Tuesday, 3 December 2024

Juice Boost 2.0 - Hazy IPA - BrewZilla Brew Day

 

Our first daytime brew day in quite some time, and this time we're making our second version of the Juice Boost Hazy IPA (formerly NEIPA). A slightly tweaked grain bill from the original and some new hop varieties, and our first beer using Lallemand's new Pomona yeast. Can't wait to see how this one turns out!

Monday, 25 November 2024

Juice Boost 2.0 - Hazy IPA - All Grain Recipe


Our second attempt at a Hazy IPA (or New England IPA), after the great success of the original Juice Boost recipe. We've kept the name but modified the grain bill and hop schedule as we always do to try and keep things new and interesting.

Monday, 18 November 2024

Flying Horses - American Amber Ale - Tasting Results/Review

This was our second attempt at an amber ale, following on from our reasonably successful Headspace Amber Ale that we made last year. We changed the recipe slightly this time around, firstly as our local brew shop was out of the Gladfield Shepherd's Delight malt that we think really made the difference in our first attempt, but we also like to try out different hop varieties and malt combinations - and we feel we definitely learnt a few things after making this beer. A late change a couple of weeks after kegging actually seemed to turn this beer around, as to be honest, we weren't all that pleased with how it initially turned out, but in the end it turned out great!

Monday, 11 November 2024

Redemption - West Coast IPA - All Grain Recipe

This will be our third attempt at a West Coast IPA, after our first two batches come out somewhat lacking. After plenty of research, we're confident we've found the reason for this - too much sulfate in our water profile that lead to an aggressively bitter finish and stripped out nearly all hop aroma and flavour.

Thursday, 7 November 2024

Cerveza Piñata - Mexican Lager - BrewZilla Brew Day

 

Here's a quick run down from our latest brew day - our Cerveza Piñata Mexican Lager. We had a friend join us for this one, so we didn't capture as many photos as we normally would.

Monday, 4 November 2024

Stone & Wood Pacific Ale - Official Clone Recipe - Tasting Results/Review

 

Third time's a charm, or so the saying goes, and it certainly was for us in this case. Our 3rd attempt at creating this iconic beer, and we feel like we've really nailed it this time. Although we can't take all the credit (refer to the original Recipe post for more detail on how the recipe we used came to be), we're certainly very pleased with how it turned out, and think this is the closest we're going to be able to get to replicating the original Stone & Wood Pacific Ale.

Thursday, 31 October 2024

KegLand - Series X Kegerator - Review

For homebrewing enthusiasts, having a personal kegging setup is often considered the ultimate goal. The advantages of kegging over bottling are well-established, with significant reductions in cleaning time and oxidation risk being the most notable. Additionally, the sheer enjoyment and ‘cool’ factor of serving your own beer from a tap at home is an experience that shouldn’t be underestimated.

Monday, 28 October 2024

Cerveza Piñata - Mexican Lager - All Grain Recipe

 

Our second attempt at a Mexican lager and we're going for a slightly different approach and recipe. Although we're including the crucial ingredient in a Mexican lager - some kind of corn derivative like maize, we're going for a slightly darker beer than the usual pilsner malt base like we did in our first mexican lager (which turned out great).

Tuesday, 8 October 2024

Stone & Wood Pacific Ale Clone - BrewZilla Brew Day

 

This is our third attempt at trying to replicate this iconic beer, and we're hoping this attempt will be the closest and best one yet. Check out our previous post with the full recipe details that were apparently shared by an ex-Stone and Wood brewer.

Tuesday, 1 October 2024

Full Nelson - New Zealand Pilsner - Tasting Results/Review

It's actually been a little while since we blew through the keg of this one, however we had a couple of bottles from this batch sitting in our kegerator that we decided to enter along with our Mr Rice Guy Japanese Rice Lager into the 2024 NSW Homebrewing Competition.

Mr Rice Guy - Japanese Rice Lager - Tasting Results/Review

We were pretty pleased with how this one turned out, and we actually decided to enter it into the 2024 NSW Homebrewing Competition where it claimed 3rd place in the pale lager category, which we're incredibly proud of, with a combined score of 73/100.

