Jaggery Pale Ale

It's time to start experimenting! 


My new resolution is to move away from extract brewing, and to start brewing smaller batches of all grain beer. By brewing in smaller batches (11.4 litres which gives me 15 bottles) I can experiment more and have a higher turn over, hopefully developing a better sense for making beer.


This Jaggery Pale Ale is a recipe found in Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing which adds a twist to a classic pale ale recipe with the addition of jaggery and fenugreek.


Turns out, jaggery sugar, adds a maple flavour to the beer while the fenugreek enhances those tones in the final beer. It also has a lot of hops - 65g of East Kent Goldings in the flavouring boil which is approximately three times as much as I add to a brew twice the size. It will be interesting to see what it turns out like - I figure this would be a nice beer to accompany a curry!

Gravity: Original Gravity: 1.064 (target 1.076) Final Gravity: 1.010 ABV: 7.5% (target 6.5 - 7.3%)
Yield: 12 litres
Brew method: All-grain with US batch sparging.

Notes: Once again, my original gravity is off by almost ten points, which makes me think that possible my mash tun efficiency is quite low. The odd thing, is that I always seem to hit the ABV after fermentation. Go figure.

HobGoblin Extra Strong Ale - Tasting notes

I thought this day would never come! Whilst the rest of the calendar appears to disappear in the blink of an eye, the days before I can taste a new brew seem to drag infernally. So, it was with much excitement that I cracked the lid on a bottle of HobGoblin Extra Strong Ale, 4 weeks after sealing this magnificent beer away.

Method: All-grain

Specialty grains: British crystal malt, British chocolate malt, British black patent malt.

Hops: Fuggles (bittering), Styrian Goldings (flavour and aroma).

Yeast: Irish Ale (liquid)

Comments: As another all-grain brew, I found my initial gravity to be lower than expected, but surprisingly, it fermented out until I had achieved the required ABV.

ABV: 5.7% (the recipe suggests 5.5%).

Yield: 19 litres

Tasting notes: This was ready to drink after 4 weeks and pours with a quickly dissipating white head over a cloudy, dark orange body. The weak head isn't a problem as carbonation appears to be fine and allows the other flavours to take centre stage.

The roasted malts and yeast make up the bouquet; slightly spicy with light citrus notes.  The low bitterness caresses the mouth, giving just enough character to accompany the full mouth feel that finishes with a roast malt spiciness. The word cinnamon keeps springing to mind when I drink this beer, but I know that is incorrect. Possibly those of you have have a better tasting lexicon can help me out here?

What I learnt: Trying to describe beers is a difficult thing - just like wine, there is a range of expressions and description which are apt, but I constantly struggle to get past "it's just a really good beer".

Hobgoblin Extra Strong Ale

Hobgoblin and the other brews produced by Wychwood Brewery are among my favourite British beers, and so I was very excited to get my hands on a recipe for the beer characterised by the axe wielding goblin.

The Hobgoblin

This is my third all-grain brew and was a full day effort thanks to the many hiccups I had with my new three ring burner on the balcony (incorrectly sized connections). 

The guardian of the mash tun

The grain bed

My new burner

This beer takes a variety of specialty malts for the colour and Styrian Goldings for the flavour and aroma.

This batch uses reclaimed Irish ale yeast from my Amber Ale brew. I'm looking forward to tasting the result!

Gravity: 1.050 (Target 1.059). FG 1.010 (target 1.016) ABV 5.7% (target 5.5%)

Yield: 19 litres (target 18.9 litres)

Brew method: All-grain with US batch sparging.

Notes:My final gravity was off quite a bit, but I'm hoping that I can reclaim the ABV during fermentation (my last all-grain batch ended up .010 lower than the predicated gravity). I'm unsure as the cause to this. On the recommendation of a couple of fellow beer lovers, brewers and chemists, I compensated for liquid lost during the boil by adding water near the end. It could be either this or inefficiency in my sparging. 

Indian Summer Pale Ale - Tasting notes

Method: All-grain

Specialty grains: US crystal malt.

Hops: Northern Brewer (bittering), Cascade and Williamette (flavour and aroma).

Yeast: London Ale (liquid)

Comments: This beer fermented much further than the recipe suggested it would which is why I ended up with a much higher ABV. I have yet to work out why this happened.

ABV: 6.2% (the recipe suggests 5.0%).

Yield: 16.5 litres

Tasting notes: This was ready to drink after 4 weeks and is a very refreshing brew.

