2017 | BrannBrew - Beer Blog

A few weeks ago marked another brew day, again the focus was doing a batch of Saison of Love, this time however is abit more special as I brewed this for a wedding taking place this weekend (12th).

To mark this occasion I wanted to cover the brew day slightly different and do a time lapse video of it.

Unfortunately my old phone ran out of batteries when the boil started and turned off, not saving what was already taken.

However it a successful brew day, with my efficiency increased compared to the other batches, got 70% out of the grains, this was from a 90 minute mash, stirring every 20 or so minutes.
I purchased a larger keg for the occasion too, as I can always use it for the future, I overall got about 17 litres which is about 30 pints. It's being carbing up for the last two weeks ready for the wedding.

Looking forward to the weekend now, its exiting as its the first time (outside of parties) that my beer has been on show and drunk by a large audience.

Until Next time......Happy Brewing

Well another year has past and after 7 brews and some extra bits of kit, notably the grain basket for my boiler. I've now got a setup that works for me.

I still have struggled on chilling the beer down but after entering a BJCP judged competition (Welsh National Championship) I've since looked into potential causes of some faults that were highlighted and have a good idea how to improve in these areas.

Looking back over the last brew year, I've entered a couple of competitions that is a goal ticked off my list.

I had 2 recipes in mind to redevelop - Golden Flower and Fimbulwinter, the later has had a name change to Galactic Panda and its hop additions change to all Galaxy Hops. Golden Flower has been altered quite abit however I haven't brewed it as it made way for Midsummer Mosaic (IPA), which was a new idea/recipe I wanted to try.
I probably will brew it again, however probably wont be until next year as I will probably start thinking of brewing some more seasonal beers soon.

Another new recipe was a Brann's Breakfast stout a Coffee, Chocolate Milk Stout that will be a regular beer I would brew again. I was very tasty indeed. Saison of Love has also been a success, brewing tomorrow, what will be 3rd time this year.

I have in mind still to brew my G.E.B. American Pale Ale, as that too is a favourite, although it has been slightly tweaked over the past few times I've brewed it. The last time adding Rye Malt to it, which didn't really work for me so I took it out and rejigged the malt profile.

I have some exciting prospects to come as a close friend has asked me to brew some beers for his wedding in 10 months, also brewing a batch of Saison of Love for my wife's friend's wedding in august (only a month or so away!!) Exciting!!

Until Next time.....Happy Brewing

Last month (16th June to be precise) I brewed a new recipe with hops I haven't used before (Mosaic and Equinox).

It took some time to decide to do something new and original or do my Golden Flower again, however even though Golden Flower turned out really well last year what most would class a traditional English summer ale. I have developed a taste for the tropical hoppy beers, that have the flavour but not the bitterness. So I wanted to devise a recipe for just that, which could also double as a sessionable summer beer.

I am calling it Midsummer Mosaic, in which I used a large portion of Oats in the mash as well as a honey addition when transferring it to the fermenter. Which utlisies the Mosaic and equinox hops with a First Wort hop addition and no other additions until 5 mins left and flame out.

I can see why many like Mosaic hops, when opening the packet I got an intense tropical aroma which I haven't really notice when opening other hops in the past.

Like the brew day for Brann's Breakfast Stout, mashing the grains was easy thanks to my new grain basket, no mess, no fuss. Wanting to make a slightly larger batch (so I could fill my 9l keg to the top) while also bottling some giveaways too I hit my target fermenter exactly and after dry hopping I ended up with 16L packaged. With an abv of 4.1% it all worked out correctly according to my recipe estimates.

The fermentation to 6 days to reach final gravity, the trial samples I had around this time, had a definitive honey flavour with tropical notes coming through, which would obviously improve with alittle more time.

I was licking my chops and could of drunk straight from the fermenter quite easily!!

Come bottling day and toasting the beer with the token dregs left in the bottling bucket, I noticed that the honey flavour wasn't so prominent as before.

I could only assume 1 of 2 things (or a combo of both), this would either be I didn't mix the honey in enough in the first place and it all settled below the racking tube of the fermenter or the fermentation wiped out the flavours of the honey.

