This brewday was my first of the season, back in early September, and made good use of Pioneer hops which I’d never tried before. Anyway, I called it Pion Brew. To rhyme with Iron Bru, you see? People immediately pronounced it ‘Pee On Brew’. Great. Anyway…
After a lengthy summer brewing hiatus I finally cleaned up all my kit and got ready with an evening brew. I see it as an evolution from my previous golden ales, adding bitterness, a sound combination of copper and aroma hops, plus some extra malt complexity with the small Munich addition. Wheat for head retention largely, and US-05 yeast to ensure dry finish and good drop.
I was looking for a dry citrus finish, and opted for a hottish 90/90 mash, batch sparge and boil for brevity:
I was hoping that Northdown and Pioneer would complement each other like Fuggles and Goldings do, but it was just a theory from reading hop profile information. The Pioneer hops smelled great – like very pungent EKG. The mash all went well, nice and steady. Took lots of runnings, and repeated this with the two-step batches of ten further litres each. I hope there were enough aroma hops, probably should have put in more to steep. I took 21 litres of wort from the boiler at 1.045 and added two litres of water to the FV, making 23 litres at 1.040. I’m hoping for under 4% so happy with that.
Pion Brew
Mash in 10.5l at 75c (66c)
Hold for 90 minutes and drain
Add 10l at 75c (70c)
Hold for 10 minutes and drain
Add 15l at 82.5c (75c)
Hold for 10 minutes and drain
Marris Otter Pale Malt- 3.5Kg (83.3%)
Munich Malt- 350g (8.3%)
Torrified Wheat – 350g (8.3%)
Boiling (90mins)
30g of Northdown (9AA)at 90 minutes
20g of Pioneer (8AA) at 15 minutes
40g of Pioneer (8AA) steep
Other bits
Campden
Whirlfloc
SafAle S-05 rehydrated
This is probably my last use of batch sparging for a while. It still takes me around six hours from start to finish, allowing for a 90 minute mash, two stop sparging, plenty of runnings, a 90 minute boil and up to an hour chilling down to fermentation temperature and resting for the break to settle. I can’t see it getting much shorter than that, really, without going to 60/60, so starting at around 6pm leaves me pitching yeast at around midnight tired and surrounded by sticky equipment, hosepipes and power leads.
I never saw a proper raging ferment on this brew at all. Gas bubbled through the airlock steadily but unremarkably for a couple of days. I then skimmed the break, expecting it to take off a bit, but all it did was reform a head and steadily bubble once more. However, it hit target (1.010) after five days so I transferred it into a secondary fermenter to drop for a week or so before kegging. Looked very bright and yellow – reminded me of a Belgian Pale at that stage.
For reasons beynd my control this brew stayed in secondary for two weeks before being kegged and bottled, held in the warm for a further week, then banished to the shed for cold conditioning. Should be ready for Bonfire Night. Ish. Anyway, here are some photos as ever:
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- Bottles primed with glucose. A week in warm, month in cold.
The Boxshed Brewery 