James Squire "Chancer" Style Golden Ale Recipe

James Squire "Chancer" Golden Ale Style Recipe

Date: 1/12/19

Batch Number: 6

Beer: Golden Ale

Extract/Ingredients:

• 1.5kg Light Liquid Malt Extract (LME)
• 1.5kg Wheat Liquid Malt Extract (LME)
• 150g Munich grains
• 150g Crystal grains

Hops:

• Super Alpha (bittering)
• Amarillo (flavour/aroma)

Yeast: US05
IBU: 23.99
Expected OG: 1.042
Expected FG: 1.005

Hop Schedule

• 60min - 14g Super Alpha - 11%AA - 16.87 IBU
• 10min - 20g Amarillo - 9%AA - 7.12 IBU
• 0min - 10g Amarillo - 9%AA
• Dry Hop - 4 days - 25g Amarillo - 9%AA

Notes: Keeping this recipe fairly straightforward and simple - re-using leftover Amarillo hops from the previous recipe. Amarillo hops, munich and crystal grains are what is used in the James Squire Chancer Golden Ale (according to their website), so would be good to replicate some of the flavours found in that beer.

Steps

1. Put 9L of tap water into kettle/large pot and bring to the boil (put lid on pot to help it heat up faster)
2. While waiting for the large kettle to boil, add 2.1L of tap water to a smaller pot/saucepan and heat to 71C
3. While waiting for both pots to boil, add the 150g Munich and 150g Crystal malt into a hop/grain bag
4. Once the small pot reaches 71C, turn off the heat and steep the hop/grain bag in it for 30 mins.  You can dunk/move the grain in the pot like a tea-bag to ensure all the grain is wetted
5. After 20 minutes (10 minute left of steeping), soak the 1.5kg light liquid malt extract in a tub of hot tap water to soften contents
6. After the 30 mins has elapsed, sparge (rinse) the grains with 1L of hot tap water. Discard the used grain
7. Remove the large kettle from the heat (regardless of whether or not it has boiled), and add all the liquid from the small pot and also add the 1.5kg light liquid malt extract - stirring whilst adding to help it dissolve
8. Fill the light liquid malt extract container with hot tap water - leave to stand for a few minutes to dissolve the remaining contents. Add the contents to the large kettle
9. Return the large kettle to the heat and wait for it to boil (ensure lid is not on the pot/kettle at this point)
10. Once the large kettle is boiling, start a 60 minute timer and add the first bittering hops (as per hop schedule below)
11. After 50 minutes (ie. 10 minutes remaining in the boil), add the second set of hops (as per hop schedule below)
12. After 60 minutes has elapsed (ie. 0 minutes remaining in the boil), remove the kettle from the heat and add the final set of hops (as per hop schedule below)
13. Add the 1.5kg liquid wheat malt to the kettle - stirring to dissolve
14. Fill the liquid wheat malt container with hot/warm tap water to dissolve remaining contents and add to the kettle
15. Place kettle in sink of water/ice water to cool (or use other cooling method - eg. immersion chiller)
16. Whilst waiting for the wort to cool, add 5L of cold tap water to the fermenting vessel (FV)
17. Once the wort in the large pot has cooled to less than 26 degrees, tip all the contents in the FV and stir to mix. You can use a filter/strainer to filter out the trub/large particles from the boil - I don't do this but you can if you prefer
18. Top up the FV to 23L with cold tap water - ideal pitching temperature should be 20-24C - stirring constantly to mix and aerate the wort
19. Pitch yeast

Pitched at 26C - put into fermentation fridge and dropped to 22C
Temp set to 20C after ~14hrs when signs of fermentation being underway

Fermentation Notes

• Fermentation underway within ~12 hours
• US-05 yeast sank to the bottom of the FV shortly after pitching - no floating on the top and causing "rafts" - hadn't seen this behaviour before

Hydrometer Readings

Actual OG: 1041 (+3 points for inaccurate hydrometer) 1044
Day 7: 1004 (+3 points for inaccurate hydrometer) 1007
Day12: 1004 (+3 points for inaccurate hydrometer) 1007

Actual FG: 1007
ABV: 5.45% (1044-1007 / 7.46 + 0.5)

Tasting Notes

Tasted on day 7 of fermentation - Unsure about the balance of flavors but perhaps expecting too much bittering. Will see how it is after some dry hopping and another 5-7 days to condition in the fermenter before bottling. No noticeable off flavors though

Tasted on day 12 when bottling. Malt flavours are quite pronounced -especially the Munich - very curious to see how it balances out after conditioning - concerned not enough bittering or hop flavour.

