Yet another riff on the Vortex but pretty far from the original with a different grain bill, different hops and different yeast! Picked some fresh hops just before brewing. Came to just over 400g, I’ve divided by 5 for dry equivalent but these were already quite dry as late season hops so that should be conservative. I also chopped them with scissors to make the lupulin more accessible and hopefully enhance the hoppiness. Add them all over the last 5 minutes of the boil. Did a 25 minute hops stand with the post boil pellet hops added also. Didn’t do any chill before hops stand so may get a bit more bitterness than the numbers indicate.

For pellet hops I went with Pacific Gem for bittering, Necteron and The Bruce (a blend of Nelson Sauvin, early-season Motueka, late-season Pacifica, and mid-season Pacific Jade.)

I went with Kveik yeast to handle the warmer than usual pitching temp.

Brew date: 28th March 2026
strike water: 20L @ 73°
mash start: ~ 68°
sparge water: 12L @ 80°
water additions added to sparge water – gypsum, CaCl
koppafloc @ 15 mins
30 min boil
Gravity after mash: 9.2 Brix = 1.037
Hops stand –25 mins starting at 98° going down to 73°
OG: 10.4 Brix = 1.042
Chilled wort to 22.5° and pitched yeast dry

Fermentation active next morning.

Fermented @20°,  15-20psi during peak fermentation
Bumped up to 26° around day 5
Dry hopped: day 6, re-pressurised to 15 psi

Started Cold Crash: day 12
Kegged: 11th April (day 14)

FG: 1.010

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Wanting to do a Red IPA, I had a look around for some grain bill ideas. I came across John Palmer’s recipe and surprised by the huge amount of crystal malt – 1kg! One would expect the beer to be super cloying with that amount of crystal despite 60 IBUs, but surely John Palmer knows best. It had me wondering, I was almost tempted to do it to see for myself but en the end I went with the League’s “The Rooster” grain bill with slight modifications – I reduced the Shephard’s Delight a little because I recall some of my reds in the past coming out too dark. I also didn’t bother with the sour grapes malt (was going to add a touch of lactic to the mash but forgot). For hops I was going to go with all Motueka plus some bittering hops but Dan pointed out that they had Peacharine on discount and reckoned it would pair well with Motueka.

Brew date: 8th November
strike water: 20L @ 73.6°
mash start: 68.8°
mash middle: 67.5°
end mash: 66.4°
sparge water: 12.5L @ 80°
Vol in kettle: 28.5L
water additions added to sparge water – gypsum, CaCl, Lactic acid
koppafloc @ 15 mins
30 min boil
Gravity after mash: 12 Brix = 1.048
Hops stand – 44g hops for 30 mins starting at 96° going down to 76°
OG: 13.2 Brix = 1.053
Chilled wort to 18.5°
Rehydrated yeast @ 30°, cooled to 21.5° with aliquots of wort prior to pitching

Fermented @19°, 20psi during peak fermentation
Bumped up to 21.5° around day 4
Dry hopped: 14th Nov (Day 6), re-pressurised to 6 psi

Started Cold Crash: 20 Nov (day 12)
Kegged 22 Nov (day 14)

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Both League Vortex and my Vortex Redux were so good that when I kicked the last keg, I decided to brew another variation on the recipe. The main changes from the last version are: Mosaic hops instead of Cascade and a total of 340g of hops, Verdant IPA yeast instead of US-05 and a bigger grain bill now up to 6kg from 5.35kg (and 4.7kg in the original version).

Brew date: 25th October
strike water: 20L @ 73°
mash start: 68°
mash middle: 66°
end mash: 64.5°
sparge water: 11.5L
Vol in kettle: 27.5L
water additions added to sparge water – gypsum only
koppafloc @ 16 mins
30 min boil
Gravity after mash: 13 Brix = 1.053
Added 45g hops at flameout and 60g shortly after when temp had dropped a few degrees
Hops stand 30 mins starting at 96° going down to 7?°
OG: 15.2 Brix = 1.062
Rehydrated yeast @ 30°, cooled to 21° with aliquots of wort prior to pitching

Fermented @ 18.5 – 19.5°

Bumped up temp to 21° on 30th Oct (day 5)
Dry hopped: 31st Oct (day 6)
Start cold crash: 6 Nov (day 13)
Kegged: 7 Nov (day 14)

FG: 1.011

brew notes and recipe »

Brewed at Marchfest 2024.

