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

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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

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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

 

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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

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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

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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

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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

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