Friday, 27 September 2024

Full Nelson - New Zealand Pilsner - All Grain Recipe

Foreword

We actually brewed this beer several months ago but negated to post it at the time (for a couple of reasons), but after recently entering this beer into the NSW Homebrewing Competition where it claimed second place in the pale lager category, we figured it's definitely worth sharing.

Wednesday, 18 September 2024

KegLand - Hop Bong - Hands on Review

Birallee Brewing KegLand Hop Bong Review Title image

We first looked at KegLand's Hop Bong just prior to it's release way back in 2022. It may have taken us a while, but we finally got our hands on one, so here's our hands on review based on our experience with it so far.

Tuesday, 17 September 2024

Building a Home Brewery - Design Ideas

Birallee brewing building a home brewery  title image

Thinking of designing a dedicated space for your homebrewing adventures, and looking for some inspiration or ideas? This was us a couple of years ago when we were designing a new house. We were able to include a few brewing related additions to our design, in particular in the garage where at least part of it was going to be used for brewing. These inclusions have been paying dividends for us since we moved in, so we thought we'd share our experience on this.

Friday, 13 September 2024

Flying Horses - American Amber Ale - BrewZilla Brew Day

flying horses american amber ale birallee brewing brewzilla brew day title image

Here's the run down from our latest brew day - our Flying Horses American Amber Ale. You can check out the link to the recipe at the bottom of this page.

Wednesday, 4 September 2024

Flying Horses - American Amber Ale - All Grain Recipe

flying horses american amber ale all grain recipe birallee brewing title image

Foreword

Although it's the end of winter and spring just sprung, we're definitely in the mood for something hoppy and malty whilst the nights are still quite cool, so an amber ale seems to be in order. Our first attempt at an amber ale, dubbed Headspace, turned out great, so our next iteration of an American Amber Ale is quite similar but with a slightly adjusted grain bill and hop schedule, since we like to continuously change things up and keep it interesting.

Tuesday, 27 August 2024

High Sulfate Levels in Beer - How Much is Too Much? (feat. Adam Makes Beer)

birallee brewing adam makes beer high sulfate levels in beer title image

In a previous blog post, we shared our anecdotal experience with excessive sulfate levels in beer, particularly in hop forward styles like IPA's. You view the article here, but in summary, we found that a number of our beers, all of which featured loads of hops added late in the boil and at dry hop, were completely lacking in hop aroma and flavour. On top of this, they had a harsh, astringent bitterness that overpowered everything else, and a strong malty sweetness. In short, these beers just weren't any good, and we ended up dumping a couple of them.

Wednesday, 14 August 2024

Pacific Pale Ale - Tasting Results/Review

pacific pale ale birallee brewing tasting results and review title image

This would have to be one of the best pale ales we’ve ever made. There’s a few things we’d adjust slightly if we were to make it again, but overall we’re very pleased with how it turned out. A slight tweak in our water profile, namely moving away from the Brewfather hoppy profile and trying a reduced level of sulfate appears to have netted us some real improvements in hop aroma and flavour.

Monday, 29 July 2024

Keg King - Apollo Stainless Steel Pressure Lid - Review

keg king apollo stainless steel pressure lid birallee brewing title image

Back in August 2022, we got our hands on Keg King’s Apollo Titan fermenter, and it’s been our go-to fermenter ever since! The stainless steel construction is top-notch, and the small opening at the top gives us a reliable seal every time.

Sunday, 28 July 2024

Thursday, 25 July 2024

Mr Rice Guy - Japanese Rice Lager - All Grain Recipe

 Birallee Brewing Mr Rice Guy japanese rice lager all grain recipe title image

Foreword

We're on a mission to try out all the different types of lagers, and next up is a Japanese rice lager. We're big fans of Japanese lagers, especially Asahi, so if we can whip up something even close to that, we'll be pretty happy.

Tuesday, 23 July 2024

KegLand - Premium Stainless Steel Drill Powered Mash Stirrer - Review

Let's face it, brewing beer is a delightful blend of art and science, but nobody wants to spend eons stirring like a medieval alchemist. Enter the KegLand Premium Stainless Steel Drill Powered Mash Stirrer & Mixer (KL32247) - a bit like the superhero of your brewing toolkit.

