Home brew? Homebrew? Winemaking

Quite like the look of this:

Bulldog, Evil Dog Double IPA - The HomeBrew Forum

I have a partial mash recipe for Dark Star's Festival ale which I'm going to brew in the garage whilst Simon is at a stag weekend.

Homebrewers on lfgss? amazing.
All grain brewer here of 4 years or so.Typically brew bitters, pale ales and stouts as those types of recipes always turn out nicely, probably something to do with the wader profile here or something? who knows.

Favourite yeast anyone? anyone up for a lfgss yeast swap? as the weather warms up it gets closer to blegian/saison brewing season for those with no temperature control...

About to keg my Darkstar copy only to find the tap on my siphon is stuck in the open position. This should be fun.

So the darkstar copy is nice, very malty and a bit sweet.

I have acquired two 5l demi johns and have just ordered the ingredients to make a saison. I have this recipe for a 5 gallon batch so need to scale it down a bit and convert it. I have a week off next week so can give this a bash. Don't mind if it fucks up seeing as I'm doing a smaller batch.

Recipe

5 lbs Belgian Pilsner malt
4 lbs Belgian Vienna malt
1 lb Wheat malt

1.75 oz East Kent Goldings
0.75 oz Styrian Goldings

White Labs WLP565 - Belgian Saison Ale Yeast (Started day before)

Heat water to 156F

Mash & Sparge

Add all grains to strike water and mix to achieve a uniform temperature of approximately 148°F. Rest the mash at this temperature for 60 – 90 minutes.
While the mash rests, collect and heat sparge water.

When the mash rest is complete, heat it to 170 F for mashout.

Sparge and collect the wort in the boil kettle.

Boil
Bring the wort to a boil. Add 1 oz East Kent Goldings hops when the wort begins to boil, and boil for 60 minutes.

Add 0.5 oz of East Kent Goldings and 0.5 oz Styrian Goldings 15 minutes before the end of the boil.

Cool it!

Fermentation
Transfer the cooled wort to a sanitised fermenter, aerate well, and pitch yeast.

Pitch yeast at 80F. Fermentation could take up to 30 days.

Rack to a secondary fermenter and dose with the dry hops – 0.25 oz Motueka hops. Leave the beer in contact with the dry hops for 5 days, then rack.

There's a new homebrew shop / brewer in Brixton called the beer lab. I popped in to get some hop bags. They haven't got the shop bit sorted yet, I went in the back where they had a class going on and the guy had to dig in some boxes for the bags. Might be worth ringing beforehand if you want to gets grains etc so they can get it all ready for collection.

They have a good selection of local beers for sale and the classes are £75 and they teach you how to brew four styles of beer and you get to collect some of the completed bottles after.

.

What has the brewing product come out like?

Didn't get round to brewing the saison until yesterday as I discovered my hydrometer was broken and then the replacement was delivered broken so after a few weeks I finally have a perfectly working one and set to work yesterday.

The saison is fermenting away in our spare room as it is always warm in there due to the hot water pipes running all the way around the room. Not expecting it to finish until a month's time.

The Darkstar copy is nice, the maltyness has mellowed a bit now.

With a big malty beer like the darkstar, a month is still very young. If you can keep your mitts off it for six months or so, you might be pleasantly surprised...

Yeah the Darkstar is 2 months old now. I mentioned to Simon that I think it's too young, just need to keep him away from it!

Have bottled the Saison and it's going to sit in our garage until new year.

Have acquired some yuzu and honey loose tea and will chuck that into the boiler with the next batch.

You crazy!

What's so crazy about that?

I've drank many saisons flavoured with all sorts, lychee, lemongrass, chamomile and hibiscus etc etc

That confirms it :)
Just kidding, sounds interesting to say the least!

The worst one was one I had recently in pub near work which tasted like pesto. I didn't realise it had been flavoured with rosemary and thyme. It was from Hop Stuff Brewery in Woolwich, called Saisonniers, avoid like the plague.

Looking to put a special seasonal brew down to be ready for Christmas. Any suggestions? AG or extract.

Bock? It's that time of year and can't get hold of it where I live now.
FML.

A nice dark bock would be great. Where are you living @jaw?

BottleDog (BottleDogKingsX):
Our homebrew course this Sunday has a couple of slots free! Details: https://www.facebook.com/events/481307228674119/?ref=22, book by emailing bottledogkingsx@brewdog.com

http://twitter.com/BottleDogKingsX/status/524565584034693120

Couldn't wait the full 4 weeks for bottle conditioning so cracked one open tonight. 11/10. At 8.5%, pretty strong too with a fruityness and large hops balancing out the strength.

Certainly looks great.

Looks alright 7VEN but I've had a beer of that strength stashed away for 18 months now and only just starting to really like it, flavours change so much. Give it some time.

My good pals have asked whether I can brew a beer for a Christmas party mid december... they wanted a dark spicy christmassy type thing but there's no way it'll mature in time. So thinking about doing a 5% ish pale ale, maybe with a little orange and coriander as late additions. My reservations extend to:

1. Barely three weeks to condition if I manage to brew this weekend
   
2. Would have to use a plastic king keg / rotokeg - not had good exp with these so far, leaky seals etc.
   
3. Said keg would have to be driven a hundred miles or so to London. However, I could probably do this before adding the priming sugar and leave it at their house to condition.
   
   

Thoughts?

Just read up thread and realised I am a beer ageing bore, sorry!

Ha! I'm just enjoying the fact that I've made something better than some/most of the craft beers you buy! I plan on leaving it for much longer.....maybe :)