Tasted one week after bottling and very happy with how this turned out. As I expected (hoped) the flavours all definitely mellowed after bottle conditioning - the end result is a fairly light and refreshing beer - relatively low bitterness and nice presence of Amarillo hops - I'm happy with the amounts used and feel this will make a good base to try experimenting with different hop varities to get an idea of what they all taste like

Source

Inspired by Fast Homebrew on Youtube and the good folks at Aussie Home Brewing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRSfS1SB1Y4&t=113s

https://aussiehomebrewer.com/threads/james-squire-golden-ale.18860/page-5

Dedicated Brew Fridge & Temperature Controller

Dedicated Brew Fridge & Temperature Controller

In one of my previous blog posts I mentioned my ongoing battle against home twang and some of the common suggestions on how to eliminate it's off-flavours from home brewed beers.

One of the most common suggestions to brewing good beer is having decent fermentation control - and one of the best ways to control this is with a dedicated brewing fridge and temperature controller.

I've just purchased a second hand all fridge off Gumtree that will be used as my dedicated brewing/fermenting fridge to help improve the quality of my brews. It's a Fisher & Paykel C450 fridge that I've paired with an InkBird ITC-308 Wifi temperature controller.

The fridge - loaded with bottles for conditioning and the latest batch fermenting away

I toyed with the idea of a smaller bar fridge but was unsure about finding one that would comfortably fit my fermenting vessel. I also found that they weren't really any cheaper than full size fridges when buying second hand - plus getting a full size fridge would allow increased flexibility. For example, I could easily store 2 fermenting vessels in a full size fridge, or, as I'm doing now, I can use it for bottle conditioning/storage as well as fermenting, win win!

The fridge has plastic shelves which would not withstand the weight of a 23L vessel fermenting beer, so I visited Bunnings and purchased some large diameter PVC pipe, cut a couple of pieces to size with a hack-saw and sat it underneath the bottom shelf that I'm using to support the fermenter.

The other shelves are bowing a little in the middle under the weight of bottles that are conditioning - I'm trying to think of a way to reinforce these, but for the time being I'll just try not to overload them too much.

The temperature controller I decided on is the Inkbird ITC-308 Wifi - which is working great! The best thing about this controller is the simple "plug and play" nature of it. It comes with a standard power outlet/socket to control heating and cooling - so for me it was simply a matter of plugging the fridge into the "cooling" socket, setting the temperature on the controller and attaching the probe to the fermenter, and we're set!

The wifi component of this is great as well. It only connects to 2.4GHz wifi networks, and it logs to a centralised/cloud system so you can access and control your inkbird from anywhere. You need to create a free account with Inkbird as part of the setup - and when you login to this (using a free app on your phone) you can view the current temperature, adjust the settings/parameters, and also view a log of the temperature (temperature is logged every 15 minutes)

Would highly recommend the Inkbird ITC-308 wifi temperature controller - it's affordable price and easy setup make it a must have to control the heating/cooling for your homebrewing setup.

Some screenshots from the Inkbird app are below;

Main screen showing the current temperature and whether cooling or heating is currently active

Options screen where you can adjust heating/cooling parameters and settings

Graph logged automatically every 15 minutes showing probe temperature

Balter XPA Style Recipe

Date: 9/11/19

Batch Number: 5

Beer: XPA

Extract/Ingredients:

• 1.5kg Light Liquid Malt Extract (LME)
• 0.5kg Light Dry Malt Extract (DME)
• 1.0kg Wheat Dry Malt Extract (DME)
• 0.25kg Wheat Grains

Hops:

• Citra
• Centennial
• Amarillo

Yeast: Fermentis Safale US-05 (dry)
IBU: 33.3
Expected OG: 1.047

Hop Schedule

• 60min - 15g Citra - 13.5%AA - 22.19 IBU
• 10min - 12g Citra - 13.5%AA - 6.41 IBU
• 10min - 12g Centennial - 10%AA - 4.75 IBU
• 0min - 12g Centennial - 10%AA
• 0min - 12g Amarillo - 9%AA
• Dry Hop - 4 days - 10g Citra - 13.5%AA
• Dry Hop - 4 days - 10g Centennial - 10%AA
• Dry Hop - 4 days - 20g Amarillo - 9%AA

