Finally got around to my bottles of Chimay this evening.  Decided to boil up all my gear to sterilise, and boil up the wort in one of my mason jars within the pan too.  I made up a smaller starter, so’s not to drown the yeast – 400 ml, with 40 g DME.

I think next time I’ll just sterilise using regular steriliser, and make up the wort in a pan, due to the issues of cooling a yar full of sweet syrup quickly, and doing stupid things like dropping the lid!

Anyway, harvesting yeast from a bottle you need to be anal about cleanliness.  So things like burning the rim of the beer bottle with a lighter before pouring out the beer.  This would seem to me to be something I’ve failed at.  Let’s wait and see.

One day on… there appears to be something of a sediment building on the bottom.  By the way, aeration is particularly important with this.  One of the things yeast needs to grow is Oxygen.  So a good shake as often as possible helps.

Two days on… frothy head and sediment appears to be fermenting.  Very pleasing!  Don’t know if it’d do this if it was spoilt?!

Eleven days on… finally stepped up the starter another level.  It had fermented out a long time ago and I was finally pushed into gear because I’m planning on brewing this weekend.  Surprisingly the Mason Jar had that delicious chimay smell once it was emptied.  It took ages for me to wash it up because I just wanted to keep smelling it!

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 was walking to church this morning, and met with the delight of a call from my favourite Brush, with the somewhat unsurprising news that the Senator had asked her whether he might interest her in the idea of marriage to him, and she said she was so inclined.  What was more surprising was their intent on securing our brewing services right away for the wedding.  I’ve ordered a copy of Graham Wheeler’s new book, ‘British Real Ale’ and hope this provides some inspiration.

Had the Dandy over last night under the pretense of dinner. But really just wanted to show off the Otter’s Pocket stout. The mission was a perfect success – he raved about it and couldn’t believe how much is cost to make, saying he would gladly pay full price in a pub for it.

I don’t thinkit will be long before we have the Dandy brewing his own.

We are having a great bank holiday weekend enjoying the superb hospitality of the Family Fendog at their farm in Suffolk. Very pleasant times are had sipping G&Ts on the lawn playing croquet with the Fentastic Four while Papa Fendog finishes bringing in the wheat harvest. It reminds me a lot of my own family upbringing on the council estates of Middlesbrough…

The best thing about the farm is the Workshop where Q spends a lot of his time. The workshop is the kind of shed that the A-Team always used to get locked in. It contained all sorts of power tools, welding equipment, scrap metal, mechanical devices, etc. This is where the long-awaited cider press is going to be built…

I am pleased to announce that the What Would Jesus Brew? shop is now open for business selling a range of cool products for our fans (both of them). Just click on the “Shop” tab to check them out.

We’ll be adding new products regularly so keep coming back to see the lastest additions to the range!

We have a problem. My house still stinks of cheese and the Boss is due back today.
I am beginning to suspect that Fendog has hidden a piece of that french stuff somewhere. Why I oughta…

I know this has nothing to do with homebrewing, but I’ve been looking for a video of this fight for ages. None of the links on the usual MMA fight video sites seems to work. Since it was so hard to find, I thought I’d post it here for other MMA fans.