6.166 kg Pale Malt – Mungoswells
0.200 kg Cara-Pils/Dextrine
12.00 g Citra [12.00 %] – Boil 60.0 min
14.00 g Citra [12.00 %] – Boil 15.0 min
12.00 g Cascade [8.00 %] – Boil 15.0 min
12.00 g Citra [12.00 %] – Steep/Whirlpool
10.00 g Cascade [6.00 %] – Steep/Whirlpool
1.0 pkg California Ale (White Labs #WLP001)
40.00 g Cascade [8.00 %] – Dry Hop 5.0 Days
30.00 g Simcoe [13.00 %] – Dry Hop 5.0 Days
20.00 g Citra [12.00 %] – Dry Hop 5.0 Days
Malcolm Cruickshanks’ Gold Medal Winning recipe for English IPA
Boil Size: 27l
Post Boil Vol:24l
Batch Size (Fermenter):23l
Estimated OG: 1.060
Estimated Colour:7.7 SRM
Estimated IBU:57.8 IBU
Boil Time: 60 min
6kg pale
200g crystal (Medium)
Recirculating Mash 1hr at 65 c with 13.9 l
Sparge to 27 l
60 min Boil
70g challenger at start
35g EKG for 15
Tsp Irish moss for 15
35g EKG at flame out 15 min rest
Safale S-04 at 18c for 2 weeks.
Bottle conditioned at around 12/upwards of 18 for 3-4 weeks.
32.00 g PH 5.2 Stabilizer (Mash 60.0 mins)
4.00 kg Pale Malt (2 Row)
0.65 kg Munich Malt
0.25 kg Barley, Flaked
0.18 kg Crystal, Dark
0.09 kg Crystal, Extra Dark
30.00 g Magnum [10.00 %] – Boil 60.0 min
1.00 tsp Yeast Nutrient (Boil 15.0 mins)
1.50 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins)
23.00 g East Kent Goldings (EKG) [5.00 %] – Boil Hop
40.00 g East Kent Goldings (EKG) [5.00 %] – Boil Hop
1.0 pkg SafAle English Ale
Winner: James Collin “80/-”
2nd: Gordon Nicol “Repatriation”
3rd: Malcolm Cruickshank “80/-”
Overall
Champion: James Collin “APA” APA
Runner Up: Andrew Hannon “Unlike the Murphy’s…” English Bitter
Third Place: Russell Harrison “American IPA”
Peoples Choice (2017 it’s English Porter)
Winner: Andrew Hannon “Even Sinisterer”
Congratulations to all!
!
A massive thanks goes to Sean and the staff at the Goth pub and Kentwood brewing for his assistance and to James Dempsey at Eyeball brewing for the prizes.
Our September meeting is rapidly approaching! We will meet at Elgin House, Easter Rd, Edinburgh EH7 5RG on Sunday 25th September 10:30 for an 11 a.m. start.
The agenda this month is:
– Gordon (Nicol) will talk about the ERASMUS exchange trip to Franconia.
– Bring your beers for a “Last Days of Summer” beauty contest – win some beer related goodies!
– Bring your problem beers and see if we can work out what’s gone wrong.
– Discuss what you’d like to do for our 20th Anniversary year in 2017.
– We will be handing out yeast trial grain kits for tasting at our November meeting.
Of course, Davie will be cooking for us! There will be a raffle – so bring something along.
As promised a small blog post on our visit to the Staatiche Brauerschule Main-Spessart.
Our program would include two full days in the school (Tue and Wed) and one day visiting a small brewery and a brewery technology company called GEA(Thurs) with Monday and Friday travelling.
Day 1
Monday
Our Welcome
We arrived in Frankfurt a little late after being delayed in Edinburgh, this was due to the typically Scottish weather they were having in Germany (you know…the horizontal rain type weather!). After what seemed an age the luggage finally arrived and we went away to find the train. Frankfurt airport is HUGE it took us about 15 mins to find an information point where we were told that the train we were booked on was running 30 mins late but if we caught a different train and changed at Wurzberg we would get in on time. Don’t know how but we managed it. We caught an ICE train from Frankfurt to Wurzburg (The ICE trains are the German equivalent of the Intercity type trains in the UK). Service and comfort is in a different class on these trains compared to the UK. Drinks served at your seat in proper glasses (even in cattle class!) and loads of room. We duly arrived in Karlstadt where we were greeted by two of the students with fantastic English (given we knew very little German we were very thankful) Nico and Tobias. Once our cases were deposited in Oberes Tor (our B & B) we went out for food and some other German delicacies. We walked along the HauptstraBe and found a restaurant which was open, some Schiztnel and a couple of beers later we left and went to a bar where the students frequent on a regular basis called Karschter Eck or ‘The corner’. This was to be our goto bar for the rest of the week!
