Blog Archive

2014 Hops Harvest Ale No. 2

I should have called this brew Hops Stew!!!  1.75kg of fresh hops in this brew – pure hop madness! I had to work hard just shove all those hops into the kettle, stuffing them down into the thick hops/wort porridge either side of the imerssion cooler coils. No bag this time, there is no way …

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2014 Hops Harvest No. 1

My mash temperature started off lower than anticipated. My strike water temperature was 71C but my mash ended up around 62-63C instead of the 65-66 I had expected based on the calculator. So I added 1.5L of boiling water after 15 mins which brought it up to 64.5C and another 1.5L after 60mins which again …

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Restrained APA

The last 2 beers were intense hoppy IPAs with quite dark malts so for this one I went for something lighter along the lines of the APA recipes in Brewing Classic Styles. I kept hops basic with NZ Cascade for flavour and aroma and Pacific Gem for bittering. I had to restrain myself to only …

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Working Title IPA II

My last batch turned out so good that I decided to make more of the same, but of course I had to make a few tweaks. Hop profile is modified a bit, I scaled back on the Citra a bit to allow some of the other hops to come through more. I also upped the …

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Working Title IPA

This was a cobbled together kinda recipe. I chucked in a tin of Coopers instead of struggeling with a larger mash/boil size on my limited equipment capabilities. I have some Rye malt to experiment with so I just added a very small amount to see if it would do anything noticible, maybe impart a hint …

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Southern Cross Pilsner

This was my first time doing a lager. I mashed for 8o mins because a longer mash time is recommended at lower mash temperatures. Temperature at start of mash was 65.7C and at end was 63.9C with no heating during mash. Did a 90 min boil instead of the usual 60 since pilsner malt needs …

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Citra Pale Ale

This is my first brew with my new BIAB setup. I went for a small batch as a sort of trial run. I intended to dry hop this beer but forgot. Anyway it had plenty of hop character at bottling. Style Information Name: American Pale Ale Recipe Type: Partial Mash Grains & Extracts Name Amount …

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Hops Harvest Ale

Brewed with fresh picked green hops. Came third in Nelson SOBA Homebrew comp. I used a lot of hops so there was a lot of wort absorbed into the hops. As a result target gravity came out considerably less than calculated. But still ended up being one of my better beers. Style Information Name: American …

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Slutty Red III

My third variation on the Slutty Red recipe. I dry hopped with Nelson Sauvin instead of Motueka this time. Style Information Name: Special/Best/Premium Bitter Recipe Type: Partial Mash Grains & Extracts Name Amount Notes Maris Otter Malt 2.5 kg Dry Malt Extract – Light 1 kg Caraaroma 0.235 kg Crystal, Bairds Pale 0.15 kg Crystal, …

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Brown Porter

A variation of the Brown Porter recipe in Brewing Classic Styles   Style Information Name: Brown Porter Recipe Type: Partial Mash Grains & Extracts Name Amount Notes Golden Promise Malt 1.825 kg Brown Malt, Bairds 1 kg Dry Malt Extract – Light 1 kg Crystal, Bairds Medium 0.5 kg Chocolate, Bairds Pale 0.3 kg Hops …

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Skinny Blonde II

I was all set to brew a porter but after downing one of the last few bottles of the original Skinny Blonde I figured I need to make some more of this easy drinking, fast disappearing, beer for the summer. As I liked it so much the way it was, I decided not to change …

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Shot In The Dark

With this recipe I’m shooting for some roasty flavours from the chocolate malt combined with the hoppiness of an IPA. The style is sometimes known as Black IPA but that’s a bit of an oxymoron and it’s got bugger all to do with India so I prefer to simply call it a Dark Hoppy Ale …

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Amarillo Ale

On this recipe I went for a very small amount of bittering hops (only 5g at 60 mins and 5g at 30 mins), with fairly high amounts of late hops contributing more IBUs. My goal was a hops dominent beer with low levels of bitterness. Style Information Name: American Pale Ale Recipe Type: Partial Mash …

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Nelmot NZ Pale Ale

This is my first attempt at an all-grain brew. Read about it here. Style Information Name: NZ Pale Ale Recipe Type: All Grain Grains & Extracts Name Amount Notes Golden Promise Malt 2.5 kg Caramalt 0.5 kg Hops Name Amount Alpha Acid % AAU Time Notes Nelson Sauvin 0.01 kg 11.5% 0.115 60 Motueka 0.01 …

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Hope Ale

Named after my sister-in-law who helped me brew it. Style Information Name: American Pale Ale Recipe Type: Partial Mash Grains & Extracts Name Amount Notes Golden Promise Malt 2 kg Liquid Malt Extract – Light 2 kg Caramalt 0.5 kg Hops Name Amount Alpha Acid % AAU Time Notes Simcoe 0.015 kg 12.2% 0.183 60 …

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Skinny Blonde

This is my attempt at a lower alcohol (3 – 3.5%) blonde ale. I mashed at a higher temp to get more unfermentable sugars. Style Information Name: Blonde Ale Recipe Type: All Grain Grains & Extracts Name Amount Notes Maris Otter Malt 1.5 kg Liquid Malt Extract – Light 1.19 kg Pilsner 1 kg Caramalt …

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Digital(ish) IPA

This is based on the recipe for Digital IPA by Yeastie Boys. I’ve converted the recipe to partial mash and made a few little tweaks on account of ingredients on hand. The original all-grain recipe is here: Digital IPA recipe Style Information Name: American IPA Recipe Type: Partial Mash Grains & Extracts Name Amount Notes …

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Common Room ESB

This is based on a popular ESB recipe on the HomeBrewTalk forum called Common Room ESB which I tweaked it a bit and converted to extract. Style Information Name: Extra Special Bitter Recipe Type: Extract Category: English Pale Ale Type: Ale   Grains & Extracts Name Amount Notes Light Liquid Malt Extract 3.5kg Medium Crystal …

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Double Cascade APA

This a reprise of my first extract batch, the All Cascade APA, but with double the amount of cascade hops, 200g instead of 100g. It also features double dry hopping, 40g at ferment temp and another 40g at cold crash temp. I got that idea from reading about an Epic Pale Ale clone but I …

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Toucan Stout

Style Information Name: Dry Stout Recipe Type: Extract Type: Ale   Grains & Extracts Name Amount Notes Coopers Stout kit 1.7kg Coopers Dark Ale kit 1.7kg Yeasts Name Amount Notes Coopers yeast 2 packets Boil Amount: n/a Water Description: Time: n/a minutes Target Batch Size: 23L Profile Estimated OG: 1.054 Estimated FG: 1.012 Estimated ABV: …

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