An important part of WIB since its inception has been our homebrewing community. We never cease to be amazed by the creativity, talent and sometimes utterly bizarre creations they come up with, using the ingredients from our shelves. We've often said we wish we could share the brews that make it to our monthly homebrew club with the rest of the world, so now we are!
These recipes are from June and July 2023
Alban brought in an excellent English Bitter, check out the recipe below
Small batch English Bitter
I’d really only done a few brew-in-a-bag (BIAB) brews before I moved on to a 23L batch size and left the smaller format behind. However I’d also forgotten the advantages of BIAB, certainly in terms of brew time, cleaning up and obviously less to bottle up. This challenge was a nice reminder that there’s many ways to brew.
Mashed in with 7L of untreated tap water at 66C which dropped 1C over the hour. Lost approx 2L to the grain (1L/kg) so collected 5L wort and sparged with another 7.75L @ 75C. Standard boil for an hour and pitched Safale S-04 after cooling; volume in the fermenter was 10.5L.
Fermentables: [Total of 2006g]
28.6% Golden Promise
25.8% Maris Otter Pale
10.5% Vienna Malt
10% Pale Wheat Malt
10% Biscuit Malt
5.1% Dextrin Malt
5% Dark Crystal
Hop Schedule:
7.5g ADHA-529 60 mins
21g East Kent Goldings 5 mins
20.5g Archer 5 mins
1 Tsp Irish Moss 5 mins
The ADHA-529 hops were some old pellets I had that I used for bittering, just because I hadn’t got many high-alpha hops left. They’re described as offering “an enticing aroma of coconut and lemon combined with hints of tea and mint that give a nice, smooth bitterness to many styles of beer.”
After 13 days in the fermenter I bottled at 1.006 having crashed it at 16C for the last 3 days. Clarity and colour were good and the taste was initially very malty, but this fell away after a week or so.
I used Pure Brew water treatment for this and it has certainly made a difference to the perceived softness of the beer.
…………………………………………
Will, known for minesweeping for yeast dregs at homebrew club and other meet ups, brought in a Flanders Red inspired beer using the aforementioned dregs!
Will's Port Dark Sour
I brewed this back in 2021, following a brew day at WIB legend Mike Acord's place. It was the first time we were allowed to meet up again after the winter lockdown so a bunch of us got together with some sharing bottles and made a beer.
I can't actually remember what beer we brewed that day but I collected up all the dregs from everyone's sharers and used them to make this beer, which is vaguely based on a Flanders Red base but with some port-soaked oak added.
Turns out, apart from whatever dreggy bugs were involved, the secret ingredient for this one was time - it was only after a year in the bottle that it really started to take shape.
This is for a 10 litre batch.
Malt bill:
1kg Maris Otter
1kg Munich
300g Caramalt
120g Caramunich
180g Special B
50g Carafa Type I
Hops:
60 mins 5g Target
Yeast:
OG: 1.056
FG: 1.008
6.3% ABV
24 hours after adding the clean yeast I added dregs from various sharing bottles (including Gueze Boon, Yonder Trunk of Funk, Burning Sky Coolship, and a ton of different homebrews)
After 2 months, I soaked 60g of oak in 200ml port for a week, then added to the beer.
I bottled after around 8 months in the fermenter, and it started to really hit its stride after about 12-18 months in the bottle.
…………………………………….
We had a small meet up in July, but all the beers were marvelous! The challenge was takeaway and Nathan’s first up with an incredible Thai Gose!
Thai Green/Red Curry Gose by Nathan
I brought this beer along for the "take-out" challenge in July. I did not know about the challenge when I brewed it, but it definitely hit the brief! I made it because I wanted a savory sour beer that was different from anything I had drank before. I was going for everything that makes a Thai curry great: salty, spicy, sour and slightly sweet coco-nuttiness that pulls it all together.
In hindsight I would amp up the coconut, I thought I had plenty, but it only shows up on the nose. I would also use a little sabro next time to bring a hop/coconut aroma. I might even split the batch with some lactose to give a little sweetness. I also considered some fresh lime juice at bottling. All this planned for the version 2.0.
The recipe below yields a spicy beer, even if you leave out the chilies it will be spicy. My ratio gave a beer that is probably 7 out of 10 spiciness. I would also recommend bottling in 330ml bottles. 500ml is a lot to drink on your own.
The green curry one was more bright, the red one more pungent and earthy. Both are great and the tasters were split in their favorite.
Here is the recipe:
Batch size: 10L primary fermented, then split with adjuncts into 2 demijohns.
Water:
Tap (Pimlico), no adjustments.
Grains:
1400 Golden Promise
500g Maris Otter Pale Malt
150g Munich Malt
150g Flaked Oats
2200g Total
Mash: (8L H2O)
20min at 40C
20min at 50C
40min at 65C
40min at 70C
Sparge:
1.5L H2O at 70C
1.0L H2O at 70C
Approx. 10.5 L at start of boil
Boil #1:
No hops (in boil), no salt, no coriander
60min
Whirlpool:
60g re-used hops(strisselspalt, cascade, citra & simcoe)
I think this is about an equivalent of 5-10g of fresh pellets. I find that NEIPA dry-hopping is so excessive, so I try to re-use the hops for light bittering of other beers. This was hops from. JJULIUS clone I attempted. Don't overdo it with hops or the bacteria will not be happy.
