Brewday: Boxshed Dark Garden ’09
2 October, 2009 by fivetide2009
It’s taken a week or more to get this brewday post up on the blog. The day job may not be as much fun as either brewing or drinking beer, but it certainly consumes a lot more time and energy. What can you do, eh?
This brew revisited a very successful recipe from a year ago, with a few tweeks. The original idea had been to create a modern hoppy mild in the style of Darkstar‘s formidable Over The Moon. It worked pretty well, and we drank the whole 20 litres ourselves with nobody else really getting a snifter.
The ’09 variety is much the same brew with a few exceptions: it’s a 50L brew length, the roasted barley has been reduced significantly in favour of more patent malt, the yeast has been swapped over to Nottingham Gervin, and ALL the hops are now from Boxshed garden Fuggles and WGV goldings plants. It truly is a Boxshed Dark Garden brew.
The details of the brew day have been lost in the protein haze of time, but everything went to plan over about six hours and the brew has already fermented out. The dark wort was great fun to mess about with and the smells were a treat, particularly the blend of malts and the Fuggle coppers. We can’t wait to get planning the recipe for this year’s Seasonal Stout now.
Anyway, enough with the words, here are some steamy pictures:
-
-
There are seven different grains in this brew, starting with 70% Pale Malt, then adding Munich, Crystal, Wheat, Chocolate, Patent Malts and finally some Roasted Barley
-
-
Mashing in was stiff at first with all that dry grain
-
-
But the final mix was pretty loose
-
-
Mash temperature just about right for a mild
-
-
Runnings had to be taken for the mash then three further 18L batches
-
-
Hopstopper about to be submerged
-
-
Plenty of time during the brew to weigh out Fuggles for the boil, WGV for the final 15, and more WGV to steep
-
-
Takes a long time to batch and fill this boiler before safely turning on the elements
-
-
All those hard earned garden hops waiting to swim in the sweet wort
-
-
Keeping close to boil temperature through the latter stages of sparging
-
-
The mash tun drains really well with the stainless hose siphon effect
-
-
Nearly up to volume and full boil
-
-
Two bowls of Fuggles in for the full 90 minute boil
-
-
Fantastic smells while taking care to watch the boilover
-
-
-
First load of WGVs in 15 minutes from the end of the boil along with the chiller
-
-
Mustn’t forget the Protofloc
-
-
More hops – this time to steep at around 80 degrees
-
-
My chiller takes a half hour to cool the new boiler. Time for a cold reward
-
-
Two sachets of Nottingham Gervin, rehydrated
-
-
All flowered up and chillin’
-
-
At 25 degrees the bitter wort is flowed into the FVs in turn in 5L batches to keep contents consistent
-
-
A jug of yeast for each FV, mixed in full wort flow for maximum aeration
-
-
Aiming for 1.037 for a 3.7% beer this time
-
-
Late at night, 50L at 1.037 safe and sound (bottom) with the Autumn Ale for company
-
-
Nottingham is much slower to get working than Southern yeast. It took 36 hours to get to this stage
-
-
Nearly fermented six days after brewing
-
-
Next step will see this brew transferred into secondary vessels for some extra fermentation time
Great article FiveTide. Love the pictures.
Thanks – I’ve printed out your Sloe Gin plans and have added you to my blogroll! I can find some sloe out there, but there’s a lot of competition.
[…] Boxshed Dark Garden ‘09 finished primary fermentation and has been siphoned into clean FVs for 5-7 days of secondary in […]