Brewed with Sam and Alex. Brew went well, no top-up and decent rolling boil resulted in 24L total in fermenter at 1.076 initial gravity, highest sg so far. [Update: at dry hop the pill was disturbed and dropped 8pts suddenly. A likely explanation is the pill was in a position where it was over-reading, then disturbed to come right – since 1.068 is a more likely IG for 6kg grains than 1.076, and 1.013 is a reasonable final gravity value for the recipe too. I have altered the IG to 1.068.]
Sunday yeast foam starting to build, bubbling away at 4psi, and gravity dropped 5 or so points.
Day 4
Fermentation progressing steadily 18C at 4psi
foam at a good level no overflow
Day 5
abv around 5.5-6%
raised temperature to 19C
Day 6
SG 1.028 in the PM.
Abv est. 7%, still steadily bubbling away.
Day 7
Dry hopped 75g Nectaron – gravity dropped 10pts when I moved the fermenter getting the lid off, so I think the pill wasn’t sitting right. Adjusted SG by -10pts to compensate. Abv still around 7% with the adjustment.
Raised temperature to 20C and closed the spunding valve for pressure to build and carbonate over the second week.
Day 9
pressure at around 18psi, SG 1.013. temperature 20C
Day 11 (Tuesday)
Purged the bottom jar with CO2 and opened the valve. All looking good. Things mixed up as the trub dropped, some yeasty puffs came to the surface and spread out on the top.
SG 1.013 / 1.012 Pressure 26PSI
Day 14 (Friday)
I closed the valve to the trub jar and dropped temperature to 4C in preparation for transfer into the All rounder (as a keg) – kegmenter(?).
Day 15 Saturday morning I transferred the beer into the all rounder. I added liquid finings to the all-rounder once it was sanitized, and setup the float/dip tube and a rapt pill.
Transfer went well, the allrounder was purged and left at a lower pressure than the top to start the syphon process off. Once flowing I connected the top and bottom fermenters via the gas line so they would equalize.
Taste test was very good – a bit of a relief after the last beer (Ekuanot – too much hops, very bitter and strong fresh hop taste – as in it was like eating a dry hop…)
50 pale ale approx. 7.5%, final gravity 1.012, which has dropped to 1.010 with the finings and 4C temperature.
Final volume about 22L clear carbonated beer at day 16
Tasting; vanilla, sweet aroma. Nectaron going above and beyond, a big impactfrom comparatively lower hop quantity. I’m noticing better aroma since using the CO2 capture method at dry hop. The beer is essentially sealed after dry hop so it has nowhere to go but into the beer.. and with counter pressure filling it’s retained. Strong aroma possibly also due to freshness of the beer as it tends to mellow out over time.
Good body, carbonation and foam. Nice malty sweetness, slight bitterness as after taste. Nice ale yeast characteristic from the Safale US 05.
Interested to try this again with other ale yeasts as a variation.