(note: Dry Hop - 4 days means adding dry hops 4 days prior to bottling)

Steps

1. Put 10L of tap water into kettle/large pot and bring to the boil (put lid on pot to help it heat up faster)
2. While waiting for the large kettle to boil, add 2L of tap water to a smaller pot/saucepan and heat to 71C
3. Once the small pot reaches 71C, turn off the heat and add the 0.25kg wheat grains to a hop/grain bag then steep it in the smaller pot for 30 mins.  You can dunk/move the grain in the pot like a tea-bag to ensure all the grain is wetted
4. After 30 mins has elapsed, sparge (rinse) the grains with 1L of hot tap water
5. Add all the liquid from the small pot into the large kettle and wait for it to boil (if it hasn't already). Discard the used grain
6. Once the large kettle is boiled - remove from heat and add the 1.5kg light liquid malt extract - whilst stirring in the large pot to help dissolve
7. Return large kettle to heat and wait for it to boil (ensure lid is not on the pot/kettle at this point)
8. Fill the light liquid malt extract container with hot tap water - leave to stand for a couple of minutes to dissolve remaining extract in the container - add contents to large kettle
9. Once the large kettle is boiling, start a 60 minute timer and add the first bittering hops (as per hop schedule below)
10. After 50 minutes (ie. 10 minutes remaining in the boil), add the second set of hops (as per hop schedule below)
11. After 60 minutes has elapsed (ie. 0 minutes remaining in the boil), remove the kettle from the heat and add the final set of hops (as per hop schedule below)
12. Place lid on kettle and allow to stand for 10 minutes
13. After 10 minutes, place kettle in sink of water/ice water to cool (or use other cooling method - eg. immersion chiller)
14. Whilst waiting for the wort to cool, add 5L of cold tap water to the fermenting vessel (FV)
15. Add all the dry malt extracts to the FV and stir to mix/dissolve - be sure to remove any clumps
16. Once the wort in the large pot has cooled to less than 26 degrees, tip all the contents in the FV and stir to mix. You can use a filter/strainer to filter out the trub/large particles from the boil (optional)
17. Top up the FV to 23L with cold tap water - ideal pitching temperature should be 20-24C - stirring constantly to mix and aerate the wort
18. Pitch yeast

Pitched at 24C - moved to fermentation fridge and dropped temperature to 22C
Dropped to 20C after ~18hrs when fermentation was underway

Fermentation Notes

• Fermentation underway within 18 hours
• Set temperature to 20C +- 0.5C
• Fermentation subsiding/slowing by day 3
• Krausen mostly dropped by day 4-5 - still a thin floating layer but not persisting as it has previously with US05 - beer mostly cleared
  
  

Hydrometer Readings

Actual OG: 1041 + 3 points for inaccurate hydrometer (1044)
Day 5: 1006 + 3 points for inaccurate hydrometer (1009)
Day 9: 1006 + 3 points for inaccurate hydrometer (1009)
Day 13: 1006 + 3 points for inaccurate hydrometer (1009)
ABV: (1041 - 1006) / 7.46 + 0.5 = 5.19%
Bottled Day 13 with carbonation drops (1 drop per 375ml)

Tasting Notes

• First taste before pitching yeast (when taking OG sample) - quite bitter - hopefully didn't go overboard with the bittering hops
• Tasted on day 5 (of fermentation) - bittering quite pronounced but a definitely sweet undertone but may not be enough to balance it out. May need dry hopping but haven't attempted this yet. Recipe calls for dry hopping (as per link below)
• Tasted on day 9 (of fermentation) - bittering has subsided a little and hop flavour much more pronounced - much more balanced. No noticeable off flavours
• Tasted on day 13 (of fermentation) when bottling - balance seems good - dry hopping has given it a nice fruity punch - very interested to see how this develops once carbed and cold
• Tasted after just 1 week of bottling and this is hands down the best beer I've made. Has zero off flavours, and has an excellent balance of bitterness and flavour from the other hops. Wouldn't change anything if I were to brew it again. Credit to homebrew-recipes.com (link under Source below) for creating such a great and accurate recipe!
  