Mash temp ~ 70°

Pitched 2 packets of dry yeast.

When picked up fermenter next day, fermentation was already in full swing and fermenter under high pressure.

Reduced pressure to 15psi. Unfortunately it lost all pressure by the time I checked it next day.

26th April – Kegged
Came in much higher than expected on SG – 1.028! Well it certainly had enough chance to ferment – almost 3 weeks, so pretty sure that’s not an issue. Ferment temp and yeast choice must have contributed to lower attenuation. Tasting good though – lovely chocolate notes. Makes for a nice rich tasting beer that’s on the lower alcohol side.

brew notes and recipe »

Brewed 1st Feb

strike water: 20L @ 75°
mash start: 70°
end mash: 68°
sparge water: 12L
Vol in kettle: 29L
water additions added start of boil
koppafloc @ 15 mins
Gravity after mash:  12 Brix = 1.048

30 min boil (gas low again!! – gotta stop doing this!)
no chill – transfer to gcube
let temp drop to 90°
and add post boil hops to  cube
25L in cube
OG:  12.9 Brix = 1.052

Pitched yeast 2nd Feb

Yeast rehydrated @ 29°
Pitched @ 18°

Fermzilla not holding the pressure well. (did not use keg lube)

Dry hopped on 6th Feb

Kegged on 16th Mar

brew notes and recipe »

MMN = Mosaic-Motueka-Necteron

Brewed 28th Oct

strike water: 20L @ 76°
mash start: 69.5°
end mash: 67°
sparge water: 12L
Vol in kettle: 27L
No koppafloc! Better for hazy?
Gravity after mash: 13.3 Brix = 1.054
25min hops stand (94° to 75°)
chilled to 18°
24L in fermentor
OG: 15.2 Brix = 1.062
Yeast rehydrated @ 28°

Signs of fermentation starting next day, pressure starting to build.

By day 2 pressure had built to over 20 psi, dropped it to 15. Temp had risen to 22°, dropped it to 19.5°.

1 Nov (day 4) – dry hopped
(Krausen had mostly dropped)

brew notes and recipe »

Brewed 30th Sept (close enough to full moon!)

strike water: 20L @ 76°
mash start: 70°
mid mash: 69°
sparge water: 13.6L
25min hops stand (90° to 75°)
chilled to 17.5°
28L in fermentor
OG: 1.058

Boiled with gas running out! Took ages to get up to boil/hot break. But made it albeit more of a simmer than a boil.

Visual signs of fermentation next evening.

4 Oct: Dry hopped while fermentation still apparently active

brew notes and recipe »

Dan from LOB gave me  an unwanted Hazy grain bill, already milled. Then LOB were giving away fresh Nectaron hops so I got about 2.5kg of them and threw down this beer, brewed with kveik yeast.

Brewed 18th Mar

Strike temp: 77°
Mash: start 72°, mid: 70.5°, end 68°
OG: 12.2 Brix (before hops rinse)
Hops stand: 40 mins as temp drops to 72°
Chilled to 25° & transferred to Fermzilla
Rinsed hops with 2L water, bringing down OG to 11 Brix (1.044)
Sprinkled dry Kveik yeast and fermentation was going strong in a matter of hours

FG: 1.017
ABV: 3.54%

brew notes and recipe »

Based on the LOB adaptation of the ‘Nick Danger’ porter recipe (original by Denny Conn) which I previously brewed at Marchfest in 2019. This turned out to be a really nice porter when I made it before so I thought it was time to do it again. My main deviations from the LOB version are hops, yeast and mash temperature. I used a smaller amount (50g) of a higher alpha hops, Waimea, instead of  the low alpha Tettnang hops for the first 2 additions. For yeast I chose Voss Kveik because it’s ideal for Marchfest brewing as it’s not possible to get the pitching temp down to ideal pitching temps for the usual ale yeasts by water cooling alone. I went with a very high mash temp, ~74°, as that worked out great in my previous low alcohol brew as a strategy for reducing alcohol.

