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OG Joe-Joe

OG Joe-Joe

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Good evening you lovely lot

I've been taking advantage of the brewing calculators here for a little while on and off, so I thought it was time to contribute and get myself a subscription.
I brew only occasionally, in 50L (usually 44-46 in the fermenters), and it's usually some dark concoction with no specific style in mind (I guess they're technically dark bitters and/or stouts and porters)
Currently drinking a brew that looks a bit like flat cola. It tasted ok when I started a few weeks ago, and has matured to being pretty darn good.
Next up is a bit of an experiment using some strawberry jam that didn't turn out so well. It will be along the lines of a Belgian dubbel, using the caramelised jam in place of candi sugar. Wish me luck!
 
OG Joe-Joe said:
Good evening you lovely lot

I've been taking advantage of the brewing calculators here for a little while on and off, so I thought it was time to contribute and get myself a subscription.
I brew only occasionally, in 50L (usually 44-46 in the fermenters), and it's usually some dark concoction with no specific style in mind (I guess they're technically dark bitters and/or stouts and porters)
Currently drinking a brew that looks a bit like flat cola. It tasted ok when I started a few weeks ago, and has matured to being pretty darn good.
Next up is a bit of an experiment using some strawberry jam that didn't turn out so well. It will be along the lines of a Belgian dubbel, using the caramelised jam in place of candi sugar. Wish me luck!
Click to expand...
Very cool Joe sounds interesting.
 
Welcome!
 
Well, I'm not sure it's worth its own thread (in part because I didn't get any pictures, and also because it was a 'mare of a brewday o_O)

Anyway, the Strawberry Jam Dubbel is in the fermenters!
Mash:
I heated the water (35L) too much for my mash - usually I'll aim for 75C(ish) and the grain bill will drop it into the low 60's. I hadn't factored in that I was using relatively few grains owing to the fermentable sugars that would be contributed by the jam... so after adding five of my total of six kilos, i decided to let it mash for around thirty minutes and add the rest of the malt later, allowing that to mash for almost ninety minutes to make the most of the surviving enzymes. In hindsight, I should have used less water for the quantity of malt and/or dumped some cold water in as soon as I realised the temperature wasn't dropping as much as I expected. After mashing though, I hit around OG 1.032, dropping to 1.024 after sparge (15L).
Boil:
I got the boil on without too much of a hitch (unless you count me setting the thermostat to 99C. Foam happened, but no rolling boil until i turned it up after adding all the jam). After 45 minutes I took around 5L of hot wort and mixed it with a quantity of jam, adding that back to the kettle. Rinse and repeat until realising I have absolutely no idea how much of this damned jam I've used. Too late now, so I just cracked on. I let it all boil for ten minutes before straining the fruit off. So. Much. Fruit. I literally had to get jugs into the kettle to transfere half of the wort to a bucket so I could lift the middle section out (my system is similar in design to a grainfather) as there was absolutely no drainage! Having cleared the mesh/scren/filter/plate/whatever, I got it back up to a proper boil, adding all of my hops (did I mention I completely forgot until this stage? No joke, I had to raid the stores to see what I had left after the mouldy cellar disaster from when I first moved in... but that's another story...). Hops in, 15 minutes more boiling, and into the fermenters!
Ferment:
20ishL into fermenter, cooled overnight (yup, a true amateur here with no chiller plate :eek:). Took a gravity reading this morning, then added in M47 - Mangrove Jack's Belgian Abbey in one, and an MJ Kveik in the other. OG was1.082 so hopefully it finishes a little high. We'll see!

In summary, I should've planned the day better. A lot better.
I'll update in a week or so on any progress!
 
