Greg's home page
Greg's diary
Brewing home page

Date started:   22 February 2004
Volume:         26 litres

0.175 kg        Coopers extra light malt extract (starter)
4.0 kg          Coopers extra light malt extract
225 g           Caramünchen

7 g             Fuggles 5.0% AA, 60 min
14 g            East Kent Goldings 6.1% AA, 60 min
15 g            Tettnang 5.5% AA, 60 min
20 g            Tettnang 5.5% AA, 5 min

                Wyeast 1275 "Thames Valley" yeast

230 g           saccharose for priming

Alcohol:        5.1% v/v (calculated)
IBU:            26

Caramünchen steeped at 60° for 15 minutes, strained, boiled 5 minutes.

Malt extract boiled for 10 minutes with about 5 litres water, cooled
to 40°.  With Caramünchen extract diluted to 20 litres.  

Hops boiled in water for 60 minutes, 20 g Tettnanger added 10 minutes
from end.  Added to wort, diluted to 25 litres @ 32°.  Cooled in
fridge.

Initial density:                1046
Calculated final density:       1012 (before priming)
Brix:                           12.0%
wort pH:                        4.8

Date    time    freq            wort    surroundings
25.ii   midday  pitched 18.0°
        pm      0.027 Hz        18.0°   16.0°
26.ii   am      0.12 Hz         18.0°   16.0°
        pm      0.19 Hz         18.0°   16.0°
27.ii   am      0.22 Hz         18.0°   16.0°
        pm      0.27 Hz         18.0°   16.0°
28.ii   am      0.27 Hz         18.0°   16.0°
        pm      0.20 Hz         18.0°   16.0°
29.ii   am      0.17 Hz         18.0°   16.0°
        pm      0.16 Hz         18.0°   16.0°
1.iii   am      0.13 Hz         18.0°   16.0°
        pm      0.12 Hz         18.0°   16.0°
2.iii   am      0.099 Hz        17.5°   16.0°
        midday  racked
3.iii   am      0.079 Hz        17.5°   15.5°
        pm      0.070 Hz        17.5°   16.0°
4.iii   am      0.059 Hz        18.0°   15.0°
5.iii   am      0.045 Hz        17.5°   15.0°
6.iii   am      negligible      17.5°   15.0°
        noon    Bottled with 230 g saccharose (8.8 g/l)
                Density 1017 after priming = 1012 before priming
                7.8% Brix = 6.9% before priming
                pH 4.1

Bottling statistics:
        Bottles         size    total
         8              0.75 l   6.0 l
        25              0.5 l   12.5 l
        19              0.375 l  7.125 l
        
        Total                   25.625 l

Notes

• Initial density and quantities don't agree.
• Pitching delayed because of problems with starter. Starter fermented, but no Kräusen; possibly the various strains have survived unequally well.
• Wort was noticeably lighter than that of Brew 22, which used the same amount of malt extract, but no Caramünchen. I'm assuming that this was due to the shorter boil.
• Quite cloudy 4 days after bottling; was this bottled too early?
• April: After a few weeks, the beer still hadn't cleared. There's obviously something seriously wrong with this beer; it didn't properly clear for four months. Current thinking, based on discussions with a number of people, is that there wasn't enough aeration, nor enough yeast nutrient. This is probably the case for all the brews I've done with this yeast (thus the slow fermentation), but this one was particularly bad.
• 5 July: Completely clear. Darker than I would have expected. Tastes somewhat fruity (esters?), phenolic, malty and a touch of burnt caramel. Not currently a pleasant beer, but better than it has been. Probably worth keeping a couple of months longer.
• 3 July 2005: Finally finished this stuff some months ago. It was terrible. I couldn't make up my mind whether it was an infection or a yeast problem, but yesterday I found the yeast that I had harvested from the primary, and it smelt the same way. I still can't make up my mind what that means.