This I can correct if I brew this again, as TheHomeBrewShop sell a packet of Honey malt, which would give the honey flavour I am after, without the gamble of the flavours dissipating. I only used liquid honey as my brew last year (Golden Flower) came out really well however that was with different kit and different fermenter with no conical bottom.

I left all the bottles and keg in my coolbox in the airing cupboard for a week (at 21c) and put a bottle in the fridge for 24 hours.

So now for the 1 week taste test........

The bottle when opened had a slight hiss to it, and while it had some carbonation still wasnt really carbed to the level I aiming for.

The aroma was of tropical, much like the when I opened the packet of Mosaic hops was intense tropical.

The flavour was upfront Mango along with the taste of candied pineapple, some piney notes came through next. I was left with the mouthfeel that Honey gives you, a slight coating, with the taste of honey the last thing.

I was quite surprised by the honey as I thought it all faded/got lost. The sample bottle didn't last long, if I had more in the fridge I could of drunk 3 or 4 already. Another sample bottle is in the fridge for Friday. One that's had a couple more days out and an extra day in fridge. Really happy so far how this one has turned out. I can see why people like Mosaic hops!

Until next time....Happy Brewing

The Welsh Homebrew competition judging took place over the past weekend (marked on average from 2 judges sheets) and although I unfortunately wasn't successful in getting in the top 3 in my category I did learn something from my feedback sheets.

It wasn't until now I understand one of the main top tips (Enter competitions to get 'qualified' judged feedback) given to Home Brewers to improve their beer. The feedback given to me has been really helpful, as it just has highlighted the flaws I had with this brew day in particular and what I struggle generally.

What both judges picked up on occurred, I believe because I struggled to get the temperature down fast and well before pitching the yeast, by the time I did all the oxygen that was in the wort dissipated.
Even though my Saison (of love) was still judged in the Belgium/Saison category it wasn't quite to style as it was dry hopped to make it more citrus and I was aiming for this rather than the traditional peppery tones. So a few marks came off because of that too. I can however feel good that the dry hopped flavours were retained enough as I brewed this 2 months prior to the competition, the bottles were only kept slightly lower than room temp too.

I did however get some additional positives in the comments, with the BCJP judge sheet saying that overall it was a good beer.

Would I enter another competition that's judged with the bjcp style guide? Probably, but not this year or until I can sort out the flaws in my brew day. I have an idea on how.

Until next time......Happy Brewing

It's been now sometime in the bottles and Brann's breakfast stout has come into its own. Definite Chocolate and very smooth. Not too much coffee, which I don't know if its a good thing or not, didn't want it too overwhelming but enough to taste. So within the recipe I've added more coffee to the addition as well as upping the the lactose very slightly too. No great changes just slight improvements.

Nailing this recipe has given me ideas to do some extra seasonal recipes based on Brann's Breakfast Stout. One I had in mind to add Orange Peel during primary fermentation to make it a chocolate orange stout, another idea would be to add bourbon chips to make a bourbon breakfast stout.

So come the stages of adding these to primary I'll split the batch next time and add 1/2 to my SS conical fermentor and transfer the other 1/2 to my watch I use for my bottling bucket as I would bottle 1 batch before the other anyway, as I'll probably leave the bourbon chips for a week and the orange peel for slightly less.

Until next time....Happy brewing

What better way to start the rest of your week of with an original recipe. Brann's breakfast Stout couldnt be any better, trying to recreate a style of beer you've only had 3 or 4 examples to base off was hard.
Brew day as an earlier post describes went well, so I had hopes.

The aroma is prodomently made up of the coffee notes with some slight chocolate coming through at the end with that lactose milkiness.

Taste is much the same, just with more pronunciation, coffee with roasted malts then chocolate with the lactose coating the mouth like if you just had a milkshake. In fact this beer leaves you with a chocolate milkshake aftertaste, exactly what I was after.
If I was to compare it with any interest tried would have to be jet black heart by Brew dog. However brann's breakfast Stout has much more body, I found jet black heart slightly thing. I don't with mine.
It just goes down nicely in the evening as a dessert beer while you have your feet up.
This ones a keeper!!

