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.
[.....]
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 [.....]
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 [.....]
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 [.....]
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 [.....]
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, [.....]
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 [.....]
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 [.....]
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 [.....]
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 [.....]
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, [.....]
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 [.....]
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 [.....]
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 [.....]
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 [.....]
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 [.....]
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). [.....]
In my other most recent post ( A gift that has kept on giving ) I mentioned that the recent beers I've brewed have been somewhere over ...