Monday, 15 July 2024

Raspberry Sour - Tasting Notes/Review

Our inaugural attempt at crafting a sour beer has yielded delightful results that exceed our expectations. Utilizing Philly Sour yeast proved to be a winning choice, aligning closely with the experiences of others who have explored its capabilities.

Wednesday, 10 July 2024

Awesome 4Some - West Coast IPA - Tasting Results & Review

Here’s a quick update to wrap things up – unfortunately, this brew didn’t make the cut (i.e., we ended up pouring it down the drain). It’s only the second time we’ve had to do this, but life’s too short to settle for subpar beer.

Friday, 28 June 2024

Homebrewery - Undersink Water Filter Installation

There's no disputing the importance of water when brewing your own beer - being the single biggest ingredient, it's critical you're using quality and good tasting water when making your beer. Unsurprisingly, if you're water quality and taste is poor, then this will likely have a detrimental impact on your beer.

Thursday, 27 June 2024

Stone & Wood Pacific Ale - Official Clone Recipe

Stone & Wood Pacific Ale All Grain Clone Official Recipe Birallee Brewing title image

We've had a couple of attempts at brewing the Stone & Wood Pacific Ale, and whilst our attempts have been OK, we're still not quite there in terms of accurately replicating this awesome beer.

Monday, 24 June 2024

Tuesday, 18 June 2024

Pacific Pale Ale - All Grain Recipe

Birallee Brewing Pacific Ale All Grain Recipe title image

Foreword

We've produced a couple of beers that haven't turned out recently - more specifically, they are way too bitter and really lacking any hop punch or aroma. We're thinking the culprit here may be excessive sulfate levels in our water profile (using the Brewfather Hoppy water profile), so for our next batch we're going to make a fairly simple "Pacific Ale" recipe - aptly named as a nod to the original Stone & Wood Pacific Ale that features galaxy hops and wheat malt.

Thursday, 13 June 2024

Does the RAPT Pill work in a stainless fermenter?

The RAPT Pill from KegLand is an incredibly popular piece of homebrewing equipment, providing an affordable and easy to use way for brewers to monitor the progress of their fermentations. (If you're after more detail on exactly what the RAPT Pill does, check out our RAPT Pill Review).

Thursday, 6 June 2024

2024 Homebrewing Trends - Brulosophy General Homebrew Survey Results

We're big fans of Brulosophy, and every year they conduct a survey amongst the homebrewing community to gain various data points, and then share the results publicly via their website. It's pretty neat and a great way to gain some insights into trends in hombrewing.

Wednesday, 5 June 2024

Raspberry Sour - All Grain Recipe

Foreword

This one has been on our to-brew list for some time now, so it's finally time we had a go at our first sour beer.

Friday, 24 May 2024

High Bitterness & Low Hop Flavour in West Coast IPA

This article is going to be a bit of a brain dump, and perhaps a way to research and compile our own thoughts and evidence around this. As per the title, our latest challenge in our homebrewing journey has been a lack of hop flavour, but high bitterness in our West Coast IPA's.

Friday, 17 May 2024

Popular Craft Beer Hop Combinations

Birallee Brewing popular craft beer hop combinations title image

This will be an ongoing post that we're hoping to continuously update with hop combinations we come across in our beer travels. They won't be in any particular order, so a "find" on the page might be the best way to locate a particular hop you're looking for, to see what other hops it has been paired with by commercial breweries.

Thursday, 16 May 2024

Is Homebrewing a Lager Difficult?

Introduction

Lagers are by far the most popular beer style in the world, so it makes sense that most brewers want to have a go at making one for themselves at some point. But when people begin diving into the world of homebrewing and researching how to make one themselves, they'll inevitably come across advice suggesting to steer clear as they can be more difficult to make than ales.

Thursday, 2 May 2024

Country Brewer - Irish Red Ale - Tasting Results/Review

We've had this one kegged for some time now, and wanted to share our thoughts on how it turned out.

Wednesday, 10 April 2024

Awesome 4Some - West Coast IPA - BrewZilla Brew Day

Our second attempt at a West Coast IPA, and finally a brew day that has gone largely to plan, with next to no problems or set backs! In some ways we've gone back to basics and what we know works well. More specifically, we've done away with our pump-operated sparging setup and gone back to good old manual batch sparging, as well as our trusty immersion chiller after repeated ongoing issues with our counter flow chiller not "flowing".