Check it out in the recipe section soon...
Until next time..... Happy brewing

A slightly delayed write up of my latest batch 'Brann's Breakfast Stout' which was actually brewed last Friday 26th May.
Why/What is a breakfast stout?

A breakfast Stout is brewed with flaked oats, chocolate and coffee, which can also have lactose (giving a creamy milky mouthfeel) with the stout smelling like a freshly brewed coffee.

The reason why I brewed it was a combination of things, 1 was that my Dad and I tried various stouts (see 'Beer Research' posts) and I thought I should try to recreate/use ideas from ones Ive tried or looked into for my own brew. Using element's from Founder's Breakfast Stout, Brewdog''s Jet Black Heart and Dead Metaphor - Brann's Breakfast Stout was born!

So along came the brew day.

Opening and transferring the malts to my malt basket, they smelt delicious like a malty chocolatey cappuccino.

Mashed at 67c for 75mins stirring at 20 then 40 mins. I actually overshot my mash temps so had to put some cool water in to reduce temps to required target.

During the mash the smell was of strong filter coffee.

I mashed out for 15 mins then let the grains drain while I heated the pot to boiling.

Added Magnum hops at 60 then Sorachi Ace at 15 with the wort chiller and 1/2 a brite wort tablet.

Lactose went in 5 mins later. The coffee and cacao went in at flameout, leaving
for 15 mins before chilling.

I prechilled my cool brewing bag with 9.5l of frozen water bottles during the coffee/chocolate stand and chilling.

After 5 days in the fermentor the hydro reading is 1.030 down from 1.054.

I'll wait a few more days before I add some extra coffee and cacao.
Samples have been tasting good; roasted malts, coffee leaving the mouth with with slightly creamy, the body is quite full and much fuller than something like Jet Black Heart that I found lacked some body.

Until next time.......Happy Brewing

Bottle Conditioned

Its been 3 weeks since I bottled Saison of Love. I finished the keg in quite quick time, mainly due to it being 1/2 full, my attention is focused on the bottles.

Thursday I had one of my smaller sized test bottles that were bottled with some of the remaining beer left in the bottling bucket once I finished bottling all the other allocated bottles.

The beer has turned out very well in the bottles. Nicely carbed up, having a nice white 1 & 1/2 - 2 finger head that dissipated slightly but still had about 1/2 finger all the way down to near the end of the glass.

This bottle had a crisper flavour and drier finish seemingly than the keg version. It still had that distinctive white wine flavour I was going for, the aroma does remind you its a saison.

The keg had a merky looking head, probably because some hops and other gunk got into it when I transfered it from the fermenter, racking too close to the Trub. Also I had a real issue with force carbing the keg.

Keg Version

I probably over carbed the keg (for the amount that was in the keg) or it had too much of a co2 blanket so when I pulled a glass of it there was so much foam. The colour of the keg version was also some what paler than the bottle version.

I'm now looking forward to enjoy all the remaining bottles that I've got for myself, its time now to chill the bottles to store and slow down the ageing.

Lets also see what the 1st July brings as its being entered into the Welsh National Homebrew Competition.

Until next time......Happy Brewing

Two weeks ago was brew day for my go to Saison - Saison of Love. I brewed this first last year, when I was only using a large pan on top of the stove.

A recent purchase of a grain basket was used instead of a grain bag and it worked out really well, I was even able to place it on top of the Ace Boiler and do small sparge easier too.

The hop break was pretty intense, more than my recent brews. I should of however listened to in hindsight to myself and used a strainer instead of my boiler for the hops. Even though relatively small in comparison to Red Panda for instance, it still blocked the tap, so caused my some frustration trying to transfer it.

Implementing a few other tips during the brew I was able to increase temperature pretty quickly and maintain the mash temp quite well using a blanket pegged around the boiler. Maybe small but all helps to a smoother brew day.