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This is an attempt to brew a low ABV beer that tastes like a proper beer rather than a watered down version of a beer. My previous low ABV batch was a decent effort but a bit on the watery side despite being almost 4% ABV. Having tasted an Eddyline EddyLite which at only 2.5% tastes like a full proper beer, it inspired me to take another crack at low ABV brewing. My approach this time is to go with a fairly small grain bill and mash very high and ferment with a low attenuating yeast (Windsor), hopefully ending up with a low abv beer but with enough body left behind to make it taste and feel like a full bodied beer.

In researching low alcohol brewing, I cam across Lallemand’s article  ‘Best Practices Low Alcohol Brewing‘. They recommend a mashing temperature between 82-86°C, but that is for targeting under 1% ABV and I don’t need to go so low (2.5-3.5% would be around what I’m hoping for). I would be inclined to suspect tannin extraction would be an issue when mashing that high. I played it safer and went with a less extreme mash temp of 75° which is still 5 or 6°  higher than I’ve ever mashed before.

I also went with no sparge and a shorter 20 min boil. I could have got away with a short mash too but I was multi-tasking (cooking dinner) so it ended up been a longer mash.

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Attempt at a lighter (by ABV) beer. Kept it in and served it from the Fermzilla. By some weird magic it didn’t require any CO2 for serving (after the original charge up to 15psi)! It held enough pressure to pour until the last drop. How did it maintain pressure? As it was a low gravity brew, I wouldn’t have expected any additional fermentation action generating more CO2. And it didn’t change in taste so no signs of any infection which could generate CO2. So this appears to have been a magical beer!

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I had a can of ‘Leprechaun’s Belle’ by Deep Creek and really liked it. Although it aims to be an ‘Irish Red’, I’d say it was much better than a typical Irish Red, more of a ‘craft beer’ take on the style. It’s a lot darker and more roasty so I reckon that it has more than the typical amount of roast barley. For my Irish Red recipe I went with a generous (for the style) amount of roast barley and a bit more than the typical amount of hops.

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I thought the malty base of my previous beer, Hops Harvest 2022, was so good that I kept the grain bill exactly the same and paired it up with a trio of hops pellets –  Motueka, Southern Cross and Taiheke.

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strike water: 22L @ 73.5°
mash start: 66°
mid mash: 65.5°
sparge water: 10L
30 L in fermentor (to the brim!)
OG: 1.084
No boil – left in fridge to cool

Fermented for 2 weeks (still had solid airlock activity in 2nd week)
FG: 0.999
ABV:  11.35%
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Last minute thrown together recipe, hence the name.

20 Feb 2022 – Brew day
Mashed higher than planned due to low battery in thermometer causing it to stick on 74° when measuring strike water temp, but was a few degrees higher. Ended up mashing at around 71° – too high???? Gravity after mash 1.052 – pretty spot on, so conversion seems ok.

Added some of the post-boil hops after flameout and then dropped temp to 90° and added remainder and let stand for 20mins.

Chilled to 21.5° then transferred to fermenter and left in fridge overnight to reach 11° before pitching rehydrated yeast.

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brew notes and recipe »

Based on my recent beer Zythos Session APA but with a few tweaks:

• NZ hops blend (The Bruce) instead of US hops blend (Zythos)
• 0.5kg more malt – 1kg of Vienna instead of 0.7kg and 0.2kg of Sour Grapes malt
• German Vienna and Munich malt instead of NZ
• Medium crystal instead of light crystal malt
• Chill instead of no-chill
• US-05 instead of Mangrove Jacks Empire Ale yeast
• Fermented under pressure

Again I’m aiming for a lowish alcohol beer that tastes like full on APA, so mashed high at around 69°C (70-68°).

Here’s a blurb about “The Bruce”, an NZ hops blend created by Freestyle Hops:

The Bruce is a vibrant, aromatic and concentrated blend of Freestyle Hops created in honor of Bruce Eggers. To make The Bruce they’ve used early Nelson Sauvin, early Motueka, late Pacifica and mid Pacific Jade (that’s the picking times). The aroma has fresh gooseberry, citrus peel, ripe tropical fruit and orange blossom. When brewed, the complex aromatics remain true to rubbing.

Pressure ferment – I’ve now got a spunding valve so will attempt a pressure ferment.

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