Home brew? Homebrew? Winemaking

I'm brewing a Traquair House Ale clone at the moment. It's a simple recipe, but quite a lot of work doing the caramelisation.

That Mikkeller beer geek recipe looks great. Never drank the real thing, but it gets close to 100% on Ratebeer.

Oh, and I recently got a Murphy's water report for my tap water, so can treat it correctly now.

Anyone fancy a home brew competition or at least a get together to sample each others brews?

This is a great idea. I know Hippy has mentioned to me before about a forum bottle exchange, could combine the two?

Emmy gave me a great idea for a beer last night. Mince pie stout using mince pie filling (I say filling not mincemeat as Simon got confused and thought we meant actual meat). I'm planning to make my own mincemeat and soak it in whiskey beforehand. Not sure whether to put it in the boil or condition the beer on it after fermentation.

Or put it in the mash?

I think I might have to break it down a bit by putting the fruit in the mash to get the fermentable sugars out to up the alcohol volume and then put the lemon peel and spice in at the end of the boil, don't want too much spice and then put more of the fruit in on conditioning to get the the dried fruit whiskey flavour out.

For anyone thinking of starting out/minimising mess/etc, some friends of mine are starting this https://www.brewclub.uk.com/ in Clapton.

So I came back from Bruges totally inspired by the beer. Has anyone had any success brewing a Saison?

As I understand you need to ferment at a higher temp, which will probably be ok as my flat is generally around 21-22c. Just wondering if I would need to be really strict on the higher end temp to get a decent result.

I've made a few fermented at temps up to 27c as I have a spare room with hot water pipes running on the outside of the walls which seem to always be on (pretty sure these are not my pipes!) so yeah 22c will be fine.

I think Dupont Saison is fermented at 32c for a few days so yeah don't worry too much.

I had read about some using temps as high as 32c which is what got me thinking. I think I will measure the temp in a few spots to find warmest part of flat before I brew. I could also give the fermenter some sort of jacket I guess.

Wow, beer home brew sounds so sophisticated.

I cracked open a 50 pint batch of cider that I've had ageing on toasted oak for 6 months a few weeks ago.

Apples + yeast = cider. Jobs a goodun.

Citra hops going free

I'm defrosting the freezer before someone picks it up and have 230g of Citra hops still sealed that need to be shifted from it. Anyone want them? Pick up from SE17.

Nobody brewing anymore?

I did a double mash in my braumeister on Saturday, hoping for a 10% imperial stout

https://haveigotbrewsforyou.wordpress.com/ - for details

Brewdog have just released every recipe they have done for free

https://www.brewdog.com/lowdown/blog/diy-dog

I haven't downloaded yet as I'm at work but will look when I get home

Just saw that. If i can get it to work for 5L batches I might be busy for a while...

Been brewing loads this year.

Recent beers have been a Simcoe IPA (Own recipe), Simcoe and Citra IPA (tweaked recipe I had done previously, experimenting with a different yeast type) and a Weizenbock (Mikkeller Clone).

I am brewing a couple times a month at the moment, trying to create my own recipes and experimenting, I'm definitely getting better at the process and starting to understand how to control it better.

Annoyingly on my last brew I dropped my mash tun and broke the tap, and smashed the box, need to get round to replacing it asap.

Would be up for meeting others and sampling each others beers. Been getting good feedback off friends etc, but would be good to get other brewers views!

Incredibrew.

What yeast are you using in your Imperial Stout?

Wyeast scotch ale yeast, only one I could find on sale at the time that can tolerate the abv. Wanted Belgian strong ale yeast but sold out.

Good choice. I wouldn't have fancied using Belgian yeast in something like that as the higher OG really brings out the yeast flavour. I found that Scottish yeast worked well at 16c (maybe even 15c). Flocculation is very good.

Brewdog have released recepies for their entire back catalogue. Link to pdf in the article...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/29/brewdogs-open-source-revolution-is-at-the-vanguard-of-postcapitalism

^that is an epic resource. I still can't work out if it was stupid or inspired... but they are certainly single minded!

In other news, I helped brew 235L of double-decoction mash lager in Czech Republic...

Full write up here (forgive the blerg spam). Brewday! Traditional Ležak Lager at Litovel, Czech Republic