Disaster and great things

February 1, 2010
It has been a time of highs and lows. The Saisons succumbed to an infection. I still don't know what it is but temperarture control appears to be the main player. But the new brewery is working well. A Kolsch and an Alt have gone down and the Kolsch has been kegged ready to try.

The brewery has had an addition, a chest freezer that will be converted to hold a couple of kegs at ideal serving temperature. This is particularly exciting. It means the kegs can stay cold while the old fridge gets used solely for controlling the fermentation temperature.

There are a number of brews ready to be trialled over the next few weeks but my brewing has had to take a back seat to life in general. With a bit of focus the brewery will be back producing more beer again soon. 

Posted by Jared Birbeck.

 

The new brewery

January 4, 2010
The new brewery is up and finished. I will post pictures as soon as I can. It has already had a couple of runs and it works well. Three tier gravity fed system with plenty of opportunity for an upgrade to include HERMS or RIMS functionality. Maybe sometime later.

Two Saisons have also gone down, both on the new system. The weather has been warm without being extreme so keeping the temps up have been difficult. The first Saison is a traditional type Saison using the Belgian Saison yeast from Wy...
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Posted by Jared Birbeck.

 

Summer of Saaz and Wheat

November 30, 2009
The two next test beers are done. Summer of Saaz, a simple recipe of ale malt and a touch of wheat is now in secondary and tasting great and the Aussie Wheat is now in the bottle. It was tasting good when it got racked just before bottling. Hopefully it continues to do so. There was a hint of something on the nose when I tipped the yeast out from secondary. Stupidly I didn't taste at the time.

Neither of those beers got test yeasts in them, the focus was on getting the beers easy to drink for ...
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Posted by Jared Birbeck.

 

Disaster...

November 23, 2009
The test beer with the various yeasts turned out to be a disaster. I am sure because of my continuing wild yeast problems. Fermentation temperatures were around the 26 mark which is well within the range for the chosen yeasts. But they all suffered from serious banana aromas and taste. Due to delays in getting yeast and fermenters in place I fear fermentation started thanks to wild yeast stuffing the whole batch. I'll do another trial later but on the weekend the Aussie Wheat got a run as wel...
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Posted by Jared Birbeck.

 

New hops

November 9, 2009
I have just received a few new hops in the mail for testing. The first is a new Australian variety, Summer Saaz. This will go into a small test batch to test the flavour in the same way I tested Topaz. If it is half as good as the other new Australian varieties I have tried, Galaxy and Topaz, then I'll be very happy.

The other variety I picked up was Millennium. From all all reports this make a great bittering hop and thats about it. the flavour and aroma properties are not strong enough to co...
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Posted by Jared Birbeck.

 

It has begun

November 8, 2009
The test beer got started on Sunday. 42 litres of wort into the main fermenter awaiting some smaller fermentation vessels for the test. The starters for the Proculture Belgian Golden Ale, Wyeast Ardennes, Wyeast Biere De Garde are set and a few litres have been put aside for Ringwood ale yeast as a 'test' batch without too much yeast flavour, and 5 litres for a lambic blend. The lambic was a last minute decision. The yeast blend pack was originally purchased to 'fix' a problem ferment on the ...
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Posted by Jared Birbeck.

 

Testing times

November 5, 2009
Well the temperature here in Adelaide is expected to push up into the high 30's by easrly next week with over night temp's around 20 degrees. Seems like it could be the perfect time to do a test batch on a series of yeasts with higher temp tolerance to see if I can still get a crisp, tasty easy drinking beer. Plan is for a large single batche split into 4 smaller batches using different yeasts (biere de garde, saison, ardennes and golden ale - all Belgian).

65% Pale Malt
17.5% Vienna
17.5% Munic...
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Posted by Jared Birbeck.

 

Infection update and some great beer

November 3, 2009
I'm getting confused now. There is no doubt that the first Australian ale of the summer has gone awry, but it may not be the same infection I've had. There are some similarities, but I tasted it again and its very easy to drink. I'm thinking it may be a fermentation problem rather than an infection. The temperature on this raced a little. I pitched around 22 degrees, a little high to begin with and then there were a few hot days. As a result I think fermentation has been affected by the tempe...
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Posted by Jared Birbeck.

 

Infection

October 28, 2009
Infection stikes again, this time my first Australian ale of the season. This infection seems to taste a lot like a traditional wheat beer might. I've got a wild wheat infection. I'll let this one go and see if it works with the Australian hops Galaxy, Topaz and Pride of Ringwood but I expect I'll be tipping it.

Meanwhile the non Australian beers on the go are all fine. Typical.

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Posted by Jared Birbeck.

 

Progress on the Brewery

October 7, 2009
The pots have been purchased and the design selected. The build should start soon. Hopefully pictures will come along to show how it is progressing. It's all happening.

Other news - competition results are back and there are two third placings in one competition and another in the second competition. A good result considering some of the beers were infected. Not very Australian but my Traditional Bock scored well with a third place in both competitions. It now goes into the nationals.

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Posted by Jared Birbeck.

 
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