Ball valves seem to be a more permanent solution and relatively cheap. Using a brass hollowed out tank-connector, 15mm copper pipe and a compression fitting ball valve I fixed up the boiler which connects to the hop strainer perfectly.

The brewery is now ready for action and will get brought out of winter hibernation for a brew on Saturday or Sunday. I’m also planning on sanitising all brewery equipment after two batches have gone down the drain recently due to a dodgy fermenting vessel.

So after a two month lull, let’s brew some beer!

This is the second time I’ve brewed this lovely single hop, golden ale recipe which was based on Wez’s Thirst Gold. I’ve named it Gold Rush.

Badger Brewery’s First Gold is a fine example of a commercial beer equivalent.

Mashed at 65 degrees C for 90 minutes, based on 70% brewhouse efficiency, boiled for 120 minutes. 23L, OG 1.050.

Grain Bill

5.00kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter
0.15kg Crystal Malt, 60L

Hop Schedule

20g First Gold 7.5% FWH – 120 min
50g First Gold 7.5% – 15 mins
50g First Gold 7.5% – 80 degree flame-out

I’ve purchased a Prima Donna/First Gold hop rhizome from Essentially Hops to plant this year. I’m hoping to harvest enough in the first year to brew with – I’ve decided where the hops will go in the garden, which will trail along the side fence nicely. Stay tuned for pics when the rhizome arrives.

Thames Valley Porter - 6%

Thames Valley Porter Tasting Notes

A strong 6% winter warmer with dark malty notes of coffee & chocolate. Brewed with neutral-tasting Northdown hops to help balance bitterness against the residual sweetness.

Leave to settle for a couple of days and serve cool, a few degrees below room temperature. Pair it with a hearty steak pie.

From Wikipedia/Porter_(beer):

Porter is a dark-coloured style of beer. The history and development of stout and porter are intertwined. The name was first used in the 18th century from its popularity with the street and river porters of London. It is generally brewed with dark malts. The name “stout” for a dark beer came about because a strong porter may be called “Extra Porter” or “Double Porter” or “Stout Porter”. The term “Stout Porter” would later be shortened to just “Stout”.

Windsor Ale

Lovely colour considering it’s only pale malt and a touch of honey with the hops. A fair bit of kettle caramelisation going on there.

I haven’t based the recipe on any other, just looked around at a load of different porter recipes and concocted something to match what I had in stock. I bottled & kegged it today and having had a few cheeky samples it tastes amazing. Chocolatey with coffee undertones – thick silky head and a nice dark brown colour. Mine fermented down to 1.014 which is bang on 6% – perfect for xmas!

I’ve named it TVP because I only treated my Thames Valley water with 1/2 a campden tablet. My previous stout had too harsh roast flavours due to me treating the water like I would with a paler ale and my understanding is that harder water is better for darker malty beers.

Based on 70% efficiency:

OG: 1.060
IBU: 45

5.35 Kg Maris Otter Pale Malt
0.60 Kg Crystal Malt 60L
0.25 Kg Amber Malt
0.12 Kg Black Patent Malt
0.10 Kg Chocolate Malt

45g Northdown (7.9%) @ 90 minutes
10g Northdown (7.9%) @ 15 minutes

Yeast: Nottingham x 2 packets

I’ll be leaving it 7 weeks to mature, in time for xmas.

It’s a simple recipe with a long three hour mash & a reasonably long maturation period of six to eight weeks. This will hopefully be my Christmas ale.

Click the link for some photos and recipe info.

Windsor Ale 1.063

6.8kg Maris Otter Pale Malt
120g Fuggles (4.7% AA) @ 120 minutes
100g Honey (in the fermenter)

Mashed for three hours at 66 degrees, boiled for two hours. Pitched with 2 x Nottingham yeast for slightly higher attenuation.

I’ll be priming the bottles with honey to maintain the honey aroma which can be driven off during fermentation.

I had a few issues with the Nottingham yeast trying to climb out the fermenter – I’ve never seen so much yeast activity like this before!

Windsor Ale, Nottingham Yeast Explosion

The aroma that’s filled the house is lovely – a nice yeasty/honey smell.

The gravity’s come down to 1.010 already which is perfect. I’ll be priming the bottles with honey and leaving until Christmas (ok there might be a few quality control samples before then!).

Before the brew I insulated my HLT with camping mats to get a better efficiency when heating up strike/sparge water. It’s definitely made a big difference to how long it takes to get water up to temperature. It doesn’t look pretty and it’s not shiny but it does it’s job well! The addition of the calibrated sight glass has also helped ease calculating volumes correctly.

Insulated Hot Liquor Tank

I have a number of areas that I need to improve before I start looking at shiny items to replace the current plastic bits:

1. The element power connectors on my boiler are unshrouded and are an electrical hazard.
2. I’m not happy about having to move 25 litres of boiling wort when I need to use my immersion chiller. A pump would solve this.
3. My IC isn’t connected up very well and I’ve often spilt cooler water into the brew.
4. I need more cornelius kegs!
5. I’d like to start using liquid yeasts and need to develop a good technique of splitting and storing them.
6. My counter pressure bottle filler needs a bit of work.

MAY WE SPEND THE WHOLE DAY SHOUTING AT EACH OTHER.