  

Photo

"Wetpak" American Pale Ale

Date: 26/10/19

Batch Number: 4

Beer: American Pale Ale

Extract: Country Brewer "Wetpak" American Pale Ale

Yeast: Fermentis Safale S-04 (dry)

Specialty Grain: approx 150g with two different types of grain - not sure of type

Hops: one pack - approx 10g - unknown type

Notes: this is my first partial boil using what is technically an unhopped extract. The extract has hop pellets already mixed through, but it still needs to be boiled to extract the bitterness from them. My instructions below will be paraphrasing the instructions that came with the kit

Steps

1. Empty extract contents into boil kettle
2. Fill extract pot with hot tap water and let stand for 1-2 mins to dissolve remaining contents inside. Empty into boil kettle
3. Put boil kettle onto stove over high heat and bring to a boil
4. Whilst waiting for kettle to boil, add the grain to the empty extract pot - then half fill the pot with hot tap water
5. Loosely place lid over extract pot and leave grain to steep for the duration of the boil
6. Once the extract has started boiling, start a 60 minute timer
7. Continuously stir the extract during the boil time
8. After 60 minute timer has elapsed, remove the kettle from the heat
9. Strain the contents of the grain into the kettle - ie. pour the liquid contents into the kettle, but filter out the actual grain
10. Add the hops from the sachet to the kettle. Stir, then cover the kettle and leave to stand for 10 minutes
11. Fill sink with cold water and put kettle into it. Can gently move the water around the outside of the kettle and also add ice to the sink water to help drop the temperature. Leave the kettle covered during this process
12. Can also gently stir the contents of the kettle (with sterilised spoon) to help the cooling process
13. Drop the temperature of the kettle to at least 26C (could take 30-60 mins)
14. Fill FV with 5L cold tap water
15. Empty all contents of kettle into FV (some people filter the trub from the kettle, I didn't bother)
16. Fill FV to 20L with cold tap water - stirring whilst doing so
17. Pitch yeast

Pitched at 22C

Fermentation Notes

• Fermentation underway within 12 hours
• Temperature had raised to approx 24C after 24 hours - warmer Sydney weather means ambient temperature a little higher under the stairs where the FV is kept
• Added FV into tub of water to help control temperature - dropped back to approx 22C
• Added fermenter to new fermenting fridge set to 20C on day 7 - dont expect this will make much different as fermentation is likely completed
• Yet to be bottled

Hydrometer Readings

OG: 1042

Day 7: 1007

Day 8: 1007
Day11: 1007

Bottled Day 11 using carbonation drops

ABV: (1042 - 1007 / 7.46) + 0.5 = 5.19%

Given how low these hydrometer readings are, I suspect my hydrometer may be out by at least a few points. I tested it with some tap water and it read 0.997 so I think I can safely add at least 3 points onto each of my values above - FG would therefore be 1010

Tasting Notes

• Tasting direct from the FV prior to bottling was very encouraging. No hint of home brew twang - sweetish with a hint of caramel. Tastes  very much as it should - like an American Pale Ale - similar to Little Creatures Pale Ale. Very promising!
• Tasted on day 6 after bottling as I noticed one PET bottle that was conditioning was fully carbed (can tell by squeezing the bottle). Not sure what was special about this one so I put it in the fridge for 24 hours then tried it - and it's definitely my best brew yet. Excellent head and mouthfeel, nice sweet caramel undertones - could definitely do with some dry hopping to give it a nice burst but still very drinkable as it is. Only the slightest hint of the dreaded home brew twang that was only really noticeable towards the bottom of the glass - interesting. I'm thinking the flavour may be diacetyl? Anyway, the beer is still very young so this may improve (or get worse) as it ages. Will post more tasting updates over the coming weeks.
• Tasted another bottle on day 8-9 and it had a strong acetaldehyde - a byproduct of yeast converting bottling sugar to alcohol. 
• Tasted another bottle on day 14, acetaldehyde gone, but still strong diacetyl flavours - hoping it just needs more time as it's conditioning at 20C which may be causing it to develop a little slower than it would at warmer temperatures. Have moved raised the temp of the fridge to 24 degrees and moved a couple of bottles outside of the fridge to a warmer environment to help the process along
• Tasted day 21 and all noticeble off-flavours - particular diacetyl have all but gone. Very happy with out how this one has turned out. If I were to make it again I'd definitely be adding something for dry-hopping.