Reinheitsgebot -(pronounced rhine heights gebot) The law…
Day 2
Tuesday
Beery paraphernalia
Up bright and early for the 2nd day in Karlstadt and faced with a typically European breakfast. Meats, Eggs, Yoghurt and bread rolls etc. Suitably filled we departed for the school with our guides/hosts/friends Nico and Tobias. The Brauerschule day starts at 8.35am and finishes at 4.20am with one break in the morning and one in the afternoon and lunch is provided for the brewing students. The brewing students are actually apprentices on a block release type scheme. Staying in a couple of hotels in Karlstadt whilst they attend the Brauerschule. On arrival we met Boris Durr a tutor who takes the students in the actual brewery, Robert Pawelczak, a classroom lecturer and former professional brewer and Markus Metsger, a classroom lecturer, Master Brewer and Chairman of the Home Brewers association of Germany, an esteemed group of lecturers! After a quick chat we sat in on the students in the brewery where they were making a Marzen. Pilsner malt and around 10% Caramunich! In the classroom they have every kind of equipment you could need from heaters to germinate grain and malt it, grain sorting machines, grading machines and a large dry mill for crushing. The kit they use is fully computer controlled, heat is generated by steam. Following our tour of the equipment in the class it was time for a quick meet and greet from our host Matthias Dietz, lecturer at the school and the Project Yeast co-ordinator. After that it was lunchtime served in the small canteen in the school only for the brewers.
Collection of glasses
In the afternoon it was back in the classroom observing and we had a tour round the Karlstadt campus and a Project Yeast meeting.
In the evening we managed to sit outside for dinner and more German delicacies and then retired to Karschter Eck for a few drinks and a couple of games of table football (Scotland proving again that beating the Germans at football is beyond us!!)
Whooped again!
Day 3
Wednesday
Made our own way to the school this morning and straight into class, like the class yesterday they were making a Marzen. Unlike yesterday most of the initial work had taken place with the water heated and grain crushed, seemingly it had something to do with a presentation later that day by some visiting dignitaries! Every step in the process is logged, how long it takes to heat the water, how long are the acid rests, the saccharification rests, how long does it take to get to the point where the rests can happen. When we homebrew we measure by gravity whereas in the school they measure by sugar content, this is also recorded at very regular intervals and iodine tests are carried out on a regular basis, again everything is recorded in detail. We had a Project Yeast meeting where we ticked all the boxes and dotted all the ‘i’s. Scottish Craft Brewers are now an ERASMUS centre! For lunch we joined the School Principal Fr Beck and Hr Deitz and Hr Pawelczak at the Restaurant Zum Fehmelbauer. In the afternoon Malcolm delivered the SCB presentation to the students. Due to the class sizes he presented it twice and spent most of the afternoon answering questions about Edinburgh, the Scottish Brewing scene and the club. The presentations were received very well and the students seemed genuinely interested in Scotland, I believe there will be a steady stream of students coming over in the next few months!
We were left to our own devices on the Wednesday so we decided it would be good idea if the students were to taste some Scottish beer. So after dinner at the excellent Greek restaurant Ratskeller we went in search of Scottish beer! Despite venturing for miles, including outside of town we could not even locate an off licence! Disappointed we returned empty handed to the Karschter Eck and to the Germany vs Poland game! We weren’t the only people disappointed that night!!
Malcy doing his thingMalcy doing his thingThe Ratskeller
Day 4
Thursday
We were picked up early to travel to the small village of Krautheim where we would be visiting the Privatbrauerei Friedrich Düll which produces the excellent Krautheimer range of beers. The brewery is one the a few left which malts its own grain before milling and using it. We were given a tour by the owner Friedrich Dull. The brewery has been owned and operated by the Dull family for over 200 years and as with all German beers (those that can be brewed and called beer in Germany) it brews according to the Reinheitsgebot (German purity law). The brewery itself is classed as a ‘small brewery’ by German standards and the beer itself can be brewed by as little as 3 people such is the automation in the actual plant. The brewery produces somewhere in the region of 120,000 hectolitres per year (look it up, this ain’t no small brewery!). The brewery get its all its grain from within the region and only ever uses three varieties of hops Hallertauer, Magnum and Perle. We’ve all had brewery tours so I won’t bore you with much detail but it is huge! The beer filter must have been at least 7m long (over 20ft in old money) the bottling\kegging room was easily half the area of the Pear Tree beer garden! The mill they use is another huge piece of kit (they mill the grain when it’s wet) which directly feeds the mash tun.