During the start the temps were 19-20c, while leaving it alone but keeping an eye on it, the highest temp I read was 23c over the course of the 9 days. Granted the fermentation was complete in 4 days, airlock was going like a train. I dry hopped it with 30g Hallertau Blanc.

I bottled 6 litres and kegged about the same, leaving around 2l in the fermenter.

.....A week has past now and as Thursdays are the new Fridays I've tapped the keg. Over the course of this week I've used 3 16g cartridges to carb the keg up to ,at constant temp of around 15-18c and 26 PSI which equates to 2.66 co2 volume so within the range of the saison.

Tasting it this weekend, it definitely has that
white wine/fruity quality about it, starting fermenting on the lower end of the scale probably helped with the fruity notes.
The funky saison notes come threw in the aroma and at the back of the palette, so doesnt overwhelm the fruity flavours.

Always difficult to compare to a brew from a year go but it holds up well to memory. Be interesting to taste of f there is difference when I come to opening the bottles.

Considering the keg was slightly half full there doesn't appear much left, I've put it away for the week now.

Until next time....Happy Brewing

Since my last update I've been drinking Red Panda, brewing and bottling a new batch of 'Saison of Love'.

This post will cover Red Panda and a following post will cover how the brew day and keg test of Saison of Love turned out.

What can I say about this Red Panda? Unfortunately it didn't improve from my earlier week one taste test. When I was working my way through the keg (or trying to) it was so overly bitter for my tastes, like the feeling you get when you have a really bitter coffee, that lingering gnarly bitterness. I couldn't even really get the malt backbone.

It is a real same as the colour was spot on and so was the flavour prior to dry hopping.

So where did this all go wrong....all I can narrow it down to is the dry hop quantities and timings, looking back I put 85g of hops (30g Galaxy & Belma, 20g of Cascade) in a 15l batch. Going further back into my recipes I only used between 25-35g total for dry hopping for the same sized batch.

I've never poured my beer down the sink, but I had to this time. I drunk about 6 pints from the 1/2 filled keg over the cause of a weekend or so, if I had a second keg I would of kept it to see how it fared a few months down the line, however I knew I wanted it for my so it had to go.

It was all going so well as the final gravity reading sample tasted sweet, with the strawberry like notes coming through, before passion fruit.

You live and learn, I will do this again however as I liked it up till a point and will adjust the hop schedule accordingly to see if its any better.

Until next time.......Happy Brewing

This little fellow has been eyeing me up everytime Ive open the fridge for the past few weeks.

His name is the Occultist. A milk coffee chocolate oatmeal stout as the amazingly illustrated can describes.

It's pretty new on the block, a 2017 release from Brewdog, which first caught my eye on the recently published 2017 edition of DIY DOG (Brewdogs recipe catalogue of their beers scaled down to give home brewers chance to emulate/clone)

The Occultist itself pours jet back with a nice Mocha looking head, leaving a slight lacing trial on the glass.

Aroma of coffee, some chocolate and dark roasted malts.

Taste wise the milky chocolate comes through with some coffee notes thrown in, with a slight alcohol hit, with the hint of dark roasted notes, slightly thinner body than I expected. However this improves as the beer warms up abit.

The same kind of after taste as the Jet Black Heart leaving me with a chocolate milkshake mouthfeel however this time with a more prominent alcoholic feel.

Really quite nice, great dessert beer. I would buy it again, if I was to clone it I would want to try beefing (in a figurative way) the body up slightly.

Done well Brewdog!!

Until next time........Happy Brewing

Happy Homebrew Wednesday!

Today I tried a small bottle of Red Panda, a week on from bottling day to see how things are developing.

It's still not fully carbed and still alittle 'green' where you have a slightly rough bitterness from the hops.

It's still pleasant to drink and still reminds me of certain aspects of commercial beers I've tried in the past. The malt flavours have become more pronounced now which melds well with the fruity hops, the strawberry like flavour of Belma hops appears at the moment the more prominent hop characteristic coming through.

