Brupacks Colne Valley – Tasting

After all the hard work getting the Lion’s Pride brewing, I was thirsty and the hoppy malty smells told me I had earned a beer. I brought in a selection from the garage, the first being the Brupacks Colne Valley. I poured out a pint and it was pleasently gassy forming a good creamy head. The first taste was slightly bitter but subsequent mouthfuls were nicely balanced, starting off a little sweet gradually drying out as it slipped down the neck. I found this beer very refreshing and has been the best beer I’ve drank all weekend, after having a couple of pints of Bombadier and a pint of Ringwood FortyNiner yesterday.
This is really the first time I have actually drank the beer while blogging allowing me to give a decent description. I think I will continue this from now on and also give a home brew rating so I can see which beers I liked the most. So for the first rating (out of 5)
Brupacks Colne Valley homebrew rating:

Milestone Lion’s Pride

As the weather starts getting hotter and the thought of summer is in my mind, I decided to start some lighter ales aka session beers.

Milestone kits are made 6 miles down the Great North Road in Newark-on-Trent. The London Pride is described as “A well balanced copper coloured session ale“. The kit contains 2 tins of wort and a foil bag of yeast. I re-hydrated the yeast, which I haven’t done before but it was mentioned in the instructions, this should give the yeast a head start and prevent a weak fermentation. This involved dissolving the dried yeast in some warm water, leaving for 10 minutes then adding a teaspoon of sugar, covering and waiting another 10 minutes. By this time the yeast was bubbling away and ready to pitch to the wort.
To try and improve the intensity of my beers I have purchased some Brupacks FlavaPaks.
“Improves flavour and aroma of ALL ale kits, e.g. Bitter, Stout, Mild etc. Contains fresh hops and grains in special porous bags. Just place bags in a jug or saucepan and cover with boiling water. After 30 minutes add the liquid to the fermenter.“

I followed the instructions and the smell from the bags really did make my kitchen smell like a brewery.
Apart from rehydrating the yeast and using the flavapak the rest of the process was the same as all other kits: sterilise the fermenting bucket, heat the wort and add it to the bucket, add boiling water and dissolve the wort, fill the bucket with cold water, add the flavapak and the yeast, stir and cover.

Edme Superbrew Gold Weizen – Bottling

End Gravity: 1.008
If anyone knew about these syphoning clips that clip onto the side of the brewing bucket and keep the tube in place whilst filling bottles they didn’t tell me. In any case I discovered it myself and oh my god it makes things so much easier.
This time round as I am starting to run low on bottles (I currently have 4 separate types of beer in the garage and all of them are good to drink) I used the plastic 1000ml bottles. This made things a bit easier as there are half the number of bottles and they are screw cap instead of crown cap. I flew through the bottling process adding a little less than a teaspoon of sugar to each bottle. I have put them in my normal warm spot next to the heating pipes in the living room.

Initial thoughts on taste, I only got a small taste when sucking through the syphoning tube but it seemed a little weak in flavour and body. Hopefully some time in the bottles with a little extra sugar will boost the flavour a little, it should be refreshing on a hot day though.

Parsnip Wine – Bottling/Tasting

Another straight forward bottling session. Normally I put the bottles on my vegetable rack, but I had them on the floor today and that extra distance sped the process up no end. I got almost 12 bottles, which is annoying as it means I have 1 bottle which is only 2/3 full. However it does mean that I can drink it straight away. The parsnip wine is surprisingly clear and has very little colour, it is however incredibly sweet. I’m not sure whether this is intended from the recipe I followed but it much sweeter than I would normally drink. It works well as a dessert wine though.

Edme Superbrew Gold Weizen

I set this kit a brewing, it needed a couple of bags of sugar dissolved with the wort but otherwise simple instructions. With a bit of warmer weather hopefully this will reach the 1.010 I have been looking for the last few months.
I am getting behind with my posts recently. I seem to be doing bits and pieces here and there, none of which seem to deserve a post. I guess now I have got into a routine each set of brewing and bottling seems the same. I tend not to measure everything I probably should and sometimes don’t sterilize when I know I should but all the beers turn out well. I have to admit that most the time it doesn’t seem worth the effort of sterilizing 40 odd bottles when a quick rinse doesn’t seem to have any ill effects. I’m sure one day this poor maintenance will result in a bad batch but for the amount of time it saves I’m willing to go with it for the time being.

Sherwood IPA – Bottling

As I needed the brewing bucket for the wine I had to bottle the IPA. The hydrometer showed a reading of 1.012 just short of the expected 1.010 but it hadn’t changed in a few days. I fashioned a support for the syphoning tube using string tied to the handles of the bucket and this held it in place for the duration. For this batch I used green caps (which is important to note down in case I end up with so many different beers I can’t remember which is which – In my dreams!).

White Grape and Cranberry wine

I visted my parents at the weekend and was lucky to sample some of my Dad’s homebrew. This particular wine was white grape and cranberry and although sweet went well with the meal and also afterwards. When I asked for the recipe an old text book was produced with pages of hand written recipes. This was a log of all the wines he had brewed from 1968. Here’s the recipe for 10 gallons:

2 litres white grape juice
1 litre cranberry juice
7 gallons water
12lb sugar
yeast
1.5lb raisins

Our local supermarket didn’t have straight white grape juice so I used white grape and peach which was all they had. I also added yeast nutrient.
I didn’t have a large enough brewing bucket to do the full 10 gallons so I halved the quantity and used my 5 gallon beer brewing bucket.

Parsnip Wine

I got round to racking and adding finings to the wine last friday. Here is what it looked like before I added the finings, what a difference from the last photo!

Sherwood IPA

I started this off straight after bottling the stout. It’s a standard kit with 2 tins of wort, but it did include a small plastic bag of hop pellets. It gave 2 different ways of using them:
1. Boil them with some wort for 15 mins before adding – to add bitterness
2. Add them to the beer after 3 days – to add hop flavour without the bitterness.
I was limited on time so opted for option 2, which meant leaving the hops on the side for a couple of days. I have started getting forgetful recently with so many different beers and wines on the go, so I better keep the hops in sight for the next couple of days.

John Bull Masterclass Irish Stout – Bottling

What a huge job sterilising 40 odd bottles is! I mixed up some sterilising solution and filled 8 bottles. After about 5 mins I poured the solution into another 8 bottles and rinsed the first 8 out with cold water. I continued this technique until I had sterilised all the bottles. I then piled the bottles in the draining rack to dry.

Gravity was 1012 which is just borderline for bottling. I primed all the bottles and started filling them. The siphon flipped out of the barrel, not for the first time. I have previously used cellotape and hairclips but have never found a decent solution. The best I have found so far is my girlfriend Kerrie. So she stood there holding the tube in plae while I filled the bottles. This worked beautifully but is not a technique I will be able to use too often. If anyone has any suggestions I’d love to hear them.
Capped all 43 bottles with gold caps and stored in living room in the normal spot next to the hot water pipes.