Latest out of the shed.
No doubt this is a common thing where you collect bit and bobs from different brews that you think will never see the light. Instead of going out to buy new ingredients, I challenged myself to make a beer from nothing but what was on hand. This was the first of the two beers. A hazy pale ale based on Gladfield Pilsner + Wheat + Big O with some Columbus / Galaxy and Simcoe. Fermented with Verdant IPA.
Following my oatmeal stout failure, I jumped back on the horse and did a brown ale which is fantastic.
I’d usually stop there as temperatures start to climb after September, but given the average weather I thought I’d sneak in a pale ale to get me through summer. I prepared a starter using a London Ale liquid yeast and pitched it at 1.054 aiming for a FG of 1.015, but after a week it was down to 1.010! Thought I’d leave it for another week and it continued to ferment down to 1.007. Unheard of in my brewery.
So my easy drinking 5%'er is now 6%! Looked very ‘hazy’ in the fermenter, although that wasn’t the intention. Currently bottle conditioning, so I’ll report back if it turns out any good.
You haven’t thought of going the Kveik during summer?
I wasn’t aware of that particular yeast, but I have done Saisons during the warmer months that don’t mind the higher temps.
To be honest I don’t mind taking summer off, but now that you’ve shown me I’ll have to give it a go!
Give the Voss a try. Higher temps will bring out a bit of an orange taste which I haven’t been a fan of in Kveik beers.
I ordered one of these controllers in 12v but they sent me a 240v, then let me keep it after sending the correct one. If anyone wants it I’ll post it to you.
Here’s your pizza joint Jim
a bit, yeh
Interview with a very tall brewer
A couple more from the brewery!
I went down the same path as my last beer to create something that was tasty just using what I had in the pantry before having to go off and buy new stuff. This one turned out far better than I thought. A combination of base malts and vienna + some nugget, cascade, centennial, citra and ctz make an appearance. This is one tasty frankenstein beer.
This is my first go at a kolsch style beer. A beer that I think will become a regular on the taps. Crowd pleasing, easy drinking and pretty to boot. The background of this design was generated using the Ai technology ‘midjourney’ where a series of prompts are entered to an ‘artwork’ is generated - some of these prompts were added into the label design.
Slowly settling into the new house up here in Bris and have room to start brewing (properly) again. I was lucky enough to score quite a lot of brew and dispense gear on marketplace from a guy who was giving it up due to health issues.
I stupidly jumped right in with a NEIPA FWK which succumbed to the Bris heat after a few days and ended up down the drain. Back to marketplace where I picked up this fridge for $60 to be used as ferment fridge. Inkbird controller turned up today, so if time permits - I’ll lay down another FWK this weekend. I’m definitely keen to give grain a go eventually, but will get a few brews under my belt first before I dive into that. Poor @EzyLee has already copped 1000 questions, with no doubt plenty more to come! Happy days 
Yes son! Glad to hear you have the temp control now – best move you can make. Now to dial in all of the cleaning and packaging, then you can start to make your own beer from scratch. You’ll love it!
Also I would never recommend a NEIPA for a first go. Far too unforgiving if exposed to oxygen.
I’ve still got a 240v temp controller I’ll post to someone for zero dollars if it’s wanted
Kegged on weekend! First go at direct transfer and had no issues. Had a taste (All Inn Aus Pale Ale + 50g Galaxy) and it isn’t amazing, but drinkable. I’m letting it carbonate properly and will give it another go this week - really hoping it’s alright but stoked on the result so far.
Put on a milk stout a couple of weekends ago, decided to give the Voss Kveik yeast a go that @EzyLee made me aware of. Fermentation went ballistic in the first 24 hours, then nothing. Seemed to stop at 1.026 (aiming for 1.016.) Probably wasn’t warm enough - my heat pad really only gets it up to mid 20’s.
Anyway, gave it a stir earlier this week - which I don’t really like doing - and it seems to have fermented a bit more. I’ll leave it to the weekend and see if I’m any closer to my target FG.
In other news I thought it would be cool to put a cork in the champagne bottles I use, just for packaging aesthetics really. The internet tells me it is possible. Cutting and incredibly long story short, the Belgian corks I need aren’t available in Australia. Even with postage factored in, a crowd in the UK works out the cheapest at around $1 per bottle, which isn’t too bad, but I’m committed to 120 corks. Hmmm…not sure.
I’ve never used Kveik and have given away a few packets to other brewers here in Canberra, but I’d expect it to want to have a bit more heat. Keen to hear how it goes from here though, so how long has it been in the fermenter for?
As for the champagne corks… spend that cash on another heat belt or fermentation fridge 
Two weeks tomorrow.
Just checked the gravity - only came down a couple of points to 1.024, so I’m still well short of my FG.
Not sure what to do next; might give it another stir and see if I can get the temperature up. If that doesn’t work I’ll probably need to make a starter and pitch the yeast when it’s active. I did that last time I had a stuck ferment years ago and the resulting beer had a yeasty taste, so I’m a bit reluctant to do that…better than bottle bombs though.
I’ll need to do a separate quick ferment too to see what it can potentially get down to. Ah…fun.
