The"Kildare brewday" competition beer progress

[brenmurph]

Thanks for all the beer banter leading up to the brew..wel done

Right , update on the group mash:

Well, at bedtime  in the early hours of the morning there was a slight bubble formation and then a good frothy head (on the beer that is!) of yeast bubbles this morning at 8pm and a  temp 19.5c. You would know by the aroma that theres late hops in there. Looking good! Its sitting in a perfect location and WILL remain at 19-20c til sat when itll go to secondary.
After getting my head around the software and inputting the data properly a run down as follows

og 1055  (required 50-70)
Bitterness 53 (required 40-60)
Colour ( bang on the middle)
Alcohol we see what final gravity is but its predicted 5.6 ( required 5-7) depends a little on how good the yeast is? Either way all paramaters are well in the green and balance (on beersmith) looks very good


As its fermenting well, Id say Ill have to transfer to secondary on saturday coming so ill be here as usual on sat doing bottling / brewing / transferring tasks. No Mash planned next sat because I did another one yesterday so thats my own and the group mash done this weekend as well.

Anyone wants to drop in sat next to do some bottling ( of other brews) and get a sneak preview/ taste of our group mash then all welcome just let me know.

more to follow in next few days

updates will follow:

[ColinC]

Fair play Bren. Looking forward to this one!

[brenmurph]

Hi All interested parties,

96 hours of frothing just subsiding SG is now 1012 or 13 beer is sitting at 18.9c and still obvious fermenting going on. Body is going to be light enough I suspect we will hit an FG of 1005-7.
With those numbers we are already just over 5% based on OG of 1054-55. So we will finish out at a near perfect 6. something % with a slightly lighter body than the software predicted.

Kellie and I were lucky to have a pipette full after I took the SG. WE added a few leafs of EKG to the sample to get a feel for what it will be like when we add the EKG dry hopping in secondary.

Taste. Tastes like an IPA! Malt  aparent, hops definatly aparent, hop aroma aparent, hop finish combined with a little malt. Colour perfect and taste generally on target for a VERY drinkable beer and who knows in the BUll & Castle...heres fingers crossed.

so all on target as my appreciation of beer goes helped by the beersmith detailed description. 
Comments welcome especially re expected FG of 1006 ish trather than the beersmith predicted 1012

regards Brendan

[brenmurph]

ill keep ya informed. Just crunched the numbers again in beersmith. They predicted FG of 1016 we are now at 1012 and still goin on the 5th day so I was presuming will keep goin down another bit.
Either way watever it stops at its at least 5.2% based on original and current reading. If it stops lower say 1006 we wil have a 6.2% beer either number in the 'green'

[ColinC]

Sounds good Brendan. Looking forward to trying this one!

[JD]

Hi Brendan,

I'm pretty sure most of the fermentation is done. The gravity fall is tailing off significantly at this stage and you won't see much more change, I suspect.

The FG suggests the body will be a little lighter than designed. My guess is that could be down to our mash temperature being a little on the low side.

To hit precise targets, the process itself has to be precise. A more organic approach produces a more organic result. I like organic results myself: that way, each brew day brings something unexpected and interesting.

On the day, our temperature monitoring and control was sufficient to ensure a good beer was produced. It was not precise enough though, to ensure the precise results as specified by Beersmith.   

Looking forward to the tasting. 
/J

[brenmurph]

Thanks for that JD.