Update #2: Boxshed Best Bitter

Checked on this today after four days in primary and it had hit its 1.012 target perfectly – nice.

I transferred it into a secondary bucket, leaving all the break and yeast crud behind, and just taking nice clean brown hoppy beer looking stuff into a new home where it will now sit for about ten days.

After checking my hop stocks I found that for some reason I’d left behind a measly 21g of Styrians the other night instead of throwing it in as extra aroma hops. So I boiled up a muslin, some marbles and some thread and bagged the extra hoppage up, popping into the secondary for seven days of dry-hopping.

The secondary is burping once again, so I actually expect this to drop a few points further over that time, but it really has no need to on my account, it smells good and is strong enough for me. Nice colour too, so I’m pretty happy all in all. Plenty of time to screw it up still though.

 

Very clean and clear after just four days ferment and hitting the required 1.012

Huge amounts of break and a vigorous ferment left a huge yeast cake

No idea why I didn’t add this to the boiler, but it won’t be wasted

A muslin, a couple of marbles, some thread and a ten minute boil

Once the marbles had cooled and the thread attached, it all went into secondary for a week

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Brewday: Boxshed Best Bitter

Last night I decided to brew a nice hoppy Best Bitter which had a chance of becoming a stock ale, all being well. I decided to go with all Goldings, as I had always fancied the idea of using a big chunk of them at both ends of the brewday with a handful during the boil to keep things interesting.

In the end I used genuine Styrians for the main steeping aroma hop, backed up by plenty of Bobek in the kettle and during the last quarter of an hour. You could say my recipe is somewhat similar to Marc Ollosson’s Styrian Stunner in some ways, but I wanted Crystal in there to add that Best colour and sweet balance to the bitter hops, plus some wheat to round of the edges and provide some staying power for the head. The Munich was added as I just loved the smell the last and only other time I’ve used it. Also I wanted to boost the overall grain bill to get a 4.5% ABV in an interesting way.

Anyway, here’s the recipe I created and followed:

Boxshed Best Bitter

Mashing (90mins, 65c – sparge at 76c)
Pale Malt 3.81Kg, 80.2%
Crystal Malt 500g, 10.5%
Wheat Malt, 250g, 5.3%
Munich Malt, 190g, 4%

Boiling (90mins)
Bobek Goldings 4%AA, 75g, 90mins
Bobek Goldings 4%AA, 25g, 15mins
Styrian Goldings 50g, Flameout steep

Other bits
Campden
Whirlfloc
SafAle S-04 rehydrated

Facts & Figures
Est. Brew length: 23L
Est. OG: 1.046
Est. FG: 1.012
Est. Bitterness: 38.7 IBU
Est. ABV: 4.5%

All went very well with the brew itself, but I did have a bit of a disaster when the mash was ready to run into the boiler and I suddenly realised my hop strainer had gone missing. Half an hour of frantic searching later and I realised that after my last brew I had dumped my spent grains in the composter, and that was now the only place left to look. Sure enough after some horrendous digging it turned up, spurring the most thorough cleaning and sanitising job I’ve ever undertaken! Here are some selected photos from the brew:

 

What an idiot. This is still in a state after boiling in a pan. A wirebrush and Iodophor finished the job

I usually only see this much green at the end of the boil

The 15 minute hops were sucked under in a flash, but the 50g of steeped Styrians were gorgeous and smelled fantastic

Dumping the cooled wort from height through a seive balanced on a paddle is sort of a tradition at The Boxshed

Two packs of SafAle-04 from The Barley Bottom

Safely fermenting away. The break material here formed a head the next day and will be skimmed in a couple of days

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