Shadoxhurst Scribblings

AG 001 & AG 002

Si — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:20:19 +0000

My first attempt at an ‘alll grain’ beer was on 04/05/09. I had collected together enough equipment and, foolishly, made a beer with out doing a dry (or rather wet) run. This resulted in the hose from the imersion cooler bursting off and water spraying all over the inside of the shed and also some into the beer, after the boil and before the ferment, so it may well end up being a disaster and all be infected. Using Wheeler’s Beer Engine I devised a recipe using East Kent Goldings with a starting gravity of 45 and a bitternes count of 37 and gaining two thirds of the bitterness from the 90min hops and one third from the 15 min hops with a further 15g steeping when the wort had cooled to 80 c. As for the grains I used 98% Marris Otter and 2% Crystal

I used a similar schedule for the second beer but used Bobek hops instead of the East Kent Goldings

5200g of Marris Otter & 110g Crystal - I choose not to use a varity of malts so that I mainly showcased the hops in the beers. I added a small amount of crystal with the idea that it might add a small amount of colour.

Altered cool box into a mash tun - copper pipe manifold added to a cool box facilitated the draining of the wort into another bucket.

Mash on - the grains are added to hot water so that the resulting mixture is at 67°C when the lid is shut on the mash tun and the 90 minuite mash starts.

First runnings of the wort - the sugary solution is drained out of the mash tunand then more hot water is added

Hops

The Boil

Cooler in to bring the wort down from boiling to a temperate that I can pitch the yeast.

All tucked up and fermenting

Shadoxhurst Micro Brewery

Si — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:57:16 +0000

Having tried kit brewing for a few months I have decided that it is high time that I started to brew from scratch. I have a cool box in the shed that is about to be converted into a mash tun and a boiler and new FV in the post. I have also got a 25kg sack of grain and a load of hops on their way to me.

Allotment Disaster

Si — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:48:49 +0000

I called in at the allotment on my way to work this afternoon only to find that most of my plants looked either dead or very sorry for themselves. From the state of the leaves I believe that there may have been a bit of frost recently that I didn’t notice in my back garden. The result is that all the tops of the potatoe plants are withered, the beans (runner and dwarf french) and squashes have either died completely or look half dead and I wil lbe surprised if they pick up. The only things to survive were the onions, garlic, shallots, carrots, parsnips and beetroot. Fortunatly the raspberries don’t appear to have suffered either.

I also had a good look at the asparagus bed and found that six plants have survived my lack of care last year and although i can’t harvest anything this yar ( it is only the first real year of growth) if I look after them well this year I may get an harvest next year. I also plan to fill in the gaps where the plants died so that eventually I have a full bed and can feed the whole family asparagus.

things in the back garden are doing much better with baby apples and blueberries in the fruit bed and the squashes, tomatoes and other things that are in pots looking very healthy. I am however, a bit reluctant to plant anything else out in tha allotment at the moment incase the frost makes another appearance and wipes out more plants.