This is a custom brew to experiment with some dried elderflowers. We had bought a pack of dried elderflowers on eBay and were looking for a recipe to use them in. The recipe was posted in a thread on Jim's Beer Kit forums.
The elderflowers cost £3 delivered for 100g from the seller geordie256.
This has been brewed for a family wedding and was originally called Under The Thumb.
One thing we noticed was that some of the elderflower bits got through the hop filter and additional sieve and have ended up in the bottle. At least it shows that it's got elderflowers in it! If we were to brew it again we'd probably use a muslin filter rather than the sieve when transferring from the boiler in to the FV.
Grain & Fermentables
- Pale Malt, 4360g
- Pale Crystal Malt, 250g
- Gypsum, 1tsp
- Epsom Salts, 1/2tsp
Hops & Copper Finings
- First Gold, 13g pre boil
- First Gold, 13g for 90mins
- Protafloc, 1 tablet last 20mins
- First Gold, 7g for last 10mins
- Dried Elderflowers, 40g for last 10mins
- First Gold, 6g for last 5mins
Brew Details
- Brew Day: 20th March 2010
- Transfered to Secondary: Didn't transfer this one, direct from primary to bottling
- Bottled: 5th April 2010 (21 litres)
- Yeast: Safale US-05
- Brew Length: 23 litres
- Mash Time: 90 minutes @ 67°C
- Water-to-Grain Ratio (L:Kg) : 2:1
- Boil Time: 90 minutes
- OG - Recipe/Achieved: 1.042 / 1.050
- FG - Recipe/Achieved: 1.011 / 1.006
- ABV - Recipe/Achieved: 4.1% / 5.9%
- EBU/EBC: 21/11
- Priming: 80g granulated sugar boiled in 250ml of wort and added to bottling bucket
We use Graham Wheeler's Beer Engine software for capturing the recipe. Here's the custom recipe file for this brew.
Pictures
The customary shot of the grains and salts awaiting the mash:
The first runnings from the mash tun. We seemed to miss the pre-boil volume by about a litre, which explains why the OG was higher than we expected, and why the ABV was a lot stronger than planned:
This was another brew where we mashed-out on a Saturday evening, wrapped the wort up overnight and started the boil first thing on the Sunday morning.
The hops and dried elderflowers, ready to go:
The start of the boil with the pre-boil and 90minute hops added:
Finally the post-boil gravity. Way higher than we expected, but that's down to missing the pre-boil volume from the mash tun.
We didn't take any more pictures for some reason.
Here's the label that we put together for this brew:
More pictures here.
Dave & Suki.
This is a brew of the Hop Back Brewery Entire Stout. The recipe has been taken (and ammended) from the Hop and Grain online recipe database. The original recipe can be found in their Stout section.
The recipe has had the Black Malt and Carafa Special 3* added. The Black Malt was originally added to bring the colour up to 170EBC, but then we found the small bag of CS3 in the box and chucked that in too. This brought the colour up to 192EBC.
* A note on the Carafa Special 3 from the Hop and Grape brew shop website
Adds aroma. colour & body, with a milder, smoother flavour than achieved with husk-on. For use in Dark Beer; Salvator Bockbier; Stouts; Porters; Alt beer; Bockbier; Schwarzbier. Max. 5% 1200 E.B.C.
Grain & Fermentables
- Pale Malt, 3840g
- Chocolate Malt, 160g
- Roasted Barley, 160g
- Crystal Malt, 160g
- Black Malt, 90g
- Carafa Special 3, 45g
- Gypsum, 1tsp
- Epsom Salts, 1/2tsp
Hops & Copper Finings
- Challenger, 30g for 90mins
- East Kent Goldings, 20g for last 15mins
- Protafloc, 1 tablet last 15mins
Brew Details
- Brew Day: 20th January 2010
- Transfered to Secondary: 28th February 2010
- Bottled: 10th March 2010 (~23 litres)
- Yeast: Safale S-04
- Brew Length: 23 litres
- Mash Time: 90 minutes @ 66°C
- Water-to-Grain Ratio (L:Kg) : 2:1
- Boil Time: 90 minutes
- OG - Recipe/Achieved: 1.043 / 1.041
- FG - Recipe/Achieved: 1.013 / 1.011
- ABV - Recipe/Achieved: 3.9% / 4%
- EBU/EBC: 33/192
- Priming: None
We use Graham Wheeler's Beer Engine software for capturing the recipe. Here's the custom recipe file for this brew.
Pictures
The grain, Pale Malt underneath then from the top, clockwise: Dark Malt, Crystal Malt, Roasted Barley, Carafa Special 3 and Chocolate Malt. The Gypsum and Epsom Salts are in the middle.
The mash - it was looking dark from the offset:
Very dark indeed:
The mash was done in the evening, drained out and the wort was left overnight before starting the boil. It was wrapped in the red insulation jacket and amazingly it was still at 54°C over 12 hours later.
Here are the hops waiting while the wort comes up to the boil - Challenger on the left and the EKG on the right - the Challengers go in for the full boil:
Post boil gravity not too far off the target:
More pictures here.
Dave & Suki.
We thought we'd try something different and try a honey beer.
The recipe for this honey beer is taken from The Home Brew Forums. You have to be a member to log in to their recipes area. The recipe is called BuzzBee Bitter and was created by eskimobob. We have pretty much followed that recipe. The recipe was originally for 19 litres, so we've converted the amounts slightly to match our 23 litre brew length.
Grain & Fermentables
- Pale Malt, 3270g
- Chocolate Malt, 120g
- Honey*, 1089g
- Gypsum, 1tsp
- Epsom Salts, 1/2tsp
* The comment regarding the honey on the original recipe is as follows:
Boil the honey separately in 1 litre of water then add straight to the fermenter on top of the cooled wort.
Hops & Copper Finings
- East Kent Goldings, 19g for last 60mins
- Fuggle, 28g for last 60mins
- Protafloc, 1 tablet last 15mins
Brew Details
- Brew Day: 14th February 2010
- Transfered to Secondary: 22nd February 2010
- Bottled: 28th February (42 Bottles)
- Yeast: Safale S-04
- Brew Length: 23 litres
- Mash Time: 90 minutes @ 65°C
- Water-to-Grain Ratio (L:Kg) : 3.2:1
- Boil Time: 90 minutes
- OG - Recipe/Achieved: 1.051 / 1.044 with honey, 1.034 without
- FG - Recipe/Achieved: 1.014 / 1.009 (in to secondary)
- ABV - Recipe/Achieved: 4.9% / 4.5% (maybe)
- EBU/EBC: 26/47
- Priming: 75g granulated sugar mixed with 250ml of wort, boiled and stirred in before bottling
We use Graham Wheeler's Beer Engine software for capturing the recipe. Here's the custom recipe file for this brew.
Pictures
We seem to be unable to take the right photos, so there are no photos of the grain.
The 3.2:1 water:grain ratio produced a really watery mash. We're not sure how the original recipe got to its OG:
The hops awaiting their turn - EKGs on the left:
And they didn't have to wait long. The hops went in just after the chiller:
If you've ever wondered what 1.1kg of honey looks like, well here's your answer. The second picture is the honey and 1 litre of water coming up to temperature:
And here's the honey mix in the bottom of the FV waiting for the wort to be transferred from the boiler:
More pictures here.
Dave & Suki.
