Breaking the Rules

It's amazing how many things we believe without checking for ourselves (No, this isn't going to be an atheist rant, although parallels could be drawn)

In cooking, for example, people are still convinced that sealing meat will keep in the juices. In fact the opposite is true. People still waste time sifting flour to 'trap air in' and still salt their aubergines, even TV cooks now say this is unnecessary.

Brewing is another area, there are all kinds of do's and dont's you hear parroted without anyone actually checking for themselves. Luckily, partly through laziness, I've always been a little sloppy in my brewing techniques and haven't yet produced a bad brew. With only one exception, when my pale malt had been hanging around too long and the resulting beer was rather soapy tasting, I have never produced a beer that wasn't as good as something I've been served in a pub and enjoyed.

My most recent 'happy accident' was when I found I had no yeast left and resorted to a sachet of Tesco bread yeast. It fermented well, as expected, and once cleared it produced a very nice beer. No 'doughy' taste that some suggest would result from it. It had quite a dry taste to it, similar to other beers I have tried. I think the amount of hops I use may have helped the flavor.

My only issues I had with it was that the yeast didn't form a very dense layer in the bottle and stirred up easily when poured, something that is true to other commercial ale yeasts, and it got rather lively in the bottle, priming was certainly unnecessary!

I liked it so much, not least the economy, that I have used some that I collected from the secondary fermenter to start my next brew. This time I will put it in a barrel for a while to clear before bottling and maybe skip the priming. This one will be going with me to Cropredy Festival next month so fingers crossed it will be a good one.

All Hail the Ale!

Just sampled my latest brew and, all modesty aside, its one of the best I have ever tasted. A nice dark brown ale made with target and cascade hops. A rich flavour with a distinctive aroma. Its also very economical due to the grains and hops i have used.

Recipe (5gallon or 23litres)

4kg Marris otter pale malt
70g black malt
Mash for 90minutes

Boil 75 minutes
25g target hops (start of boil)
25g cascade hops (last 15mins of boil)
1tsp Irish moss (last 15mins of boil)
600g sugar (probably too much, i think this brew is about 6.5%ABV, 400g would result in something nearer 5%, or it could be completely ommited to give about 4%)

Nottingham yeast (reclaimed from a bottle of my last brew)

The Nottingham yeast I got out of desperation when I made my last brew and found I was out of yeast and that was all the local shop had. It imparts a neutral flavour, ideal when using hops with a strong character and has a low and dense sediment sediment, good if you want to bottle. In fact the first bottle I tried i drained the last drop out of and no sediment went into the glass.

I will have to get another on for Christmas, I don't think this will last long!