OG Joe-Joe said:
Well, I'm not sure it's worth its own thread (in part because I didn't get any pictures, and also because it was a 'mare of a brewday o_O)

Anyway, the Strawberry Jam Dubbel is in the fermenters!
Mash:
I heated the water (35L) too much for my mash - usually I'll aim for 75C(ish) and the grain bill will drop it into the low 60's. I hadn't factored in that I was using relatively few grains owing to the fermentable sugars that would be contributed by the jam... so after adding five of my total of six kilos, i decided to let it mash for around thirty minutes and add the rest of the malt later, allowing that to mash for almost ninety minutes to make the most of the surviving enzymes. In hindsight, I should have used less water for the quantity of malt and/or dumped some cold water in as soon as I realised the temperature wasn't dropping as much as I expected. After mashing though, I hit around OG 1.032, dropping to 1.024 after sparge (15L).
Boil:
I got the boil on without too much of a hitch (unless you count me setting the thermostat to 99C. Foam happened, but no rolling boil until i turned it up after adding all the jam). After 45 minutes I took around 5L of hot wort and mixed it with a quantity of jam, adding that back to the kettle. Rinse and repeat until realising I have absolutely no idea how much of this damned jam I've used. Too late now, so I just cracked on. I let it all boil for ten minutes before straining the fruit off. So. Much. Fruit. I literally had to get jugs into the kettle to transfere half of the wort to a bucket so I could lift the middle section out (my system is similar in design to a grainfather) as there was absolutely no drainage! Having cleared the mesh/scren/filter/plate/whatever, I got it back up to a proper boil, adding all of my hops (did I mention I completely forgot until this stage? No joke, I had to raid the stores to see what I had left after the mouldy cellar disaster from when I first moved in... but that's another story...). Hops in, 15 minutes more boiling, and into the fermenters!
Ferment:
20ishL into fermenter, cooled overnight (yup, a true amateur here with no chiller plate :eek:). Took a gravity reading this morning, then added in M47 - Mangrove Jack's Belgian Abbey in one, and an MJ Kveik in the other. OG was1.082 so hopefully it finishes a little high. We'll see!

In summary, I should've planned the day better. A lot better.
I'll update in a week or so on any progress!
Click to expand...
Sounds like a lovely calm chilled out brew day NOT!:p

It'll be worth it fingers crossed!
 
What temperature are you going to be fermenting at?
Kveik likes it hot!
 
Zambezi Special said:
What temperature are you going to be fermenting at?
Kveik likes it hot!
Click to expand...
that's a good point, I have a heat mat kicking around somewhere. we basically don't use the front room because it's so damn cold... that's a job for *now*!
 
So, update as promised!

I got the heating mat out to make a better environment for the yeasties (unsure of the exact temperature, but I set the thermostat to 28c. The fermenters were on the floor but insulated) I turned it off after about a week and let it finish up at room temp for another fortnight.

I bottled today, and the amount of gunk in the bottom of the fermenters was phenomenal! Probably should've transferred to a bottling bucket and let it settle out some more, but I didn't and it will probably stay cloudy even after conditioning and crashing... I remembered I forgot to add any protofloc on my bad example of a brew day :rolleyes:

FG with both yeasts was 1.016 making the approximate abv 8.66% (OG1.082)
Primed 500ml bottles with a single MJ carbonation drop, hopefully the conditioning will clean up the flavours a little as the Abbey Yeast fermented version tastes a little too much of ethanol. Apart from this, both versions of the Belgian (Style) Strawberry Jam Dubbel taste pretty similar - but not at all like strawberries! :eek:

I'll be honest, I don't expect either version to be a particularly good beer. I'll be happy if they're just drinkable as this was very much an experiment and very much rushed and poorly executed.

Either a Doom Bar clone from The Malt Miller or a Chocolate Orange Stout next :cool:
 
Don't sweat it too much mate you'll get more better at this brewing thing enjoy the process sounds like you've had a great brew.
 
I normally have quite a bit of yeast per bottle. Just pour carefully and leave the last bit in the bottle
I'm quite used to it as it's pretty standard, even for commercial, Belgian tripels etc
 
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