How To Fix Homebrew "Twang"

The Fight Against Homebrew "Twang"

My goal when I decided to start brewing again, is to make something at home, that if I bought at a bottle shop, or got served a schooner of at a pub, I wouldn't be disappointed in. Plenty of people reckon they can make great tasting beer at home, and I'm determined to be one of them. The biggest thing holding me back from this goal at the moment is the infamous (amongst homebrewers at least) homebrew "twang".

This is one thing that I suspect just about every homebrewer has experienced, or at least tasted at some point during their brewing journey. I think it's difficult to describe, but I'd say it's a twangy, sweet kind of taste, present only in homebrewed beers that just isn't right and seems to overpower and take away from the otherwise good tastes in a beer. My first few batches have had it and whilst the beer is still drinkable, it's something I'm determined to get rid of in my brewing.

I've spent hours reading countless forums, blogs and books and there are plenty of theories about what causes this phenomenon and how to prevent it from occurring when brewing

Some of the common theories are:

• Poor water chemistry
• Poor temperature control during fermentation
• Stale liquid extract
• Poor sanitation practices
• Liquid extract that is "pre-hopped"
• Oxidation
• Something that is present in all extract, or kit & kilo brewing that cannot be gotten rid of

I'll address each of them below based on my experience and opinion;

Poor Water Chemistry

I'm in Sydney and our tap water is very drinkable as it is, but I know other homebrewers in the USA had great success with treating their water with tablets to help clean it up which eliminated homebrew twang for them. I don't think the water is causing it in my case.
Update - I've now made a great tasting beer using plain untreated Sydney tap water. This may be a factor for people in other parts of the world though.

Poor Temperature Control during Fermentation

This is one of the most repeated answers to the question of fixing homebrew twang. My first few batches have been brewed under the stairs in my two storey house, which is cool and dark and doesn't have big fluctuations in temperature. It does mean however that I'm somewhat susceptible to brewing only at a few degrees lower than the ambient temperature, which is OK but not great. In order to get complete control over this, I've recently purchased a dedicated brewing fridge that I've hooked up to an Inkbird ITC-308 thermostat controller. I haven't done a full brew/fermentation in it just yet so will continue to update this once I have.
Update - this one is definitely a major contributor - see my update at the bottom of this post for more info

Stale Liquid Extract

This seems like a plausible cause to me. In my case however, I've been very careful when buying extract from my local home brew shop to make sure it's fresh and has a long used by date. I think this is potentially a case, but don't believe it to be so in my case

Poor Sanitation Practices

Sanitation is incredibly important when brewing beer. I believe my practices are at the very least adequate at this point as I've had so signs of contamination/infection in any of my brews. I don't believe the "twang" as most people describe it is an infection as such

Liquid Extract that is 'pre-hopped'

A lot of beer extract kits that are available are 'pre-hopped'. What this means is that the bittering hops have already been added into the extract when it was created. This is beneficial as it means the process of making beer with one of these kits is much faster/simpler, as the need to boil the extract and add bittering hops is not required. The drawback is that the brewer has less control over the amount of bittering that goes into the final beer.

I believe this cause is at the very least plausible. I'll be attempting my next few brews with unhopped extract to see if this eliminates the twang. Will continue to update this once I have some results.
Update 2/12/19 - I think this is a contributing factor, but not a complete cause (or fix).

Oxidation

This one I believe to be a major contributor and is responsible for alot of off flavours in home brewed beer. For me, I think a big part of the problems I experienced with homebrew twang was related to the Coopers Style fermenter I was using. This is the newer/current style with no air lock, but a lid that sits on tight to keep nasties out, but doesn't keep/hold any pressure. The other contributing factor I suspect is that of bottling beer using a simple bottling wand attached to the tap of the fermenter.

After making quite a few batches, and even moving on to all grain brewing I was still noticing some off flavours. What I especially noticed was that the first week or two after bottling the beer tasted great, and then it slowly started to decline over the next few weeks which suggests that oxygen was being introduced somewhere along the way. I suspect either during cold crashing of the fermenter prior to bottling (causing air and oxygen to be sucked into the fermented beer), or during the bottling process. This makes total sense as the effects of oxidation aren't immediate - they usually take a couple of weeks to affect the beer and this is exactly what I was finding was happening to my brews.

The fix? Well, I've managed to fix or workaround the problem by moving to a pressurised fermenter and transferring my fermented beer to kegs instead of bottles. I can still bottle from my kegs using a bottle filler beer gun.

