one-go, and I was able to fit out my brewery with some little bits and pieces that would be considered ‘not really necessary’ to brewing all-grain beer (things like stainless steel fittings).

Test Batch #1 – Saaz

Lately I have been wondering how I can try out different styles without making (and possibly stuffing up) a whole batch of beer – now, the Basic Brewing Video podcast has given me the answer; small 4L test batches.

I went out and purchased a couple of 5L demijohns to be used as ‘mini-carboys’. I then got a grain bag and a really small 6 can esky to use as a mashtun. I now have the ability to produce a small quantity of all-grain beer for the use as a test batch of beer.

For my first test batch, I decided to try and use up the rest of a supply of Saaz that I had in the freezer, to get a good idea of the flavour profile of Saaz. My ingredient list consisted of the following:

• 1kg Joe White Pilsener Malt
• 10g Saaz @ 45mins
• 10g Saaz @ 15mins
• 10g Saaz @ 5mins
• 10g Saaz @ Flame-out
• Saflager W-34/70

Mashed at 65°C for 45mins. Boil volume of 5.5L. 60 minute boil.

Ended up with 4.5L in the fermenter……well, that has a story in itself….

Due to the largish amount of hops in such a small volume of wort, I had a large problem with an extremely excessive amount of trub getting into the demijohn. I attempted to strain alot of the hop material out as I poured but couldn’t strain any of the proteins so I ended up with a pillow of gunk in the bottom…..that and there was a very, VERY green hue to the whole wort….ahem.

Oh well. This is the idea anyway. A way to try different things without risking stuffing up a whole batch of beer. Will let it ferment for about a week then cold crash and bottle.

It was a whole lot of fun and I highly recommend it.

Update – 4 November
Bottled this into 330ml bottles and primed with dextrose. Man, what an experience this was! My suggestion is that you have a buddy help you with this part as trying to fill the bottles whislt holding the syphon hose off the bottom of the demijohn was not easy. Ended up with alot of the floor! Beer looks clear in the bottle though, will give it a week or so to carb up then see how it turned out.

Update – 8 November
Cracked open a 330ml bottle of this today to taste the experiment.

Opened with a decent hiss for only a week of priming. Pours a decent head…on top of a nice, pale green liquid! Smells fruity and hoppy. Flavour is quite balanced for the amount of hops that went in. Saaz flavour comes through quite strong but is very refreshing. The combination of yeast and higher fermentation temp has produced expected fruitiness but doesn’t overpower – would expect it to mellow with a few more weeks in the bottle. Overall, an interesting result for such a weird first test. Looking forward to trying this test out in the future with many more combinations of ingredients!

Book Review: “The Complete Guide to Beer and Brewing” by Laurie Strachan

 

I recently picked up a copy of The Complete Guide to Beer and Brewing by Laurie Strachan with mixed ideas about what I would think of it. After reading it, I was pleasantly surprised with how useful a book like this will become for me in the future.

Brew #5 – Paddo’s Fat Yak Clone (APA)

 

As the NSW 2009 christmas case swap draws near, I have decided to submit something nice and simple whilst still trying to do something a little more advanced than the last brew. Thus, I found a recipe on a fellow Western Sydney Brewer’s blog that looked really interesting and I thought I would give it a go.

The only problem was that this was an all-grain recipe and I am planning on getting a few more brews under my belt before heading there. So, my task was to convert this recipe to an extract one using specialty grains. After looking around I found some information on the Beersmith blog here.

So, I came up with the following recipe: 

• 3kgs Liquid Malt Extract – Pale/Light
• 0.35kg – Pale Crystal Malt (Steeped)
• 5g Nelson Sauvin, 10g Cascade @ 45mins
• 1/2 Whirlfloc Tablet @ 15mins
• 10g Nelson Sauvin, 15g Cascade @ 10mins
• 15g Nelson Sauvin, 15g Cascade @ Flame-out
• 20g Cascade – Dry hopped in secondary
• Wyeast #1272 – All American Ale

 Steep Crystal malt in 2L water – 66°C for 20mins. Add 1 can of malt extract pre-boil and 2nd at flameout.

Boil volume is 15L. Final batch size will be 25L (usually 21 but I want to have a few leftovers for myself after I distibute for the case swap. No starter made on account of the Wyeast activator pack being used.

O.G. = 1.042      F.G = 1.010       A.B.V = 4.7%

Fermented for 10 days @ 18°C, in secondary for 16 days @ 18°C.

Am very keen to see how this one goes – 1st time dry hopping.

Update – 4 November:

Due to time constraints, I wasn’t able to bottle this one  for a while after adding to secondary. I fear that this long in the secondary with the dry-hops may have lost some of the really nice cascade aroma I was after. Bottled into 750ml bottles and primed with dextrose. Will leave to carb and condition in brew fridge @ 18°C for a couple of weeks. Got 30 bottles in the end so I still have some to try myself before I swap the rest.

Let’s get started!

 

Hey There!

Welcome to the Perfect Pitch Brewing Blog – a place for me to put all my brewing and beer related thoughts and discoveries, to share with anyone who wants to read them!

I plan to post the details of each brew I complete and related information that I have learnt from each brewing session. Recipes, pictures, tutorials etc all about this hobby that has me completely hooked…..

HOME BREWING!!!

Stay tuned for content soon!