Kegged Timothy Taylor Landlord clone 20150705-beerworksttl

I put clear brite finings in the fermenter yesterday as the beer is pretty cloudy. This helped somewhat but not completely.

I filled 3 minikegs and had 4 bottles left over.

Taste test 20150613-amarillopale

Another taste test now this has been bottled around 4 weeks.

The beer has cleared nicely and is carbed  up. The head could be a bit better,  but it is still ok.

It tastes absolutely great and it is very drinkable indeed. A bit like Black Sheep ale.

20150624-coopersbittermod bottled today

I bottled the Coopers modified bitter today.

I used 2 minikegs and 17 PET plastic bottles so I think around 18 litres. 4 Coopers drops in each keg.

I got the Brewferm minikeg starter kit with the CO2 pump.

Labelling my beer with milk

I made up some labels in Photoshop and stuck them onto the bottles with milk. The idea comes from the book Home Brew Beer. They are easy to get off and the milk doesn't actually smell.

It is easy to print 9 labels on a sheet of A4 paper using Lightroom or making up a template in PS.

Then just stick them on. It took about half an hour from start to finish to do 40 bottles.

The finished product.

Moving the bottles of 20150606-razorbackipa and 20150613-amarillopale to the basement.

It's now been over two weeks so I am moving the Razorback IPA and the Amarillo PA to the cool of the basement.

Might do another taste test later.

20150624-coopersbittermod ready to bottle

The Cooper's bitter modificaton is going to be bottled this weekend.

Final gravity was 1.012 (OG 1.052) giving an ABV of 5.2%

It is very clear and tastes passable at the moment.

Taste test Razorback IPA - 20150606-razorbackipa

Taste tested the Razorback kit IPA again after 1 week in the bottle. It tastes OK but there is a definite hint of banana which implies that the fermentation temperature was too high. I have now moved my fermentation vessels to a cooler part of the house.

Taste test 20150613-amarillopale

The PET bottles are rock solid on the Amarillo PA so I think this is carbed up. Decided to give one a taste test.  It tastes pretty good so I am really pleased with it given it has only been in the bottle 1 week. If this improves it will be awesome. I have just designed an all grain version which I might try in the Grainfather next weekend.

Timothy Taylor Landlord clone bubbling away 20150705-beerworksttl

The Landlord clone is bubbling away at 18C.  Pitched the yeast at 22 yesterday. According to Grainfather the cloudiness is proteins caused by the hot break during the wort boil and should settle out during fermentation. So hopefully it will be OK.

First day with the Grainfather all grain brewing system. A couple of problems.

I used my Grainfather for the first time today. Here is a step by step walkthrough.

I am trying the Timothy Taylor Landlord clone from Beerworks. The kit uses Maris Otter rather than the Golden Promise used by TT. The hopping schedule also looks quite different to other clones I have looked up.

I put the water in the boiler (17.8 litres for 5.3kg of grain). The thermostat said 17C and it took over half an hour to get up to mash temperature of 67C (but I forgot to put the lid on which would have speeded things up).

I mashed for 1 hour and the wort looked really clear. I had heated 14.4 litres of sparge water to 77C and mashed out for 10 minutes at that temperature.

This is where I think problems began because the sparge was really fast as though the grains were quite loose. The wort was quite cloudy at this point just before the boil and had sediment floating around in it. The gravity reading at this point was 1.043.

I also could not get the boil temperature past 99C. Although the wort was clearly boiling nicely the thermostat never read HH which indicates a boil. I just proceeded anyway.

I boiled for an hour putting the hop additions in muslim bags.

I then attached the wort chiller which brought the temperature down to 22C pretty quickly and then I syphoned the wort into the fermenter.

The wort was still quite cloudy though and I only ended up with 19 litres in the fermenter instead of the target of 23 litres. The wort is quite pale - much paler that TT Landlord, but we will see how it tastes eventually.

Not sure what I did wrong or even if it is that critical. Hopefully the beer will clear in the fermenter at some point. The OG was 1.050 which should give an ABV of 5.2% if the FG comes down to 1.010 as suggested in the recipe.

I have found out that the temperature issue is probably due to the temperature probe not being fully inserted into the base of the unit. So I will try and fix that for next time.

Designing bottle labels

Playing around with Photoshop designing labels:

Set up the Grainfather

My Grainfather arrived today. I bought it from here. I also got a Timothy Taylor Landlord all grain kit and the special cleaner that the company recommend for the unit.

It took about an hour to assemble it and half an hour to clean everything for first use.

Overview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO68EQS39zw

Cleaning the wort chiller:

The videos on the website are invaluable:

Assembly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CINs3FtdDwQ

Brewing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUONP5YNq0s

Cleaning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L10S5Fx0xY

I also found these videos really useful:

A complete video of a novice going through the process:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XliRz1JROtE

Some very useful hints and tips:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbEPiSa7bXI

Another walkthrough and review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY29_865C8o

Might try the Landlord clone tomorrow if I get the time.

Grainfather on the way

Just ordered a Grainfather for all grain brewing.

http://www.grainfather.co.uk/

It should arrive tomorrow along with a Timothy Taylor Landlord kit.