I have two bottles left along with the 1/2 filled keg. I usually give away a bottle of two to Coworkers and my dad but as I ended up with less beer in the bottling bucket than I thought I may end up keeping both. I'll certainly want to try one next week again, if things improve I'll give the last bottle away.

At the moment however, much like my last brew (Punk IPA Clone) it doesn't wow me.

Red Panda however still has sometime to develop.

Until next time......Happy Brewing

It's been an intense few weeks focusing on a project at work, I had planned to do another post on the second dry hop addition for Red Panda, but after working longer I've been spent in the evenings.

A quick summary now however was that 5 days before bottling I put the galaxy and casade hops in and the Tuesday just gone I placed the fermenter in my cool brewing bag and tried to crash cool it.

Using 4 1.5L juice containers I got it down to 10c, upon bottling I did notice the beer coming out abit clearer and also how the hops caked together and settled more.

Unfortunately however I underestimated the amount I would loss because of the hops and trub. I did dry hop 12l with something like 60g of hops in total!

I packaged up 7L, 3 bottles and the rest was naturally carbed in my 9.5L keg.

The initial taste from the dregs were striking. I could taste passionfruit upfront (got to love Galaxy Hops!!) with floral tones, followed by a sweet strawberry taste. Most likly from the Belma hops, finishing with some maltiness.

It faintly reminds me of Staggingerly Good's Pterodactyl.

I have to say I can't wait to properly try the test bottle in two weeks.
If the sample is any indiction this probably will be my best brew to date.

Until next time.....Happy Brewing

I've been eagerly awaiting this day all week, as today marks the first of 2 dry hop additions to my Red Panda (Red IPA).

As mention in my post brew day post on the Red Panda, it was a tiring but seemly successful brew day as the fermentation was off to a quick start.

Within my latest recipe I've added 2 hop additions, 1 at 7 days after pitching and another 2 days later (5 days before bottling). Dry hopping 30g Belma and then 25g Cascade with 30g Galaxy.

By the looks of the air lock, fermentation looks to have stopped or slowed right down. Its hard to really tell for me as I do 1/2 scaled batches (3 gallons or 15/16 litres) so at this point things could be happening but as theres more space in the fermentor sometimes the airlock doesn't move much. It certainly did however during the early part of this week! So I also checked the gravity which came too 1.10 so I now know its done its business.

The sample taste is quite promising.

Until next time......Happy Brewing

Following on from my other post this week I've cracked open another beer in a similar style Jet Black Heart, however it doesn't either call itself a stout or really fit into the style quite right either.

Batemans Mocha Beer isn't a bad beer, however after the initial wow (taste of coffee and chocolate) within first 1/4 of the bottle I felt then kind of bored with it.
It smells much like it tastes. Coffee with a chocolate, almost syrupy like flavour. Some little dark malts. Pretty fizzy actually, kind of like Coca Cola on the verge of going flat.

The head dissappeared very quickly, the colour is black however has some deep red hues when up to the light.

Given the choice I would choose Jet Black Heart. For a few reasons, one was that the mouthfeel was better, it left me thinking I just had an milkshake. There was more 'layers of flavour ' with the malty and berry like aspect as well.

Until next time.....Happy Brewing

I thought to do a different kind of post, a quick post looking into styles that I could try to clone an existing beer or create a recipe of my own of this style.

This time I'm trying a bottle of Jet Black Heart from Brewdog, bought from Tescos Extra.

Ive read and watched alot on this beer and thought it was a good starting point to the style as I generally like Brewdogs beers.

As for the important sniff and taste test!

Well its very enjoyable, especially after a long but productive day at work.

It pours very dark brown, almost 'jet black' with a little tan head that disappeared quickly.
Smell is of dark, roasted malts with faint coffee almost nutty notes and slightly sweet.
Taste wise I get dark, roasted malts followed by some slight dark berries and vanilla then what I can describe as a lingering chocolate milk flavour.

Very good indeed! I've got more of these to try coming up but it's certainly a great entry point into the sweet stout beer style.

The recipe itself is also so vary excesable given the fabulous DIYDOG.

