Sunday, March 30, 2008

Barons bite

After a few requests, and I've been told His Majesty like dark beer, I made a small batch of Barons Bite today.

2.1 Kg Pale malt
600g Crystal malt
100g Chock malt (black roasted)
57g hops.

As it is a small batch of beer I was unable to use the "micro" brewery. I had to do the mashing in a 10 litre brewing bin. I added my sliced hose to the outlet at the bottom of the bin and covered it with a cheese cloth. Filled the bin with the crushed malt (all of it) and topped it up with 75 degrees C water. After 30 minutes I stirred it to help with the separation of grain and husks. Another hour and a half later I started the extraction and striking. It worked very well.
Standard boil, 40 minutes with 75% of the hops, added Irish moss after another 5 minutes and then another 15 minute boil. I did the cooling by immersing the pots (I had to use two pots as there was more than 20 liter to start with) in cold flowing water in the sink.
I let it rest a few minutes to allow for some sedimentation and then filtered the brew through some cheese cloth. This time I used some of my "collected yeast" rather than new yeast.
End result, 19 litres of 1038.
It is already bubbling...

And yes, I have just skimmed 9 brewing buckets.

Next weekend I will have to bottle about 150 litres of beer and make the honey beer. As I promised at midwinter coronation I will also make about 10 litres of vodka and some salt licorice snaps. I have to get the wash on for that this week. Probably on Wednesday.

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