Yettiman wrote:How's it going for everyone else?

Mine are all bottled,conditioning, and packed in a box in the garage.
I have a couple of bottles that I keep in the kitchen to monitor (currently in the fridge), so can test them at any time I guess.

Mine had an FG of 1.012-1.013, and I bulk primed with recovered wort (speise). Looking at the samples in the kitchen it may be over-carbed for style, but the beauty of the PET bottles is you can easily vent them.

Yeasty wrote:do the coopers PET bottles come sterilised ? I'm assuming I will at least have to rinse them out with starsan.

I don't think they will be sterile, as the bottles are uncapped in an open box. The lids are in a separate poly bag.
I always treat new & used the same; rinse with water & then starsan.

When I sent one bottle to the St. Austell comp I think it was around a fiver, looking at the post office website I think a medium parcel at 1.5Kg is around £8, would be interesting to see if transglobal are cheaper/better.

Transglobal just over £9. Post office £8.

Not going to be cheap

How many bottles (How many of us are there) are we sending out?

Unless it has (or will) change I thought each of us would have to send out 3 packages of 2 bottles?

Sounds ok to me,

About a week till I bottle

I agree, there are 4 of us in total. I will also be bottling next Sunday so we are nearly there! Then we will be in the final stretch with the tasting imminent.

I will pm my address towards the end of the week.

Has anyone done anything other than a basic label? I'm in two minds about this but I am leaning towards basic due to time constraints.

I had forgot about the labels that were mentioned a while back.

I am basically lazy, so don't have labels! Instead I use coloured elastic bands around the neck to ID them. I think I will use blue & yellow (I try and match the label as best I can).

I normally just do a basic label :

Name
Brew date
Fermentation complete date
Bottle date
OG
FG

Stuck on with milk (soaks off nice it easy, and leaves no residue)

mally wrote:I bulk primed with recovered wort (speise)

You'll have to talk us through that technique Mally.

Mines looking all done, I'll leave it till Friday/Sat to clean up and then crash cool it with a view to getting it bottled Monday/Tuesday.




Yeasty

It sounds better than what it really is!
I am not sure I would encourage newcomers to try this either, but it is at least worth knowing about.

When I transfer the cooled wort from the cube into the fermenter, I try not to transfer the trub too much (mainly because I recover & wash the yeast).

The 2-3L that is often left in the cube gets quickly transferred into a sanitised pop (soda) bottle, capped & placed in the fridge.
If there is any headspace in the bottle, I squeeze it out and then re-cap.
The week or so fermentation (for ales) allows this trub to settle even more. I then decant the "supernatant" (wort) into a pan & boil for a few minutes. Allow to cool, and add to bottling bucket. I often get over a litre of clear wort this way, which can be enough to prime ales with (depending on O.G.). If you need a little more gravity, just add table sugar before you boil it.

For lagers, or general wort storage (starters), I pop it in the freezer & use the same way a few days before needed.

There are some dangers in this practice, which is why I would not recommend it for the less experienced.
Taste it before boiling & after to make sure your sanitation was OK, and you haven't done anything to the flavour. Don't boil for too long, as you may have hop oils that can isomerise & add bitterness.
Try and calculate the volumes of C02 you will be adding as it is easy to over/under carb (as I did this time)!

The benefits are: I feel like I am squeezing every last bit of wort I can! possible flavour improvement as you are not altering the profile too much. Really doesn't take much more time than priming with sugar, and less table sugar so slightly cheaper!

Think I'll stick to sugar and save my dregs for starters.

Yeasty,

If I was to pour my boiled (and still hot wort) into a boiled (and still hot) canning jar, as a means to store the left over dregs for a new starter, would this sound right, or should I go the whole hog, and add the wort to canning jars, reboil in a pressure cooker and then seal?

How do you do it?

I just freeze it as I like to reboil starter wort in the flask. Canning/sterilising would just be extra work.

If you are interesting in the canning of wort BB have a Video Here

That is a great link Yeasty. I always thought canning meant that you put stuff in tin cans!
If I had that equipment I wouldn't hesitate to use it in my routine.

Although for starters alone I always use DME, so I won't rush out to get it just yet.

Thanks Yeasty, that makes so much more sense

Very much appreciate the link as well, has given me a good heads up on what to look up on YouTube.

Thank you, but Freezing makes more sense, and it simpler

Hi Guys,

Thought I would give it a try so here is the Hobgoblin comparision "money shot"....
Colour is good. It doesnt show well but mine is cloudy (I got greedy near the end and some yeast got in)!
Flavour isnt the same though. At the moment I actually prefer mine. They are both good, but mine has a fresher hop finish so I would guess the original has been stored a while longer.
In fact there is a very prominent liquorice taste to mine that I like but I have never had this before Could possibly be the large Styrian addition

I am ready to send out samples whenever, as I think mine is ready to try (at least one of them) now. If (Andy, Adam, and Tony) you can PM your addresses I will get on it.

Cheers

Colour looks spot on mate,

Mine will be another 3 weeks before I crack one open, but will be happy if it looks like yours

PM sent (with my address)

Hi guys. I'm brewing a clone of this at the weekend(I hope). I see your recipe us 23IBUs. Are you guys battering to that? I've just had a bottle and I'd swear its more like 30 or more IBUs?? Or is that just my unsophisticated pallet?:)

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I went in at 40 Lars.

Thanks Yeasty! Anyone else? Is 40 more like the correct IBU?

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Me too Lars - just had a look at my BIABacus and it said 40 IBU's.

I didnt trawl back through the thread but where is the 23IBU you saw?
I/We can put up the BIABAcus file agian if you want to look through it.

Just let us know.

Lars wrote:Thanks Yeasty! Anyone else? Is 40 more like the correct IBU?

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I think the recipe was the same as I knocked it together and PM'd everyone involved. I can't recall the actual recipes IBU, 36/38 rings a bell. I'll have to go back through my notes.

Yeasty

mally wrote:Hi Guys,

Thought I would give it a try so here is the Hobgoblin comparision "money shot"....

HG comapre.jpg

Colour is good. It doesnt show well but mine is cloudy (I got greedy near the end and some yeast got in)!
Flavour isnt the same though. At the moment I actually prefer mine. They are both good, but mine has a fresher hop finish so I would guess the original has been stored a while longer.
In fact there is a very prominent liquorice taste to mine that I like but I have never had this before Could possibly be the large Styrian addition

I am ready to send out samples whenever, as I think mine is ready to try (at least one of them) now. If (Andy, Adam, and Tony) you can PM your addresses I will get on it.

Cheers

Great colour match Mally, at least we have that bit nailed Looking forward to tasting it .

I'm bottling/kegging tomorrow. I've 21ish Litres in the fermenter crashed and ready to go. I'll batch prime it all and bottle 6L. The rest will be kegged. I wanted to bottle it all but my heads up my arse with work and I'm really short of time. I will be able to bottle from the keg later if it turns out different and you all want a sample



Yeasty

@Mally page 1 says 23 IBUs. Id like a look at the biabacus file if that's OK?

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Ahhh.... Yes I remember now.
The 1st post was based on a jimsbeerkit recipe (orfy).

We actually ended up using info from the brewing network clone recipe. I'll PM you the BIABacus as it will probably not be allowed in here.