Something that is present in all extract, or kit and kilo brewing

I 100% disagree with this theory and truly hope it's not the case. A lot of brewers have said the only way they overcame the twang was by moving to all grain brewing. Whilst I'm certainly open to taking the dive into all-grain brewing in the future, I'm confident I can make something using extract without the twang.

When I visited my local home brew shop prior to brewing my first batch, I asked if it was possible to make something  that tastes great from a kit or extract. They gave me a sample that they had allegedly made using extract (they didn't give me the exact details), but it tasted GREAT. Assuming they weren't lying to me (I've no reason to suspect they were), this is what gives me hope that great tasting beer can be created from extracts.

Update - after moving to all-grain brewing I still found some off flavours developing which rules this one out. 

Update - 2/12/19

So, after only my fifth brew I have finally made a beer that I think tastes great. It's a clone of a well known Australian beer called the Balter XPA. It has none of the off flavours that all of my previous brews have had at least small traces of. To me it tastes great, and is just as good as beers I've bought at a pub, or from a bottle shop. So what did I change that made the difference? 2 things;

1. Using unhopped malt extract. I used a mix of liquid and dry extract in the Balter XPA clone - as long as the extract is fresh, I don't think dry or liquid will make much difference. Using unhopped extract means you need to do a boil yourself and add bittering hops, which gives you more control over the flavours in the beer. Pre-hopped extract I think will contribute largely to the flavours associated with home brewed beer. My fourth brew used unhopped extract, and whilst it tasted much better than the previous brews I'd done using pre-hopped extract, it still had small traces of the off flavours I'm trying to get rid of. So unhopped extract helps, but isn't the sole cause.

2. Temperature control. By getting a dedicated fridge and temperature controller for fermentation, I think this made the biggest difference. Using this fridge with a partial boil done with unhopped extract, I was able to create a a beer with no off flavours at all

What are you experiences with homebrew twang? Have you found another cause (or solution) to it? Let me know in the comments below.

"Crush" Dry Apple Cider

"Crush" Dry Apple Cider

Date: 4/10/19

Batch Number: 3

Beer: Dry Apple Cider

Kit: Country Brewer "Crush" Dry Apple Cider - liquid - 1.2kg

Yeast: Kit - I believe it may be EC-1118 but cannot confirm

Adjuncts: Country Brewer Ultrabrew - 1kg

Steps

1.  Soak extract in sink of hot tap water to soften contents - 10 mins
2.  Add approx 2L of hot tap water to FV
3.  Add ultrabrew and stir to dissolve - remove as many clumps as possible
4.  Add cider extract (smells just like apple juice!)
5.  Fill FV to 23L with cold tap water
6.  Sprinkle yeast on top

Pitched at 22C

Fermentation Notes

• Fermentation underway within 24 hours
• No krausen present - normal/expected with ciders
• Plenty of bubbling activity when looking in the FV

Hydrometer Readings

OG: 1047

Day 13: 1011 - stirred contents of FV gently with sterilised spoon to re-suspend the yeast
Day 15: 1009
Day 17: 1007
Day 19: 1007
Day 20: 1005

Bottled after 20 days with carbonation drops

ABV: (1047 - 1005 / 7.46) + 0.5 = 6.13%

Note: I got a little impatient with this one - after nearly three weeks. After getting 2 consecutive readings on day 17 and 19, I was confident fermentation had finished. Got everything ready to bottle on day 20, took a hydrometer reading just in case and it had dropped a couple more points. Research suggests that ciders in general will typically get close to 1000, or even less, however the additional adjuncts from the ultrabrew should stop it from getting this low in this case. Nervous about potential bottle bombs, but after checking one after approx 7 days it has carbed up nicely, no gushing when opening so, so far so good - will continue to monitor and check them every few days to be sure.

Tasting Notes

Initial taste after approx 7 days (to check for overcarbonation) was good! A little tangy and sweet, but very drinkable. Will suspect it will mellow with a little more time in the bottle. Will update this post again once it's matured a little more.

After leaving the cider for a good month or two to fully condition - it's now done. I find it a little too dry for my liking so I back sweeten them with a little bit of apple juice  which works really well - and you can obviously adjust the ratio to get the level of sweetness you desire. The Country Brewer (who make the Crush cider line) offer a "draught" and "sweet" variety of the "Crush" cider so I'll try the "draught" one next time which should have a little more sweetness.