Until next time.......Happy Brewing

While Mrs Panda (aka wifey aka Mrs Brann) was away for a friends hen do I thought to get a cheeky brew on.

Few weekends ago I had a bottle of 5am Saint, a very enjoyable Red IPA from Brewdog.

I generally like what Brewdog produce even though some of what is out there is abit too bitter (in a hoppy way) for me.

What it did do for me is wanting re-evaluate my previous attempt of this style (in the form of Red Baron). The malt bill I generally left along as I was quite happy with this, however I did find it lacking in some hoppy flavour.
This now will now be dry hopped with a combined 85g of hops (30 Belma, 30 galaxy and 25 cascade), actually the whole hop schedule carries this theme using Belma, Galaxy and little bit of cascade to balance out the pure tropical fruits a bit. Its going to be one hazy tropical fruit bomb!

As for the name change? Well we all have to have a brand don't we? I'm in the process of coming up with new names for some of my beers and new designs for the labels. Essentially Panda's rule!

So Red Baron....now becomes Red Panda and follows in the footsteps of Galactic Panda.

As for the brew day?

Well it went pretty well, even if I was tired (waking up early to catch the F1) it went well. My Ace Boiler Grain bag finally gave up though, by my next brew day though I should have a Stainless Steel grain basket which should generally help matters of spillages on the kitchen floor and sparging, I did however get 5% more efficiency than my other brews with the boiler.

Unfortunately some of the sugars scorched the bottom of the boiler so I had a job to clean this off this morning even after a good soak overnight.

The grain basket should help with this too as it has 2cm feet to sit up from the bottom of the boiler.

Another thing I did differently was that I used a fan to cool the outside of the boiler while a chiller took care of the rest, so after 15 mins or so hop stand it cooled to about 24c in roughly 30 mins.

Hydrometer sample actually tastes better than my current brew I'm drinking. Which I'm quite surprised about.

I also let gravity take over when I transfered to the fermentor, I watched on a youtube video in the week where someone did this and got a massive load of foam in the fermentor due to the sloshing and spalshing, it saved me alot of work stirring it and it seems to of worked.

It was around 6pm-ish when I pitched the yeast, 8am this morning airlock is nicely active, even with the brew bucket being 1/2 fall (due to me only ding a 16l batch)

Two dry hops one at 7 days then 5 days before bottling. 6.2% expected ABV don't know if to bottle most or keg most. I might try natural carbing the keg this time as I'm not overally happy with how force carbing went in my current brew.

I can smell the fermentor standing behind me, smells glorious! I'll do an update at the dry hopping point.

Until next time.........Happy Brewing

It's a time for change for the blog. I have given it a little face lift as it was looking a little dated and not didn't really suit what I wanted to do with the blog, so over the course of this week, I tweaked a design and now have the look I kind of always had in mind.
I am still developing the Recipe section so watch this space for more improvements.

How do you like the new look?

Another change.... or addition depending on how you see it, is my existing Black IPA 'Fimbulwinter' has now become 'Galactic Panda'.

Why might you ask I've changed the name?

Well I haven't just changed the name, I have also modified the recipe slightly, last time I found that I nailed the malt base of 'Fimbulwinter' however the feedback I had from it was that it seemed more of a fizzy porter/stout like, it wasn't quite what I was aiming for!

So, after the success of G.E.B. that showcases Galaxy hops, I did a little research to find that it also works well in Black IPA's (taking into consideration the quantity needed for a balanced flavour, of course).

Now modified, all apart from a Magnum addition at the start, it’s Galaxy hops for all other additions.

What will become of 'Fimbulwinter'?

Well it will still be kept as part of what I want to call my 'core' range of beers eventually, however over the last few months I have really wanted to try my hand at doing a proper stout, well a Milk Stout anyway.

By myself reading the Brew your Own (BYO) Magazines each month, they really give you some inspiration. I feel I could really enjoy having a Milk Stout as some kind of 'Dessert' beer during a long soak in the bath.

I just now want to try some examples to get my bearings on the style, any suggestions?

Until next time.......Happy Brewing

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