It pours with a white frothy head made from large bubbles over a cloudy pale amber beer. The hops are very noticeable in this brew with hints of stone fruit and a melon finish. Well carbonated after five weeks with a medium body.

This is a beer designed to be drunk in a pub accompanied with pub food - imagine a plate of thick cut chips with aoli and serving of lemon pepper calamari.

What I learnt: This was my first all-grain brew that was done properly. It makes a complex and satisfying beer. The only downside of all grain to extract brewing would be all the additional equipment required and additional hours you need for sparging and cooling. It really does make you feel a little wasteful using a wort chiller to get the temperature down however, I can see no other way, something that hasn't been an issue with my extract brews (where I use bricks of ice to bring down the temperature). 

Would I make this again? Maybe, but probably not. It's a complex beer and you could only manage one or two at a stretch before it began to labour on you. There are plenty of other Pale Ales out there to try before I come back to this recipe.

Paulaner Heffe-Weissbier

This was a commissioned beer, and my first all-grain brewing attempt. I did many things wrong; I went for cheaper ingredients, forgot to sparge (the horror), diluted the wort afterwards as if it was an extract brew, and finally I am tasting it very early (barely 3 weeks in the bottle). The surprising thing is that I still have an enjoyable thirst-quenching drink, which to me is vindication of all-grain homebrewing; as long as you adhere to good sanitation practices, it's very hard to make an undrinkable beer.


Of course when it comes to homebrew can kits, it's a whole other story (that stuff is just nasty).


This is a classic wheat beer (as the name suggests) modeled after the Paulaner recipe. The total cost for ingredients came out at about 40 AUD, largely as there is only one hop variety used and I chose to go for a dried wheat beer yeast rather than a liquid one.

Method: All-grain

Specialty grains: German dark Munich malt.

Hops: German Hallertau Hersbrucker.

Additional: None.

Yeast: Wheat beer (dried)

Comments: I added finings to clear the beer in the primary fermenter and bottled with carbonation drops after a week and a half.

ABV: 4% (the recipe suggests 5.4%).

Yield: 19 litres

Tasting notes: I'm drinking this early so the flavours will mature in the next two to three weeks when it is primed for tasting. There is no hop aroma as the Hallertau is only used for bittering so what you get is the lovely wheat malt smell right out of the bottle. It pours with a lovely light straw colour and a white head made of large bubbles that quickly dissipates (they will refine a little more as it ages and as the carbonation improves in the bottle, so will head retention). The flavour is of a wheat beer that has decided it wants to see what life is like as a lager. You expect a little bit more body but it isn't there, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. My home brewing error has created a beer that will be perfect for the event it has been brewed for (an all day poker tournament with a German food theme). I like this beer. It's a hot day and this had turned out to be a very refreshing drop. Definitely a beer I will brew again, if only to see what it tastes like when you make it properly.

What I learnt: 

1. Sparging is an important step that should not be left out of all-grain brewing.

2. Read the bloody instructions you fool!

Indian Summer Pale Ale - Brewing notes

Today I started an all-grain brew with an Indian Pale Ale. One thing I hadn't realised when I bought my slightly bigger brew pot (24 litres) is how much liquid one loses when boiling for an hour. In hindsight I could have done with a 30 litre pot in order to get the 18.9 litres recommended by the recipe by the end of the boil. We live and learn I guess. One day I'll cave and buy a 30 litre but until then I'll resign myself to the fact I'll be making smaller brews (or adding some DME to increase the gravity and topping up with water once it's in the fermenter). I have yet to work out if this changes any of the characteristics of the beer but I'll be sure to let you know if it does.

Pale Malt is the grain of choice to add body, and Crystal malt for flavour. This IPA uses a number of hops to give it a long finish and citrusy body. On show are Williamette, Cascade and Northern Brewer (instead of Chinook).

Unlike my first attempt at all grain - I calculated the mash and sparge water correctly and collected about 22-23 litres for the brewpot. I lost almost 7 litres over the hour of boil.

Flavouring hops and Irish Moss
waiting to go in during the last 15 minutes

The boil

Cooling the wort with my home made
chiller

London Ale Yeast

Gravity: 1.048 (Target 1.052-1.054). Final gravity 1.004 (doesn't seem right! target is 1.014)

Yield: 16.5 litres (target 18.9 litres)

Sparge method: US batch sparging

Notes: The lower gravity may be due to inefficiency in my mash and sparge. The recipe assumes 70% efficiency however, I do not have the patience for continuous sparging so I will stick with batch sparging. By my incredibly dodgy calculations, I estimate that I am at 65% efficiency.