Well, for the first time since I can remember, I had a completely free saturday.  After having to cancel yesterday’s brew because I had to go to High Table at Christ Church with Maggie’s Mate, I was determined to squeeze in two today.

Popped to Stonehelm and saw Zed for the first time in several months, and as always benefitted from his understanding of brewing science.  I decided to try a couple of the IPA recipes that were in the brewgroup’s yearbook – I think I’ll supply both of these for the Stud and his Duchess’ wedding…

Turns out it’s much quicker to brew twice in one sessions than two.  Once the boil is put on for the first, the second mash can be started (saving about three hours overall). 

Bought a couple of bottles of chimay too, and am hoping to harvest the yeast at the bottom tomorrow…

(recipes to follow)

I’ve been doing a lot of yeast reading recently, mainly because I’ve decided I want to brew a trappist beer for the Stud and his Duchess’ wedding, and am planning on harvesting some yeast from the bottle.

But in the time, I’ve read a lot of stuff yeast generally.  It seems most people suggest making up a starter, even with liquid yeasts.  While lot of yeasts will probably adapt, you want to get fermentation going as quickly as possible, to provide protection against infection. 

As you’ll see here, to be most efficient, you’d need to pitch 1.8 yeast vials.  Best to get it up and running to save you wasting money.  Whatever amount of wort you’re preparing, a strength of 1g Dry Malt Extract (DME) to around 10 ml water.

I’ve made 3L wort up (i.e. 300g DME), and pitched the yeast.  Half of this will go in to the more golden of my next brews, and the rest of the yeast will be kept for one over the next week.

 I’ve decided that in addition to the pale ales I’m doing for  both weddings, that it’d be nice to do something a little bit different, which I could bottle, and maybe Basil and the Senator / the Stud and his Lady could keep say half of.

I thought a Belgian Trappist would be a nice idea… maybe I could cultivate some yeast from a bottle for it?  This will have to be for the Stud and his Lady I think, as there’s not enough time to turn it around for Basil and the Senator.  Still pondering what I could do for them.

It’s been over a week since my last brew, which in this crazy brewing frenzy is quite a long time.  What could have been a very productive bank holiday weekend was spent in Glasgow supping fine whiskies, catching up with some good friends and boucing into work at 9.30 on Tuesday after an overnight journey.  Love it.

I went with the standard pale ale recipe again, and all seemed to go fairly smoothly… although I did forget my Irish moss and the Servomyces… the former shouldn’t be too much of a problem, as I’m planning on using isinglass as finings, and the latter I’ve forgotten for the past two brews too – one of them is still fermenting nearly four weeks on, the other was done in a few days so ?!?!

The other small thing was mash ph… I added a tablespoon and a teaspoon of gypsum, but it still came out somewhere between 5.5 and 5.7, so not quite on the money there but getting there…

I made use of a little bit of the malt that Q bequeathed to me, as I’m a bit concerned that it may be spent, but don’t want to see it entirely wasted.  I also tried out ‘Le voleur’ (to check if the past two brews were done or not – they were, but the hydrometer seemed to stick to the edge of it a bit.)

Left work early and started at 5pm, and was done by eleven so a good evening’s work.  Planning on adding WLP002 for this, and hoping to try my hand at yeast washing once the brew’s done.  Having read up on this, I now understand what The Guru’s mason jars were for, and am finally getting somewhere near using all his stuff.  Happy times.