Sunday 25 August 2013

Saturday 24 August -- A Big IPA Kinda Day


Today was the day to make another IPA. Not just any IPA, a bloody big IPA! An Imperial IPA!
It was a bit of a tricky day at times, but mostly it was very successful. Every problem is not really a problem. It's an obstacle to overcome. So, because of the day we had, we thought we might call this beer "The Hopstacle Course". Or "The Hopstical Course" because the word looks like Hospital and there was a very good chance that one of us could have ended up there today. Maybe "The Hopsticle Course". 
I dunno!
So, the first step always is to work out who makes the trek over to Grain and Grape in Yarraville on the Saturday morning. I think it took the three of us all week to negotiate that, but Chris offered to do it because he is the best bloody bloke in the world and has magnificent hair.
Getting there, it was soon discovered that we had placed the order incorrectly. A decimal point is very important, but thankfully, the blokes at Grain and Grape were happy to correct our mistake and mill the right amount of grain for us.

Here's what we ordered:
  • 24.35 KG of Pale Malt
  • 2.05 KG of Chocolate Wheat Malt

That's a heap of grain. The more malt we have, the more sugar will be produced, there more alcohol we will have. That's probably wrong, but hey, we ain't no scientists. We just want a big beer. This one should be 7.7% alcohol content. Fun times ahead.
Our other mission was to increase the hoppiness of our beer. As much as we enjoyed IPA A and IPA B, we found that there wasn't a lot of hop to it. This time, we went bananas with our hop purchases. 

Here are the hops we ordered:
  • 80g of Warrior
  • 80g of Chinook
  • 120g of Simcoe
  • 160g of Columbus
  • 120g of Centennial


A lot of that was used during the boil, but we've held some back to try some dry-hopping for the first time. 
So, the other problems we hit today were:
  • We couldn't find the silicone tube to move the boiling wort to the cubes. Michael had to drive back to Grain and Grape to buy another one. Poor bloke was gone for almost an hour and a half.
  • As we started to tip the grain in, it became apparent we had almost bought too much. It just fit into the pot, but only just.
  • Then, we had to try to lift the mash out. Check out how we eventually solved that problem.
  • Some of the 70/- bottles had exploded in the priming fridge. This makes us sad.
But mainly we had a successful day, and finished with a couple of tasty pints at The Raccoon Club.
Arriving at Grain and Grape at 9am. Time to buy a sausage and try two beers they had on sampling.
A whole lotta hops on the counter there. I'm waiting for them to mill our grain.
Three bags of grain are pretty heavy, so I need a shopping trolley.
Always good to have a few beers to drink for the drive back to Reservoir .
Disaster!! Two bottles of the 70/- have exploded. Why?
Maybe the bottles were old and weak. Actually, what is more likely is that our attempt at adding more sugar to get more carbonation has had dire results.
We cleaned it up. The lids are still on the broken bottle necks
We got the water to about 77 degrees. We need to keep it at 68 degrees during the mash.
Malt in. Look how full the pot is!
Hi Lucy
Lid on, and doona on. We dragged those two immersion heaters out once we got the temperature back to 68 degrees. The mash kept steady at 68 degrees for 90 minutes.
Lid off after 90 minutes
Ben is rigging up the new pulley system. Hope it works.
That bag looks pretty full. Will that tiny rope hold it?
On guard!
I don't even know what this is?
We tied it off.
And started to lift but it was too heavy.
So we moved the car in ...
 ... to try to tie the rope to the car
Dukes of Hazard style.
Hold it steady.
But it still wouldn't work.
I can't see how this is going to work at all ...
unless ...
... we hook up another line to the car ...
with a double line
and get in the car
and grab a beer
and back the car out slowly
Success!!

It's out!!
Tie another line to keep it steady and safe and let it drip for a while.
Let's go and have some lunch.
Ben cooked us Black Angus Eye fillet. These steaks were huge.
So was this beer
Back in the shed to weigh out all the hops
And label them to make sure they all go in at the right times.
Oh and Lucy made us some brownies. We love Lucy!
We got the boil going.
and gave it a stir with Mulesy's paddle
Finally, we filled 3 cubes. Well, almost three.


Hooray for beer! The next plan is to get the fermenter on and to think about dry-hopping this brew. We want hops and we want them to be big and bold and beautiful. We'll let you all know how we go with that. When it's ready, you all should totally come over for a beer.





Saturday 10 August 2013

Saturday 10 August, 2013 -- A bottling bonanza

A solid day of production for the Trilemma Craft Brewery. Today was the day we really started to feel like we were getting our shit together. We've made a lot of improvements in the way we do things and how we are approaching the jobs.

We've had two 60 litre Fermenting Buckets on the go now for about 3 weeks. One had 3 cubes of 70/- in it and the other had the last 2 cubes of the Oatmeal Stout. Our plan today was to get all of it into bottles and back into the big blue fermenting fridge. It took us about 6 hours, but we got there. 

Back in the 90s, I used to brew some home brew with Monica's Pop. It was mostly nasty stuff, derived from Cooper's Cans, and quite dirty. You'd find a good bottle a lot of the time, but it was Russian Roulette. However, it was free beer. And I didn't know any better. And I was happy to sit there and drink it with him. When he died, he still had hundreds of full bottles in his shed, so I grabbed as many as I could. I thought it would be nice to fill them with the 70/- and I reckon he would have liked that.

But we've run out of bottles now so anyone who can point us in the right direction will get a free beer.

I had to grab Pop's bottles out of the cellar. They all still had beer in them.

Buggered if I was going to clean them by myself. Get working kids, or no TV for a week

There we go! 37 bottles with all the labels removed. 

So, in the brewery now and I'm checking the 70/- for it's 'weight' to see how much sugar we need to add.

Ben has fallen in love with the fridge. Why not? It's running at a steady 19.9 degrees.

The 70/- still in the fermenting bucket. Those cubes on the ground have steriliser in them.

Michael has this nifty app on his phone to tell us exactly how many grams of sugar to add. Maths, eh?

Pop's bottle on the bottle tree. He would have loved this gadget. 

Gimme some sugar! 

Sweet.

Add boiling water (who's having stout to drink at 11am?)

We have to move the 70/- into a nice clean, sterilised bucket for bottling. This is so we don't get a whole lot of sediment in our bottles.

This takes a while, but it is so much quicker now that we have changed over to the 60 litre kegs.

You have to keep your eye on it

And watch for the 'cake' to start to appear

But it didn't take too long

We've added the sugar

And there she is. (Get off it, Michael!)

Good lad!

Time for a beer. 

No Lucy today to make us lunch.

So Ben brought over some 100 day grain fed eye fillet. 

After lunch we started the bottling.

And we didn't stop

Until ...

... we had 43.750 litres of 70/- in the bottles. Hooray!!!!!

So into the priming fridge they go.

And they'll stay there for three weeks

Onto the remaining Oatmeal Stout

We have to clean out and sanitise the keg

Not the most exciting job, eh?

Better have another beer, then.

And into the bottling

Look at all that hard work.

Go you good thing.

Beer goes in

Lid goes on

Bottle is ready

The fridge is looking full

Good work, Ben

Look at all that muck.

No, not on Michael's face. The gunk is the 'cake' left over from the stout.

And there we go. All up, we bottled 130 bottles (we think). Should be ready soon.

Our next day in the brewery will see us make another wort. Mash in, people! Mash in!