Today I put on a simple beer brew because it’s been too long and I need to start slow.
-> 1.7 Kg AHB Amber Liquid Malt Extract
-> 1KG #20 AHB Beer Improver – Light Dry Malt Extract and Maltodextrin (Corn Sugar) (ratio unknown)
Boiled for 45 minutes.
12 grams hops added for ~10 minutes at the end of the boil, during the pasterurise phase
Filled to 23L in the fermenter, straining out the hops
Yeast Starter with an Ale Yeast (not Mangrove Jacks, might have been M05 or M50) , 20ish degree water, no sugars to boost it.
Starting Gravity is 1.036ish at ~27 degrees. Note: I was not using my glass hydrometer. Not sure where that is, so I used a cheap platic one that is about ~4 points out; 20 degree water should be 1.000 but reads 0.995ish. So this “1.036” could be between 1.033 and 1.042. Who knows.
The room is fairly temperature stable, so I’ll drop the temperature controls stuff in later.
Update: 11/05/2023: Today is thursday; last saturday I found the heat belt, thermometer, and my accurate hydrometer, and put it all into play. The thing had more or less stopped bubbling anyway, so I’m not too stressed – it did get a little under temperature some nights, but nothing too serious.
Today I tasted it and took a hydrometer reading; my accurate one drew 1.013 give or take 0.001 point. The cheap plastic one was closer to 1.007, so my first thoughts about it being 4 points or so out were bang on. It means the starting gravity is much more likely to be 1.040-1.042, and means that we’ve probably reached final gravity.
I’ll take another measurement on saturday, but it looks like we’re bottling this weekend.
A note on flavor – I chilled and tasted the gravity sample, and it’s a little more bitter than I’d have liked. I should have added less hops, later on in the “boil/pasteurise” stage – 12g to steep for 15 minutes at high temperature was too much. There’s not much else going on flavor wise, but I’m hoping that develops as the bottle conditions.
Update: 14/05/2023: Today is bottling day! got 70 bottles all stacked up okay. Used the Workzone Pump from Aldi to increase the pressure inside the fermenter for the last few bottles, all up was processing a little more than about 2 bottles a minute. Taste testing in 1st of July!
Update: 06/07/2023: The brew is fully aged, and it’s okay I guess. Underwhelming, mostly due to a lack of detectable desirable flavors, probably because everything is drowned out by how bitter it is. It’s not _bad_, it’s just not what I wanted. If you’re after a bitter (i.e. Melbourne Bitter) it’s about en par, still refreshing but just not very interesting. It must be good, because it’s already half gone…. I’ll need to put on another brew.