SW1 - English Bitter

The last English Bitter I made was from a can kit, and it tasted terrible. It is with this trepidation that I come to making my first extract bitter modeled on SW1.
SW1 is not a particularly complex beer - it has British Crystal malt as it's specialty grains and used East Kent Goldings as it's bittering, flavouring and aroma hops.

Gravity: 1.038 (Target 1.039 - 1.041). FG 1.012 (Target 1.009-1.010)

Yield: 19 litres (target 18.9 litres)

Brew method: Extract with US batch sparging for the specialty grains

Notes: Straight forward brew. I Might have put the aroma hops in for a minute longer than I should have but I'm hoping this won't affect the smell.

Lucknow IPA - Brewing notes

For me, the word Lucknow evokes the drama and bloodshed of the Siege of Lucknow during the Indian Mutiny of 1857. The Occupy! movement around the world has nothing on the Indian Rebellion where the native population of a country took it upon themselves to try and shrug off what amounted to government sponsored corporate control of an entire country and it's occupants. Imagine having your entire country run by a company whose only purpose was tow ring as much wealth out of you and your natural resources to send overseas? To say things were in a bad way is an understatement. This was colonialism at its most unsavory, and it took the brilliance of Gandhi before independence was finally achieved, ninety years later.

Reading the histories of the many wars across Queen Victoria's empire, and the comical recounting by the fictional Harry Flashman, it was the battles of the Indian Rebellion that stood out the most to me, much as did this beer when I was flicking through my book of recipes.

It's an American Indian Pale Ale heavily hopped with Cascade, one of the most popular American varietals. One of the more important reasons for choosing this ale was it gave me an opportunity to use the London Ale yeast I had reclaimed from my Indian Summer Pale Ale (is there a theme here?).

Chinook and Cascade bittering hops

After the sparge (using my homemade mini-mash tun)

The boil

Gravity: 1.062 (Target 1.059)

Yield: 20 litres (target 18.9 litres)

Brew method: Extract with US batch sparging for the specialty grains

Notes: This went surprisingly smoothly and my method of using large ice blocks when topping up the water in the fermenter means I can get down to temperature in about 30 minutes. The yeast starter (using the reclaimed London Ale yeast) hadn't really kicked off when I pitched it so I'm just going to hope that it was reactivated and all will be well. 


*Edit* Twelve hours later and I have a very healthy krausen forming on top of my wort. Looks like the yeast survived!

My only frustrations today was finding out that the Brew shop had left off 3 kg of light malt extract from my order so I was unable to put the Ginger ale on as planned.


*Edit* 6 Days later, fermenting activity has subsided so I'm now moving onto the dry hopping stage. This will add extra hop flavour and whole lot of hop aroma. 
To dry hop, you add the hop pellets to a secondary fermenter and then drain the primary fermenter right into the second. There is no need to worry about contamination at this stage as most of the fermentables (read "food for infections to grow on") have already been converted to alcohol, and the hops have antibacterial properties (hops were originally used in beers as a preservative which is why IPAs are heavily hopped - they required a highly level of hop oil to preserve the liquid for the long voyage on ships from England to the Indian subcontinent where they served to slake the thirst of the colonials).


The beer will stay in the secondary fermenter for 2-3 weeks till it clears further (meaning the sediment will settle out of suspension) and it will then be bottled in the regular way.

transferring the beer to the secondary fermenter

Wicked Elf Pale Ale

Wicked Elf Pale Ale is made in the American Style whose main point of distinction is the use of American hops for bittering and flavouring.

This is a nice ale, but nothing really stands out as remarkable. There is a subtle hint of caramel from the malt covered by the bitter pine flavours of the Cascade hops that lingers in the mouth. It pours with a lovely amber colour and a clear bright head.

It's nice, but not something I'll be revisiting anytime soon. For a better example of an American Pale Ale try the Matilda Bay Alpha Pale Ale.

