Saturday 1 September 2012

Brewday - Common Ingredients 01/09/2012


The recipe for today’s brew is slightly different.

My local homebrew club has a regular schedule of beer styles to brew. But, from time to time, we have one where the style is left open, but only specific ingredients can be used.

Pale malt is usually a given, but the remainder of the ingredients get pulled out of a hat. On this occasion the additional malts and hops were;

Mild Ale Malt, Caramalt, Aromatic Malt

Target and Columbus



So we all get to brew what we like, but only using these ‘common ingredients’, with a minimum of 5% on the malts, plus the yeast of your choice. Despite using the same ingredients, I’m pretty sure we’ll end up with very different beers between us.

I shan’t divulge exactly what I’ve concocted at this stage, so it remains a surprise for the other members when we get together and taste at the next meeting. 

To be honest, I’ve left it a tad late to get the beer ready in good condition, but pressure of work meant I had little option other then to delay. Also, my fermenting fridge is currently in use with an earlier brew, so this one will not have any control on the fermentation temperature.

I’ll be fermenting in the garage, which is the coolest place at present and with ambient temperatures unlikely to get above 20C (68F) over the next week, hopefully things will be okay. I took extra care to ensure the wort came slowly through the chiller, to ensure the initial temperature in the fermenter didn’t exceed 19C and the air temperature in the garage is currently reading 18.6C (65.5F). I’m certainly very pleased with the colour, a deep marmalade amber.



I’ll update with tasting notes in a few week’s time, together with full details of the recipe and how it compared to the other members’ offerings.

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