Friday, 5 April 2024

Why Brewfather is the Best Software for Homebrewing

If you're serious about your homebrewing, you really have to be using some kind of software application to help manage the many aspects of brewing. From recipe design, to calculations, conversions and inventory management, a good piece of homebrewing software can make all these tasks so much simpler, and really are a must-have in your brewing line up.

Tuesday, 2 April 2024

Mexican Lager - Tasting Results & Review

Our Mexican Lager has now been in the keg for several weeks, and although a lagering period isn't typically required when using NovaLager yeast, it has certainly benefited from a bit of maturing time to clear up visually, and to round out some of the flavours.

Tuesday, 19 March 2024

Awesome 4Some - West Coast IPA - All Grain Recipe

Recipe Notes

This will be our second attempt at a West Coast IPA. Our first version was pretty decent, but we overdid it with the malt and ended up with something a little too sweet for our liking. In this version we've dialed back the crystal/specialty malts, and put in some munich malt instead for a bit of complexity without being too overwhelming or distracting from the hops which should be taking centre stage. We're also going with a different hop combination to our previous version, just to keep things fresh and mix it up a bit.

These beers are big, with loads of hops as well as malt - and with a relatively high starting gravity they really need 2 packs of dry yeast to ensure a good fermentation and clean result. This tends to make them more expensive to brew so we don't do them all that often, but in any case it's still going to be significantly cheaper than buying around 19L of West Coast IPA!

We purchase hops in 100g packs, so for this recipe we're going with 4 different varieties and hence the name, "Awesome 4Some". The hop schedule has been calculated to utilise the full 400g of hops in total, starting with the calculations to hit the required IBU's for the 30 minute, 5 minute and whirlpool hop additions. Whatever is left over after this is what has been included in the dry hop which is why the numbers vary here. What we have done intentionally though is used Citra as the primary 30 minute addition to reduce it's dosage later on as we find it can really dominate in terms of flavour when dry hopping.

Vitals

Batch Volume: 23L 
Boil Time: 30 minutes
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75%

Original Gravity: 1.064
Final Gravity: 1.012
IBU (Tinseth): 64
BU/GU: 1.00
Colour: 11.8 EBC
Expected ABV: 6.8%

Mash

Temperature: 65°C - 60 minutes
Mash Out: 75°C - 10 minutes

Malts

5.7kg - Gladfield Ale Malt
0.7kg - Gladfield Munich Malt
0.1kg - Gladfield Toffee Malt

Hops

30 mins - Ekuanot - 27 IBU
5 mins - Ekuanot - 5 IBU
5 mins - Centennial - 6 IBU
5 mins - Idaho #7 - 6 IBU

15 mins - Whirlpool/Hopstand @ 80°C - Amarillo - 5 IBU
15 mins - Whirlpool/Hopstand @ 80°C - Centennial - 5 IBU
15 mins - Whirlpool/Hopstand @ 80°C - Ekuanot - 5 IBU
15 mins - Whirlpool/Hopstand @ 80°C - Idaho #7 - 5 IBU

Dry Hop - Amarillo - 41g - 3 days
Dry Hop - Centennial - 13g - 3 days
Dry Hop - Ekuanot - 54g - 3 days
Dry Hop - Idaho #7 - 50g - 3 days

Yeast

Fermentis SafAle US-05 (2 packets - dry)

Fermentation

18°C - 12 days

Carbonation

2.4 CO2-vol

Water Profile (Brewfather's "Hoppy" Water Profile)

Brewfather "Hoppy" Water Profile

Ca2+ (Calcium): 110
Mg2+ (Magnesium): 18
Na+ (Sodium): 17
Cl- (Chloride): 49
SO42- (Sulfate): 267
HCO3- (Bicarbonate): 48


Check out our link below to the Brew Day for this recipe!