• 8cm circular
• Adhesive that’s peelable, so the labels are easy to remove
• Semi gloss finish that’s printable on
• Waterproof ink

I now have 1,500 labels which I can run through the printers downstairs in the warehouse. My first design attempt was for the Guinness clone which we’ve called McCullough (after an Irish gent at work):

McCullough Irish Stout

Keeping with a similar format I’ve designed two more labels for recent beers:

Gold Rush (Golden Ale)

St Austell's Tribute

Click the link below to see parts/construction details:

I’ve done 10 bottles of McCullough stout with it so far and it’s worked very well. There’s little foaming when bottling and carbonation of the beer keeps well.

Parts & Construction

2 x 1/4″ BSPT x 3/8″ John Guest push-fit connector – PI011202S – £3.00
2 x 1/4″ BSP TF, Full Bore Ball Valve, Gas, Lever Handle – 6121- £6.20
3 x 1/4″ Stainless Steel Nipple, BSP MALE – 14460 -  £14.02
1 x 10 mm Compression x 1/4″ BSP, Straight Adapter – 6647 -  £1.26
1 x 1/4″ BSP Female, Equal Tee, 316 Stainless Steel – 14305 – £1.46
1 x 12″ length of 10mm stainless steel, acrylic, brass or copper tubing (I used acrylic) – £1.10
1 x Bottle bung/cork with bored hole – £0.20
1 x Roll of PTFE tape – £0.14

Total cost: £27.38 (Excl. delivery charges)

Very simple to construct, just ensure you wrap PTFE tape around all the threads. Thread the three nipples into the equal tee and thread the ball valves on each end. Put the compression fitting on to the bottom of the tee and fit the olive around your 1/4″ tubing and thread the compression nut on.

Stick the JG fittings on each ball valve and push the bung up as high as the height of your bottles. Put it in an empty bottle, connect up your CO2 source and ensure you’ve got a gas-tight seal everywhere.

Operation

1. Sanitise and then chill all bottles, caps, bottle filler and beer line
2. Close both ball valves.
3. Fit the bottle filler into a bottle
4. Connect your CO2 source to one JG fitting, your beer line to the other. Set your CO2 regulator to 2-4 PSI.
5. Open the CO2 valve to pressurise the bottle. Work the bung to allow the oxygen to escape and flush the bottle
6. Allow the bottle to pressurise again and close the CO2 valve.
7. Open the beer valve and work the bung to allow some pressure to release – beer should flow.
8. When the bottle’s full, close the beer valve and carefully remove the filler
9. Cap!

Future Improvements

Instead of working the bung to release the pressure, I’d like a second tee that would allow a needle valve to be used to release the pressure like this drawing. Having a few problems getting the right parts though.

• Brewing ‘Gold Rush’
• Racking ‘Tribute’
• Counter Pressure Bottle Filler plans

Gold Rush (First Gold single hop beer)

Gold Rush is my second single-hop beer (the first being East Kent Goldings based which was fantastic). Brewing single hop beers is an attempt to get to know the different hop varieties better.

The Gold Rush was transferred from fermenting vessel to cornelius keg at a final gravity of 1.010. Having got fed up with chill haze I’ve resorted to using Polyclar as finings in the keg. I’ll be bottling a dozen bottles of this for friends/family once the counter-pressure bottle filler is built.

St. Austell’s Tribute

My last attempt at Tribute failed miserably as my IC decided to leak into the brew which created really off flavours in the FV – it was the first beer I’ve had to dispose of. This Tribute brew went much smoother and was pitched onto the yeast cake of the Gold Rush. The S04 yeast created a massive head within an hour of pitching.

The recipe I devised for this, based on research & info on the bottles:

For 23l @ 70% efficiency, OG: 1046

4kg Maris Otter Malt
1kg Munich Malt (Their quoted ‘Cornish Gold’ malt is actually Munich)

10 IBU Fuggles 90 min
12 IBU Williamette 90 min
4 IBU Fuggles 15 min
5 IBU Williamette 15 min

Handful of Styrian Goldings at flame out/80 degrees

A dozen bottles of this will also be filled using the CP filler, once built.

Counter-Pressure Bottle Filler

My attempts to follow American-based tutorials for building a counter pressure filler haven’t been very successful for two reasons: 1) all the sizes/threads are quoted in American standards and b) I don’t fully understand all the different plumbing terms used.

However a plumber friend will be assisting me in purchasing the remaining equipment and I’ll get this finally built.

Three weeks ago I bottled half of the McCullough stout and put the other half in a 2 gallon keg. I plan to bottle the kegged McCullough to compare the difference between bottle and cask conditioned beer.

Once the CP filler is built I’ll be posting a parts list/instructions for use.

Ascot Beer Festival

Not quite brewery related, but on Saturday I attended the Ascot Beer Festival. The idea was to look through the tasting notes and circle the beers I wanted to try. That didn’t work very well since quite a few had already sold out from the Friday. However my favourite beer was Hop Back’s Thunderstorm – “brewed with malt, wheat and maize, this soft, pale, lightly-hopped beer is packed with orangey and grapefruity flavours.”

I didn’t win on the horses but I was mainly there for the beer – it was a great day out and gorgeous weather!