[Review] HBW Craft LME + Bulldog Ella Hops

[Garry]

Thanks to HBW for providing 3kg of their new craft range LME and 100g of Bulldog nitrogen flushed hops AND a pack of dry yeast for review.

I chose Ella hops after tasting 8 Degree's Amber Ella. I thought it would be fitting to choose an Australian yeast to go with it, hence the Mauribrew 514.



To this, I added 200g of Carapils and 180g of Caracrystal.



I'm going to do this brew in true Oz style and do a no-chill. My cube is 20l so I added 24l of water to my keggle with the steeping grains and raised the temperature to 70'C.



Once the temp was up to 70' I removed the grains.

I'm only going to use the Ella hops to showcase them if I can. My additions are as follows:

FWH = 15g
20 min = 15g
10min = 10g
5min = 10g
0min =50g

I'm not using a 60min addition. Instead, I intend to get a smoother bitterness + flavour by using first wort hops and all other additions after 20min.

The hops come in a great resealable pack. Although I plan to use the full 100g in this brew. Also, the pack I got was a bit too well sealed! I had to completely cut the "zip" off to get the hops out! The hops smelled great though.





The LME didn't have any best before date but it smelled and tasted nice and fresh.





I don't need to go through all the boil additions so we'll skip to the end now 

I added the 0min hops to a sanitised 20l cube the transfered the wort into it.





I squeezed out the air and left it cool for about 6 hours. It was down to about 26'C at that stage so I re-hydrated the yeast as per instructions and racked the wort into a sanised FV.







I deliberately put a short tube on the siphon so I'd get lots of aeration. I put some of the wort into the yeast jar to equalise the temperature and then pitched the bitch 





The yeast instructions say that it performs best at 22'C so I set the STC-1000 to exactly that.

Looking forward to trying this one in a few weeks 

[LordEoin]

YAY! ella party in garry's in a few weeks 

What did you think of the LME? I found it more 'grainy' than other extracts, lovely!
You'll have a great smell knocking out of that FV

[Garry]

No activity yet but it was late enough last night when I pitched the yeast. The temperature is spot on.

@LE, the LME is very fresh smelling. It tastes different too. It appears much fresher than the tins of LME. It seems sweeter too, it reminded me a bit of honeycomb. Overall I'm very impressed.

BTW, my OG was 1.050.

[molc]

I like how you fit the temperature probe with the bungee clips and some sort of foam padding. I usually just pop it through the airlock hole and leave it sitting in the wort, but I have to move it every few days or it gets inaccurate. I think something must build up around it and insulate it over time.

[Garry]

The insulation on the temperature probe doesn't have to be anything fancy. A piece of cardboard, a piece of bubble wrap, an old padded envelope ....

[armedcor]

Did you adjust the hopping to compensate for the no chilling?

[LordEoin]

The insulation on the temperature probe doesn't have to be anything fancy. A piece of cardboard, a piece of bubble wrap, an old padded envelope ....

I use a damp cotton pad and a bit of foam.

[Garry]

Did you adjust the hopping to compensate for the no chilling?

No I didn't! In my opinion, I'm not really sure why you need to in a style like this where you want the hops to shine.

I added the 0min hops to the cube. The cube would have cooled to 80'C in a short time so it's only extra flavour & aroma you'd get after that. No extra IBUs. There's also no 60min hop addition. I'm calculating the  IBUs at 33 which is well palatable for the OG. If it turns out more than that, say 40 IBUs, it will still be balanced. IBUs are subjective anyway and can't be calculated accurately. With the first wort hopping, I'm not expecting any harsh bitterness.

[armedcor]

Did you adjust the hopping to compensate for the no chilling?

No I didn't! In my opinion, I'm not really sure why you need to in a style like this where you want the hops to shine.

I added the 0min hops to the cube. The cube would have cooled to 80'C in a short time so it's only extra flavour & aroma you'd get after that. No extra IBUs. There's also no 60min hop addition. I'm calculating the  IBUs at 33 which is well palatable for the OG. If it turns out more than that, say 40 IBUs, it will still be balanced. IBUs are subjective anyway and can't be calculated accurately. With the first wort hopping, I'm not expecting any harsh bitterness.

Awesome, excited to hear how it turns out!

[Garry]

Racked this to secondary tonight. The temp in the garage hasn't gone over 22'C during this un-irish we've been having lately so it should be fine. From what I've been reading about this yeast, it can take high temps well anyway.

It's early days yet but the taste at the moment is promising. Very tropical. I'm getting lots of pineapple. But not much hop aroma, maybe I should have held back some of the hops to dry-hop? There's a lovely sweetness from the malt too and it should turn out a nice amber colour. The bitterness is Goldilocks 

The gravity is down to 1.008. I wasn't expecting it to go that low. It will be over 6% when bottle conditioned   

I'm very impressed with all the ingredients so far. I'm washing the yeast because I want to try it on an English style or maybe an Irish red.....

[Garry]

I bottled this batch last night. There was a waxy film floating with on top big bubbles. Looked a bit funky  The beer tasted fine though. So I was careful racking it into the bottling bucket to make sure that funk was left behind.

I primed it to 2.5vols. Terminal gravity was 1.008. So it should be an easy drinker, maybe a bit dangerous at 6%.

[Garry]

Only a week and a half in the bottle but I had to give it a try. It's a lovely amber colour and the charity ain't bad at this early stage. The carbonation is nice too, I hope I haven't over primed it 😬 There's a small cap on top but it remains to the end.

No hop aroma. I should have held some of the hops back to dry hop. It's very balanced when drinking it then there's a nice bitter after taste. Nice medium body. There's definitely a malty sweetness but not over powering.

I can't see this batch surviving too long 😍 I'll try bring some along to the next meet for some unbiased opinions.

[johnrm]

Has our forum gotten mixed up with the boy racer forum again?!   Is that a Focus RS with go-faster stripes? I can't see but, I reckon there's the weight of a baby seat or 2 pulling down the suspension too...

[Garry]

I know, I'm too old to be modifying cars but I just can't resist a big set of alloys and lowering springs.

Praise the lowered