Alcohol free beer is a big thing in Germany (it can contain 0.5% ABV to be called alcohol free in Germany) and in the brewery there is a machine which removes alcohol by creating a vacuum in a chamber where the beer is and it separates the alcohol. They then put normal beer back into the alcohol free stuff to make it taste better. You may think why not just put the original alcohol back in? They aren’t allowed to… once it comes out the beer it can’t go back in so it’s sold off to a lens cleaning manufacturer!
The brewery also distils its own whisky but its currently maturing in Red wine barrels and won’t be ready until 2023!
The lauter tun, mash tun, mill and boiler were all supplied as an experimental\test kit from GEA brewery systems. The automation of the brewery was also supplied by GEA systems. We visited GEA systems in the afternoon but were not allowed to take any photos due to secrecy. When we thought the scale of Krautheimer was large some of the kit they were making in GEA was jaw dropping. When we entered there was half a bottom of a mash tun which would hold 1000hl (100,000l)! Yes a big brew!! It was destined for South Korea. They were working on a big order for an American brewery based in California so there were a few BIG pieces of kit being created.
On Thursday evening we were invited out by Hr Deitz and Hr Metsger for a traditional Frankonian dinner in the countryside.
Day 5
Friday
Return Home.
We made our way back to the school for a final time to thanks everyone for the hospitality and informative time we spent with them. We also managed to a have a quick tour round the school bottling plant.
Beer Glazed Nuts Recipe:
1 cup Blanched Peanuts
1 cup Mixed Nuts
1 cup White Sugar
1/2 cup Beer
1 tsp. salt
Pinch of salt
Directions: Preheat oven to 300 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a medium to large pot place nuts, sugar, ½ tsp. salt and beer. Place pot on high heat and stir until the mixture comes to a boil. Once it comes to a boil turn down the heat to medium and stir (this process will take about 10-20 minutes); until the syrup is almost dissolve (the syrup should be an inch to half-inch from the pot), once it is almost done sprinkle another ½ tsp. of salt and stir. Place nuts on baking sheet and spread with a rubber spatula, place in the oven for 10 minutes. Take nuts out and add pinch of salt and stir nuts with rubber spatula and place in oven for another 10 minutes. Once done let cool and separate nuts and let them cool.
Style: Pale Ale
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 18 litres (fermenter volume)
Boil Size: 25 litres
Original Gravity: 1.050
Final Gravity: 1.010
ABV (standard): 5.25%
IBU: 40.62
Fermentables
Amount Fermentable PPG °L Bill %
3.3 kg United Kingdom – Maris Otter Pale 38 3.75 88.6%
0.3 kg United Kingdom – Munich 37 6 8.1%
0.125 kg United Kingdom – Cara Malt 35 17.5 3.4%
3.73 kg Total
Hops
Amount Variety Type AA Use Time IBU
20 g Citra Leaf/Whole 14 Boil 60 min 40.62
5 g Citra Leaf/Whole 14 Whirlpool at 90 °C 10 min
25 g Simcoe Leaf/Whole 12.7 Whirlpool at 90 °C 10 min
Mash Guidelines
Amount Description Temp Time
25 L Mash 42 C 10 min
— Mash 65 C 70 min
— Mash 73 C 10 min
— Mash 78 C 10 min
The first SCB BBQ has come and gone, good beer has been drunk and great food eaten! If you weren’t there here’s what you missed.
Our first BBQ and the plan was to keep it quite safe venue wise, our President (Malcolm) mentioned that his parents’ home would be a great venue. A permanent BBQ area, shelter on the odd chance the Scottish weather wouldn’t be kind to us and just off the public transport route, perfect!
The garden is huge and had plenty room to move around in, the kids really enjoyed running wild!
We decided to have a couple of friendly competitions both to be judged by the people at the BBQ, a Beer comp, we are the SCB after all and a Beer Based food comp, no categories, no styles the only criteria was….Beer in everything…simples!
Some of the incredible food in the competition
The Beer competition was quite a hotly contested affair with entries including a Beer with Ginger, a Black IPA, a Stone Beer (for more info ask Aled), a Galaxy smash and the winner which was a Pale Ale from Eli.
Quite a dizzying array of beers all of which I would happily consume until I couldn’t!
Eli – Beer winner
The Beer in Food comp was another hotly contested comp with (in order in which they should be eaten!) Bread, Pretzels, 2 different joints of Brisket, Ribs, Cheesecake, Peanut Butter bars and the eventual (after a recount\revote) winner Beer Nuts.
All in all the two competitions provided enough beer and food to feed the participants with loads left over.
Gordon – Food WinnerEli- Beer Champion Gordon – Food Champion SCB BBQ 2015
A great day was had by all and already looking forward to next year!
Massive thanks to Stuart for all the grilling he did and Malcs parents Colin and May for their hospitality!