Mountain Goat Organic Steam Ale

This is an organic Steam Ale - beers characterised by high effervescence and fermenting lager yeasts at higher temperatures than normal (lagers are usually fermented between 5 - 11 degrees).

My opinion is that it's a well made beer - but not one that I can really get into.

It pours with a bright yellow body and a thin head that quickly dissipates. The first smells are of the malt typical of commercial lagers however this is soon replaced by the instantly recognisable Galaxy hop aromas.

The flavour is dominated by the pineapple and passion fruit flavours of Galaxy followed by the malt that rides the high carbonation. I have to say, this is not a beer I'll likely buy again but it is a good example of a Steam ale. The Galaxy hops always make a beer that you feel should be drunk by the sea during a hot Australian Summer however, in my opinion, the Pacific Ale by Stone & Wood is a better example of Galaxy flavoured beer.

Reclaim the yeasts!

When you get down to it, home brewing is not just about making beer in your bathtub or garden shed. It’s about joining a clan of individuals, united by their desire to maintain the thousands year old art of turning water with a bit of grain slush into a potable (and potent) drink. Whether you join the ranks from a desire to save money on commercial beers or with a craftsman push for perfection, it doesn’t matter. You have joined a group who are bonded by the brewers craft and, as it turns out, a common language that appears to have been dreamt up after about 6 too many Scottish Heavy Ales.

What on earth do I mean and what does this have to do with yeast?

The other day was bottling day for my Indian Summer Pale Ale. As many brewers know, much of the quality in flavour comes from the yeast. The higher quality of yeast, the better it ferments out the sugars and the better it tastes. Unfortunately, this comes at a price. My local brews shop sells liquid yeasts at $15 a pop. This can be as much as a third of the cost towards making a beer. To make it a little more profitable, you can actually reclaim the yeast from your last beer to use again.

Now here is where the language of brewing starts to come into its own.

As your brew ferments out, you develop a layer of sludgy material in the bottom of your fermenter called the ‘trub’(see image). This is made up of expired yeast (yeast that has done all of its fermenting work and now has nothing to do), as well as fats and proteins that have settled out of the liquid. It is also referred to as a ‘yeast cake’ (possibly when it is no longer in liquid). No, it’s not like any cake you want to eat, it’s more like the stuff you find in that jar at the back of the fridge that might have had tuna mornay in it about 4 months ago.

My trub (or possibly yeast cake)

At this point, there are a couple of options for reusing the yeast. You can leave it there and pour the next batch of beer straight on top (the act of adding the yeast to beer is called ‘pitching’) or, ‘wash’ your yeast and store it in the fridge to be used again.

Washing yeast sounds about as productive as trying to clean dirt, but this is the terminology brewers use. It basically consists of taking sterilised water and adding it to the yeast cake to get the thick sludge into suspension. Transferring this suspended sludge to a large jar you let the sludge settle a little bit, at which point most of the heavier material will settle to the bottom (this is all the stuff you don’t want in your reclaimed yeast. You can then collect the ‘cleaner’ yeast of the top into sterilised jars and store them in the fridge.

Washed yeast

What do you do with it now? Well, I’ve read a number of different views. Some say you should only keep it for 5 days, others say you can keep it for up to 3 months. I’m going to attempt the later because frankly, I’m not brewing a new batch every few days. When it finally comes time to use it, you create a starter. This is where you add the yeast to warm sterilised water mixed with some sugar that the yeast will use to start multiplying with. If the yeast takes off, you’ve got a usable product for your home brew. If it fails to thrive – bin it.

One day later, I now have trub (that I created from my trub)

So what of rest of the brewing lexicon? We have worts, hops and grist. One indulges in a bit of mashing, sparging and racking. There is the krausen and the trub. We have to pay attention to the gravity, attenuation and our lag phase. Considering the science of brewing is called zymurgy, it’s not surprising that talking to home brewers is like a conversation with a drunk.