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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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

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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

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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

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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

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