Tit wank

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Capn Ahab
Posts: 887
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2011 7:32 pm

Tit wank

Post by Capn Ahab »

A right royal fuck up the other night. It was laugh or cry at several points...

Belgian India Porter
1.70 - 1.014
Mashed at 154 F/67 C
Deep, very dark brown.

Grist:
German pilsner + some Munich, some wheat and bits and various bobs including special B, crystal rye and choc malt for sweetness, roast and colour.
I also made my own dark amber candi sugar, which is really easy - don't buy it from the malt miller, make the exact quantity you need and choose your own colour. It tasted really good.

Hops:
After reading the recipes in Mitch Steele's article in the latest Zymurgy, I thought I'd try a nu skool American hop schedule - essentially a bittering charge early in the boil and then all the flavour and aroma hops at flameout. So:
Pacific gem to ~ 40 IBU @ 60 mins
Motueka and Calypso 3.2 g/l (each) @ 0 mins

WLP575 Belgian Blend

When I went to sanitise the CFC by running hot wort through it, a sticky trickle of hot dark wort hitting the floor told me that the top end of the pipe has snapped off, meaning it was backing up and out of the hot water outlet. 'Great!' I thought, it's only 1 am and I have no means of chilling this wort and really can't be fucked to wash the floor, so I put the lid on and went to bed. It was still warm the following morning, and I was paranoid all day that the hops slow-cooking for 18 hours and the risk of dms would make it into a weird vegetably stew. With hindsight, it may have been better to just run it off into the FV and let it cool there.

Amusingly, given the argument I had with an entire (other) web forum, I ended up steeping my hops in hot wort for nearly a whole day!

When I tried it after work it seemed ok though, so dumped it into FV, even though it was still about 30 C and reached for the starter, which had TWO FECKING FRUIT FLIES FLOATING IN IT. At which point I had pretty much given up hope of it turning out ok, so I pitched the yeast (minus the flies) and we'll see what happens.

A day later, and predictably the yeast has gone tits, frothing through the airlock despite a good 8 inches of headspace. God knows what's in there, but it smells damn fruity (the 27-29 C fermenting temp might have somehting to do with that)

Anyway, when I came up with the idea, my plan was to dry-hop it with more motueka and calypso, but now I'm not so sure. I am also thinking about ageing it with brett: 1 DJ with the brett C from Taz and Bim, and 1 DJ with the brett B from Mike P.

Thoughts on the dry-hop idea?
Eat sh*t or die trying
Capn Ahab
Posts: 887
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2011 7:32 pm

Re: Tit wank

Post by Capn Ahab »

Got back off holiday today, and it's finished at 1.020, so a bit high FG, BUT, it's not infected and tastes pretty bloody good! Gonna enter this in the National as Belgian Porter in 16E.

I'm not gonna bother with dry-hops. I think I'll split off a DJ and innoculate with Taz and Bim's amazing brett strain from their American Wild Barleywine, which could well take it into the stratosphere in terms of awesomeness. Pisser is that there is no way it will develop enough in time to enter the brett aged version into the comp....
Eat sh*t or die trying
Capn Ahab
Posts: 887
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2011 7:32 pm

Re: Tit wank

Post by Capn Ahab »

Aged some of this with brett. It knocked another 14 points of the fg, so now 1.006. Tastes pretty good.
Eat sh*t or die trying
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MapperMatt
Posts: 316
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2011 10:33 am

Re: Tit wank

Post by MapperMatt »

Not tried this yet. Is it on keg or did you bottle it? Will swap you a bottle of my APA on the weekend if you are about...?
Capn Ahab
Posts: 887
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2011 7:32 pm

Re: Tit wank

Post by Capn Ahab »

Bottled it - took it to last BBC - Bruce was not impressed... I'm entering it in the London and SE comp this weekend, so I won't be around.
Eat sh*t or die trying
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