Categories
Recipe

Black Dog – Schwarzbier

Beer Name: Black Dog – Schwarzbier 
    Date 03 October 2014
Brew Length 23 Original Gravity 1050 EBU 25
Efficiency (%) 75 Racking Gravity 1012 ABV 4.8%
  Grains/Adjuncts Weight (kg) 100% 75% Sugars
Pale Malt 2.400 31.30 23.48 47.3%
Munich Malt 2.000 26.09 19.57 39.4%
Carafa Special III 0.250 2.93 2.20 4.4%
Crystal Malt 0.250 2.91 2.18 4.4%
Malted Wheat 0.250 2.91 2.18 4.4%
Total for Grain 5.150 1066.15 1049.61
Racking 1012.40
  Copper Hops        
  Hop Schedule Amount (g) %AA BU
Hersbrucker Start 60 2.9 20.43
20.43
Aroma Hops
Hop Schedule Amount (g) %AA BU
Hersbrucker 15 mins 20 2.9 3.03
Hersbrucker 5 mins 20 2.9 1.26
4.29
Clarifying Amount (g) Schedule
Protofloc 1 tablet 15 mins
Yeast Saflager s23 x 2
Mash Time 120mins Strike Temperature 74
Boil Time 60mins Mash Temperature 66
     
Batch Sparge Calculation  
Loss to Hops 3 Top Up Liquor 5.665
Dead Space 1 Second Batch 18.54
Evaporation 15.00% Total Sparge Liquor 24.205
Mash Liquor 12.875 Total Liquor 37.08
Summary  
How Much wort collected (after boil and runoff)   24
Gravity of Collected Wort   1050
Amount of water to add to achieve required gravity 0.19
Total Figures 24.19 litres @ 1050
Calculated Efficiency 78.87%
FG 1013 Actual ABV 4.76%

by Calum Craigie

Categories
Events General

5th March 2014 – Bring and taste – Edinburgh

Wednesday 5th March – Bring and taste

Location:The Brwestore

Categories
Events General

Pub crawl of good beer bars

Saturday 1st February 19:30 – Pub crawl of good beer bars, starting at Cloisters – Edinburgh. Moving on to the Hanging Bat, Blue Blazer, Bow Bar.

Categories
General

Review – Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation

yeastI was really quite excited when Calum told me about this new book by Chris White (of White Labs) and Jamil Zainasheff (of The Brewing Network). Those of you who know me from the Edinburgh meetings will know that I’m really enthusiastic about yeast (even for a brewer), so as soon as I heard about it, I had to buy it. I’m pleased to say that I was not disappointed, but before you all run out and buy copies, you might want to read this review first…

Categories
Articles

Skipton update

The Scottish Craft Brewers had a small but successful visit to the National Craft Brewing festival at the Copper Dragon Brewery in Skipton on Saturday 18th September.

The event was organised by the Northern Craft Brewers who were rekindling the event after a break last year. Steve Taylor, the owner of the Copper Dragon Brewery and founder of the Northern Craft Brewers, has kindly offered to host the event at his state of the art brewery in North Yorkshire so the NCB had grabbed opportunity with enthusiasm and laid on a memorable event. This turned out to be perfect as the festival was able to spread out across an enormous warehouse which had plenty of space for the entrants, visitors and also the retail partners who supported the event.

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General

Batch Prime your Bottling

I was bottling last week so thought I would throw together an article on how I perform it as some questions do come up from time to time. The process that I am going to describe is what I use for bottling. I am not advocating that this is “the” way to bottle but simply “a” way that might give some brewers some thoughts on how to improve their own results. However, if you have a competely different process or perhaps made a piece of equipment to help then please tell us about it.

Categories
General

10 Tips for Successful Fermentation

  1. fermentorUse the freshest yeast possible.
    • Yeast is sensitive to temperature extremes and light.
    • Keep refrigerated and use within 30 days of manufacture.
  2. Culture up yeast if not at peak freshness.
    • If over 1 month rejuvenate with SG1.020-1.025 half litre starter, cooled to 75°F before pitching.
  3. Use sufficient quantities.
Categories
General

Sterile Techniques

The elimination of contamination is the most important factor in brewing; the one a brewer cannot afford to get wrong.

No matter how good the recipe, how efficient the mashing, how high the quality of ingredients, if the brew is contaminated it’s all for nothing. Poor sterile technique is the one factor that can undermine all the others and ruin a lot of hard work. The only microorganism in your beer should be the fermenting yeast. If only this were always so.

 

WHAT IS CONTAMINATION?

May sound obvious, after all, we know when a pint is off, but I believe that contamination can be quite insidious. What about lower levels of contaminants that, while not sufficient to be seen as such, are manifested as a taste that lacks the ‘usual flavour’, or is an ‘average pint’, or ‘nothing special?’ Its easy to put it down to a poor mash or recipe, but it might also be that some contamination got in between sterilising and using the fermenter bin, or before a vigorous fermentation got going – especially if there was a long cooling period, and was the wort boiled soon after mashing? Boiling may destroy any contaminants, but even dead bacteria and the compounds they produced while the wort was sitting at cool temperatures, might still taint the brew.