Stone & Wood Pacific Ale Style

Stone & Wood Pacific Ale Style/Clone

Check out our updated Stone & Wood Pacific Ale All Grain Clone Recipe.

Date: 15/9/19

Batch Number: 2

Beer: Stone & Wood Pacific Ale Style/Clone

Kit: Wal's Pale Ale - Liquid malt extract - 1.7kg

Yeast: Fermentis Safale US-05 (dry) - 10g

Hops: 2 x 12g Galaxy 'tea-bags' - Aust 15% Alpha
Specialty Grains: Wheat - 150g
Adjuncts: Country Brewer Brew Booster - 1kg

Steps

1.  Soak extract in sink of hot tap water to soften contents - 15 mins
2.  Add approx 1L hot tap water to FV. Add brew booster and stir to dissolve
3.  Steep both hop tea-bags in 2 cups boiling water
4.  Steep wheat in coffee plunger with boiling water
5.  Add liquid extract once booster dissolved - stir to mix
6.  Start filling FV with cold tap water
7.  Whilst FV filling, add hop tea and tea-bags
8.  Plunge wheat and add liquid contents to FV
9.  Re-fill plunger with hot tap water (sparging) and add contents to FV
10.  Fill FV to 22L
11.  Pitch yeast

Pitched at 24C

Fermentation Notes

• Fermentation underway within 24 hours
• Small krausen formed after 24 hours - thick brown foam
• 96hrs still high krausen - brown bubbles - fermenting at 20C
• Day 7 - krausen slowly dropping
• Day 14 - bottled
  
  

Hydrometer Readings

OG: 1037

Day 7: 1008
Day 14: 1005

Bottled after 14 days with carbonation drops

ABV: (1037 - 1005 / 7.46) + 0.5 = 4.79%

Tasting Notes

This one was a little disappointing. Certainly nothing like a S&W Pacific Ale, really. At bottling, the beer tasted good and didn't really have any signs of the "twang", however, this twangy homebrew flavour certainly developed in the bottle and is very prevalent when drinking it now, which is disappointing. It's got a fairly sweet note because of the wheat grain as well.

Photos

"Xtract" Australian Pale Ale

"Xtract" Australian Pale Ale

Notes: My first attempt at re-igniting my interest in home brewing. I went to my local home brew store and asked for something very easy that would taste good - this is what they recommended. No boiling, just add the extract, make a hop tea, mix it all together and pitch the yeast.

Date: 30/8/19

Batch Number: 1

Beer: Australian Pale Ale

Kit: Country Brewer "Xtract" Australian Pale Ale - Liquid

Yeast: Fermentis Safale S-04 (dry)

Hops: 2 x 12g Cascade 'tea-bags - US 5% Alpha

Steps

1.  Soak extract in sink of hot tap water to soften contents - 10 mins
2.  Steep both hop 'tea-bags' in 2 cups boiling water - 10 mins
3.  Add extract to fermenting vessel (FV)
4.  Fill extract container with hot tap water to absorb remaining contents - stir and pour into FV
5.  Add cold water to FV whilst stirring to dissolve extract
6.  Add hop-tea (including tea-bags) while FV filling with cold water
7.  Fill to 20L
8.  Sprinkle yeast onto wort
9.  Gently stir yeast through wort

Pitched at 18C

OG: 1050

Fermentation Notes

• Fermentation underway within 23 hours
• FV kept under stairs - temperature consistent 18-20C
• Small krausen initially - slowly building - white/brown/green foam
• ~72hrs - removed krausen kollar from FV

Hydrometer Readings

OG: 1050

Day 4: 1010

Day 6: 1009

Bottled after 13 days with carbonation drops

ABV: (1050 - 1009 / 7.46) + 0.5 = 5.99%

Tasting Notes

For my first attempt at getting back into homebrew, it's not too bad. Certainly better than anything I made a couple of years ago when I first tried my hand at this using coopers pale ale tins and kit yeast. Unfortunately it has that infamous home brew "twang" - a unique sweet flavour that's hard to explain but just isn't quite right that is prevalent in a lot of home brewed beers. The internet is rife with theories on what causes it and how to fix it - which ill cover in a separate blog post. Aside from that, the taste balance is good, quite bitter as you'd expect from an APA