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Friday, 15 March 2024

Mexican Lager - BrewZilla Brew Day

It seems that lately we've been having at least some kind of problem our set back every time we brew a batch of beer. Well, this one was no exception, and whilst the problem we encountered ultimately wasn't a huge deal, it certainly could have been a bit worse, and gave us a timely reminder that making beer can sometimes be dangerous. Read on to find out more about what happened.

Starting out with our grain which we got from 41 Pints of Beer - it's a simple grist consisting of pilsner malt, and some chit barley malt. Check out our recipe post for all the details.

Mexican Lager's typically feature some type of corn product in addition to the base malt, which would typically be flaked maize, however we opted to use polenta (cornmeal) for this one (more info on this in the recipe post)

 

We also added some rice hulls to the grist as we weren't sure exactly how thick it would get with the polenta being added


We mashed in with our grains and polenta and left the grain bed to settle for 10 minutes or so, and whilst waited we took to adjusting the pH of our sparge water. In recent brews we've massively overshot the pH, making it far too acidic and leading to a lot of messing around with adding bicarbonate soda back in to raise the pH back up, then acid to lower it again to the right level, but we were determined not to do so this time, so we took to adding the final small parts of acid with a dropper instead of plastic syringe. Drop by drop we eventually got to 5.61 - close enough.

By this point our grain bed had 'settled' so we took a small sample from the top like we normally do and were surprised to see a pH of 4.66 - way lower than the expected 5.2-5.6 range. 

We always add a little bit less phosphoric acid than what Brewfather suggests as a type of 'safety net', so this was a little puzzling that we could overshoot by so much. Before we did anything drastic though we figured we'd give the grain bed a good stir, and then take another sample.

And good thing we did, with the second sample giving us a reading of 5.48 - comfortably within the optimal range we were aiming for.

We then started our recirculation of the wort through the grain bed.

Since we're brewing a lager, we want a really fermentable wort to increase attenuation for a lower final gravity, and nice, dry finish, so we're using a mash temperature of 65°C

By the end of the 60 minute mash the wort had started to clear up nicely

We started to raise the temperature from 65°C to 75°C for our 10 minute mash out period.

Next we began our batch sparging - we opted to revert for our old 'manual' sparging process using a simple jug to pour the water from our Digiboil sparge water heater, over the top of the grain bed.


Everything was going fine, but after pouring through most of our sparge water the flow rate really started to drop off, so we started stirring the grain bed in the raised position you can see in the photo above. 

And this is where things went wrong. Whilst we were stirring, we managed to move the grain basket enough so it slipped off the steel ring that supports it, and it landed back into the BrewZilla with the full force and weight of all the grain inside, which displaced a fair amount of wort (probably around 80°C-90°C) all over the floor, and our feet!

We were wearing socks at the time which no doubt helped prevent our feet from getting scolded (though it still certainly hurt!), and our epoxy covered floor sure came into it's own with everything being wiped/mopped up fairly easily - though we suspect some did make it's way under things in the garage which can't easily be moved. This was certainly a reminder to us that when dealing with hot liquids like this, some extra care is definitely warranted, so we'll definitely be more careful when stirring a grain bed whilst sparging in the future!

Needless to say, we didn't capture any photos of this period, so moving on!

As a result of the lost wort, we ended up with a couple of litres less volume than expected, with only a touch over 25L of pre-boil volume.

We did however exceed our estimated pre-boil gravity, with a reading of 1.040 (expected 1.037) - this is potentially directly related to the lost wort and some of the sparge water, but we'll take it as the silver lining for this 'cloud'.

Whilst waiting to reach a boil, we started measuring out our hop additions, as well as whirlfloc and yeast nutrients.

After an uneventful boil, we began chilling our wort using our immersion chiller. We gave the counter flow chiller one last try with this batch but we couldn't get the wort pumping through it again so we're going to retire that particular piece of equipment for now and stick with what we know works for us every time. We may even look at upgrading to a copper immersion chiller in the near future.

Our post-boil gravity reading was 1.045, a few points higher than expected which will certainly give us a nice, full strength beer.

And finally, we transferred to our Apollo Titan fermenter and left it overnight in our fermentation fridge to reach pitching temperature

This is our second batch with NovaLager yeast so we're looking forward to seeing how this one turns out


Fermentation completed in only a few days with a final gravity of 1.006 - 1 point lower than expected



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