Chill to 30C (approx. 10L wort)
OG=1.06
Infect with Lactobaccilus:
50ml of Lactic Acid to PH4
Pitch in (6) crushed chewable acidophilus tablets (Yes! Just do it, I even use my molcahete that has all sorts of spice residue in it!)
Seal your bucket or fermenter really well. Leave in a dark warm place for (6) days, if you have the patience and are willing to sacrifice some ABV go for 8 days. I have a closet in my flat where the central heating pipe enters. My closet is always about 30C
Open the fermenter and be amazed. PH3.5. If lower then even better. You can check the gravity here, but you are only going to deep dive into the rabbit hole FG and lactobacillus. The truth is the bacteria ate some of your fermentable sugars, but they gave you some acid in return. The beer is going to be 4-6% ABV.
Boil #2:
No boil, just skim off the lactobacillus culture with a sterilized mesh strainer. I often re-boiled my gose, but this time, I wanted to preserve the sour funkiness that had developed. So, I pitched the yeast directly into the soured wort.
Fermentation #1:
Yeast: Lallemand English Ale
Get a healthy starter, I pitched onto a yeast cake from a previous brew.
Ferment for one week. FG: 1.014
Fermentation #2:
Add adjuncts into two demijohns
Rack in beer (approx. 4.5L to each)
Give a good shake
Ferment for one week more.
Adjuncts into demijohn #1:
0.1% ( 4.5g) maldon sea salt
1.8g crushed coriander seeds
10g ground dried red thail chilies
4g kaffir lime leaf powder (spice mountain)
50g Mae Ploy GREEN Curry Paste
25g freshly toasted coconut flakes
Adjuncts into demijohn #2:
0.1% ( 4.5g) maldon sea salt
1.8g crushed coriander seeds
10g ground dried red thail chilies
4g kaffir lime leaf powder (spice mountain)
50g Mae Ploy RED Curry Paste
25g freshly toasted coconut flakes
Bottling:
Bottle and prime as you normally would. Wait two weeks and enjoy. Here are the actual dates of my brew:
Brewed and soured : 10 April 2023
Yeast pitched: 16 April 2023
Adjuncts and secondary 23 April 2023
Bottling:30 April 2023
Drank at WIB: 2 July 2023
Revisit at WIB: six months? One year?
If you give this a try, let me know. I'm interested to see how it turns out!!
………………………………………………….
Mike C brought in an excellent example of a dry stout, see the recipe below:
Dry Stout (EKG & Chinook)
Type: All Grain
IBU : 41 (Tinseth)
BU/GU : 0.93
Colour : 90 EBC
Carbonation : 2.4 CO2-vol
Pre-Boil Gravity : 1.039
Original Gravity : 1.044
Final Gravity : 1.011
Fermentables (3.96 kg)
2.81 kg - Extra Pale Maris Otter Malt 3.4 EBC
500 g - Flaked Torrified Barley 4 EBC (12.6%)
350 g - Roasted Barley 1180 EBC (8.8%)
300 g - Chocolate Malt 985 EBC (7.6%)
Hops (110 g)
60 min - 30 g - East Kent Goldings (EKG)
20 min - 30 g - East Kent Goldings (EKG)
10 min - 20 g - Chinook
Dry Hops
7 days - 30 g - Chinook - 11.4%
Miscellaneous
10 min - Boil - 1 items - Protafloc
Yeast
1 pkg - Fermentis SafAle English Ale S-04
Batch Size : 20 L
Boil Size : 24.88 L
Post-Boil Vol : 21.88 L
Mash Water : 12.21 L
Sparge Water : 15.48 L
Boil Time : 60 min
Total Water : 27.69 L
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72%
Mash Efficiency: 75.6%
Mash Profile
High fermentability
65 °C - 60 min - Mash
75 °C - 15 min - Batch sparge
Fermentation Profile
Ale
20 °C - 14 days - Primary
………………………………………………
Dan Braint brought in a great Pilsner, he’s shared the recipe with us below.
Pilsner Urquell
Batch Size : 23 L
Losses: 3l
Mash Water : 15.53 L
Sparge Water : 18.53 L
Boil Time : 90 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 90%
OG: 1.048
FG: 1.013
IBU: 34.2
Colour (SRM): 3.4
ABV: 4.67%
Fermentables:
Pilsner 3.5kg (78%)
Vienna 0.5kg (11%)
Carapils 0.23kg (5%)
Munich 0.23kg (5%)
Hops:
Saaz 40g 80 min
Saaz 30g 45 min
Saaz 30g 25 min
Yeast:
WLP800 Pilsner lager
Other:
Protafloc 15 min
Water Chemistry:
Gypsum 1.65g in mash, 1.97 in sparge
Sodium Bicarbonate 0.53g in mash, 0.63g in sparge
Calcium Chloride 2.42g in mash, 2.88g in sparge
Magnesium Sulphate 0.79g in mash, 0.94 in sparge
…………………………………………….
waterintobeer homebrew club takes place on the first Sunday of every month, starting at 2pm.