46: Skittlebrau

Recipe Overview

Wort Volume Before Boil:	12.00 l	Wort Volume After Boil:	10.00 l
Volume Transferred:	10.00 l	Water Added To Fermenter:	0.00 l
Volume At Pitching:	10.00 l	Volume Of Finished Beer:	10.00 l
Expected Pre-Boil Gravity:	1.061 SG	Expected OG:	1.073 SG
Expected FG:	1.017 SG	Apparent Attenuation:	75.0 %
Expected ABV:	7.5 %	Expected ABW:	5.8 %
Expected IBU (using Tinseth):	65.3 IBU	Expected Color (using Morey):	21.2 SRM
BU:GU ratio:	0.89	Approx Color:
Mash Efficiency:	60.0 %
Boil Duration:	90.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature:	18 degC

Fermentables

Ingredient	Amount	%	MCU	When
UK Pale Ale Malt	3.000 kg	75.0 %	7.5	In Mash/Steeped
UK Medium Crystal	0.800 kg	20.0 %	40.1	In Mash/Steeped
German Caramel Pils	0.200 kg	5.0 %	0.3	In Mash/Steeped

Hops

Variety	Alpha	Amount	IBU	Form	When
UK Admiral	12.9 %	40 g	65.3	Loose Whole Hops	20 Min From End
UK Admiral	12.9 %	20 g	0.0	Loose Whole Hops	At turn off
UK Admiral	12.9 %	20 g	0.0	Loose Whole Hops	Dry-Hopped

At the start of the year I decided to explore British Hops a bit more and do a series of single hop beers but with british hops. I chose Admiral to start with a randomly plucked the Malt bill out the air and stuck in a fairly agressive hop schedule. Why I chose 20% crystal malt is way beyond me - doing this again I would drop the crystal completely and probably just do it with extract for ease.

Somehow a discussion was started about putting sweets in beer, the name Skittlebrau was made and I upped the amounts to make it a bigger batch, with the intention of splitting it two ways and then dry skittling one of the batches with a single packet of skittles.

No care was taken at the dry skittle stage and I just dropped the skittles in - one was fermented with S05 and the other with 1056. Both of the beers finished high (1.028 rather than 1.017) and so both were incredibly sweet and cloying. The skittle beer, however, had a huge medicinal aroma and tasted of a fairly rank blend of skittles. You could taste the rainbow but it was not good. I think the trick would be to try and get the shell flavour but ignore the bit in the middle of the skittle which was more problematic. Or just avoid skittles altogether. I think I will try this again at some point - perhaps with a Tripel and restrict myself to one colour of skittle. Maybe.

Gyles 1-50

Last weekend, myself and the King of Burgers Gaz bottled my 50th gyle. My intention behind this blog is to only write about beers once they've all gone and hence the lack of activity but I thought I would use this opportunity to reflect on the last year or so of brewing. When it comes to brewing I have a vague idea what I'm doing but it's mostly guided by instinct rather than science but I think three things have made the process more interesting and more fun, and I think has improved my brewing in general:

1. Beer Alchemy. Without question the moment when I knew I could enter a recipe into Beer Alchemy and get pretty much what I typed in into a bottle was revelatory. No longer did I had to rely on unreliable recipes and I could tailor beers to my equipment. I can't recommend it highly enough.

2. Splitting batches. Generally when doing a 20 litre batch of beer I'll split it somehow - this has meant that I can brew beers with different yeasts, age some on fruit or with Brett or lark about with Skittles. If 4 litres goes wrong then I've still got the 16 litre back up. If it goes right then I've learned something.

3. Doing small batches. 4 litre batches are awesome, and mean that I can use a smaller pan so the process is quicker and (following from above) I don't mind so much if everything goes wrong. In addition, doing an 8 litre boil down to 4 litres meant that I could use 1 packet of extract for an APA, 2 for an IPA and 3 for a barley wine.

So here are the 50 beers I've done so far:

1. Heart Dancer. Imperial IPA from Sam Caligione's book
2. Ball of Eyes. Chamomile Tripel from Sam Caligione's book
3. Priodas. Imperial Stout from SC book with added lavabread
4. Satori. Belgian Black IPA
5. Dsenghis Khan. Wit with Kiwi from SC book
6. Lower Than The Stars. All Cascade PA
7. Crackers and The Soul Brother. All Amarillo IPA
8. McVicar. All Chinook IPA
9. Bare Trees. Abbey Singel
10. Son of Bare Trees. Abbey Singel with California Lager yeast
11. Requiem Pour Un Con. Citra/Nugget /Amarillo IPA
12. Voice of the 3 Hops. Simcoe/Cascade/Amarillo DIPA
13. Magic Monsters. Rye Imperial Mild with Elderflowers
14. J-35. Centennial/Simcoe Barley Wine
15. Timberline. Hoppy Porter
16. Son of Magic Monsters. Imperial Mild with Oak
17. Listen Listen. Imperial Real Ale
18. Phantom Hero. Pliny Clone
19. Son of Phantom Hero. Pliny Clone with Kolsch Yeast
20. The Follower. Belgian Black IPA
21. Green Teeth. Passion Fruit Wit
22. Beat of My Drum. Smoked Anglo America IPA
23. Son of Timberline. Hoppy Porter aged for 2 months with Brett L.
24. Foolish King. Gluten Free IPA
25. Nightfall. Tettnang Pale Ale
26. Condition Red. Imperial Stout
27. Action Defence Team. Russian Half Stout w/ Bread yeast
28. Turn It Up. Russian Half Stout w/ Brett L, Brett B and Saison
29. Get Up. Russian Half Stout w/ Brett L
30. I Am So Smart. Russian Half Stout w/ Brett B
31. Be Sharp. Russian Half Stout w/ Saison yeast
32. Tramampoline. Use up hops pale ale
33. Son of Condition Red. Imperial Stout with vanilla, oak and cardamon
34. Stormbringer. Hoppy old ale
35. Hallo Mr. Hitchcock. Abbey Singel rebrew
36. Peter Gunn. Nugget Nectar clone
37. Son of Peter Gunn. Nugget Nectar with vanilla and oak and cardamon tincture
38. Talagh. Stella Black IPA
39. Red Road. Smoked Kipling
40. Midnight. Christmas Bitter
41. Operation Doomsday. All Simcoe PA
42. Sunhead. Imperial Smoked Kipling
43. Is It Because I'm Black. Stella Black IPA rebrew
44. What Is Soul. Rye Stout
45. Rodier. All Admiral IPA
46. Skittlbrau. Admiral IPA with a packet of skittles
47. Homeland. Rye Saison
48. Hole in the Head. NZ Barley Wine
49. Soul Desert. Baltic Porter
50. Children of Lir. Halycon clone

I make no claims that even more than 25% of these were successful...