Woodville NanoBrewery

Brew 14 - Alice Porter Revisited  Brew day: 28/11/2020 Bottle day: 21/12/2020 Brew day beckons again and this time I'm revisiting my first ever all grain brew - Alice Porter. A superb Brewdog recipe that I tried in Edinburgh last year. I love a porter at this time of year so a good chance to brew a slightly bigger batch before Christmas.  Slight variations to the recipe - no Magnum hops so Northern Brewer go in as a bittering hop and then East Kent Goldings before a dash of Soraci Ace at the end. Nice! New mash method working well and first batch pre boil gravity is 1.038 (potentially 80% efficiency... watch this space). Temperature control is so much better with the hob and stirring the mash regularly to distribute the heat. The first batch seems to have most of the darker malts and the wort is seriously dark. Need to think about how I can distribute the malts from the bag between batches.  2nd batch is looking good - perhaps a little lighter, the balance of malts seems ...

All Grain Mash Efficiencies (not including Extract Brews or 2nd Runnings)  Brew 1 - Alice Porter (16/11/2019) OG = 1.053 Efficiency = 39% ABV = 5.2% Brew 2 - Lockdown IPA (28/03/2020) OG = 1.040 Efficiency = 50% ABV = 4.7% Brew 3 - Chocolate Hop Nob (27/04/2020) OG = 1.035 Efficiency 58% ABV = 3.3% Brew 4 - Bramble Pie IPA 01 (30/05/2020) OG = 1.044 Efficiency = 27% ABV = 5.4% Brew 5 - Gardener's Gloves IPA (20/06/2020) OG = 1.057 Efficiency = 45.5% ABV = 6.4%  Brew 6 - Wake Up Call (30/06/2020) OG = 1.061 Efficiency = 57% ABV = 6.4% Brew 7 - Off The Cuff IPA (22/07/2020) OG = 1.058 Efficiency = 42% ABV = 6.8% Brew 8 - Evil Pea IPA ( 25/08/2020) OG = 1.045 Efficiency = 44% ABV = 4.6% Brew 9 - No More Lands to Conquer (31/10/2020)  OG = 1.045  Efficiency =  40.5% ABV = 5.2% Brew 10 - Bramble Pie IPA 02 ( 08/11/2020 )  OG = 1.064  Efficiency: 52%  ABV: 6.6% Brew 11 - Bramble Pie IPA 03 (22/11/2020)  OG = 1.062 Efficiency = 68% ABV = 5.8% B...

Brew 13 - Bramble Pie IPA Mk3  (Larger Batch) Brew day: 22/11/2020 Bottle day: 21/12/2020 Another wet weekend and a chance to get brewing again. I spent the first part of the morning bottling my small trial batch (Brew 12) which took less than an hour. This left the best part of the day to have another brew day. This time, another go at Bramble Pie - this time I'm trying something different.  I start by stretching the brew bag over the rim of my kettle. I didn't realise it fits so perfectly onto the rim and I'm able to pour out my malt without any issue. This gave me an idea. I'd tried using the stock pot as a mash tun before but wasn't happy with the outcome. This time, I left the brew bag open, allowing me to stir the contents regularly whilst maintaining a view of the temperature which I could then control using the gas.  Next up, I'm toying with water chemistry. I'd found a water report for the local water supply and had input the values into a calculato...

  Brew 12 - Bramble Pie IPA  (Small Batch trial run) Brew day: 08/11/2020 Bottle day: 22/11/2020 Back in May, I made a lovely IPA using Bramling Cross hops that I had left over from the previous Autumn. I enjoyed the bitterness that the hop provided and really wanted to make this brew again - this time a little differently.  Last time out, I was under on my ABV and also below where I wanted the IBU to be. This time, I have 200g of the hops so I can put in a bit more.  I ordered 7kg of the malt (6.5kg Maris Extra Pale, 400g Crisp Caramalt and 200g Light Crystal) a few months ago with the view to brewing this as one big batch. The malt has been sat there for ages so it is time to use at least some of it.  I'm running a 'Science of Brewing' project at work (FE College) and have always thought about really small batch brewing (5 litres) and this is the opportunity to try it out before the project kicks off. I have Brew 11 sat in my main FV at present so I'm going to...