Ingredients from The Brewstore.
Brew went well. I kept volumes more conservative as I’ve been getting too much volume in the fermenter recently. 16L mash and 16L sparge for 6.3kg grain. Pre boil volume was 28L, post boil 25L, and about 23L in the fermenter.
1x BRY-97 West Coast Ale yeast, hopefully one packet is enough.
Single hop Ekuanot – I haven’t used this variety before. 135g hops in the brew mostly at end of boil, and 165g dry hop.
Day 01 (Sunday)
In the morning (+12hours) visible small patches of yeast gathering on the surface.
I set the spunding valve to about 4psi using the gas bottle.
By the evening (+24hours) gravity dropped a couple points, yeast foam on the surface, and the bubbler popping away with the pressure around 4psi.
Day 02 Monday
AM (+36hours) pressure at 4.9psi, bubbling away, good amount of yeast foam.
Gravity from 1.065 to 1.052
Day 4-5
Yeast foam up to the top again, not quite spilling through and it didn’t block the spunding valve. Pressure adjusted to help control it, raised to approx 10psi.
Day 6 Friday
Gravity settling out at 1.015 – 1.014, temperature increased by 1C to 20C. Dry hop addition added,165g ekuanot.
Day 7 Saturday
Temperature raised by 1C to 21C for rest phase.
Spunding valve closed down to approx 29psi to allow self carbonation.
Day 13-15
Lowered temp from 21 back to 19, 1C every 12hours. Pressure at 30psi for the week, should be carbonated.
Day 15 am, purged trub jar and opened it up to drop muck down.
Day 16
Transferred into all rounder (acting as a keg). Pressure at 15psi. Beer fully carbonated. I added finings between sanitizing and purging, so the beer transferred onto the finings. Taste test was good, seemed more bitter than expected but I’m wondering if some of the hop sediment or something similar affected the sample. Will try again tomorrow evening..
Something is not quite right with this one – bitterness is far too strong. Not what I expected but hey ho.
Tasting Notes:
Overall not great due to too much hops. Ekuanot has a very high alpha acid value, and the final result had a bitterness similar to trying hop pellets directly.
Otherwise potentially a very nice beer…
