So I read a post on a homebrewing forum about East Kent Goldings hops that made this hop variety sound interesting, and more importantly, tasty, in beer. That, and I don't think you hear about it being used very often in hoppy beers, not that I have a problem with hops like Citra and Simcoe. So to try it out, I decided to make something like a British "extra special bitter". I went down to my local homebrew store and bought the following ingredients (links to Amazon products included):
At the homebrew store I ran my grain through the mill twice to get a finer crush. For my first all grain brew-in-a-bag batch, I had terrible mash efficiency and I was hoping that the double crush would help.
On brew day I used my
ANOVA Sous Vide cooker to get about 2.5 gallons of water heated to 151F. The ANOVA is kind of an expensive way to brew, but it makes holding a steady temperature so easy. Good for making perfectly cooked meat as well!
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| Heating the mash water, bag o' grains in the back |
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On a side note, I really need to get a bigger kettle. The one pictured is only 4 gallons and I think it limits my brewing efficiency because it doesn't hold enough water to properly do BIAB
I mashed for about 2 hours, and at the end I increased the temperature to 170F and held there for about 15 minutes. During this the wort progressed from quite light to a lovely dark color. I stirred it several times and added a bit of extra water (about 5 cups).
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| Near the start |
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| Near the end |
I took out the grain bag and put it over my pot. Had a grate for cooking pizzas on a grill that works great for this; nice and sturdy so you can press it without bending it.
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| Getting every last drop of wort |
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While that was draining, I cleaned the ANOVA's heating element so it wouldn't get sticky. It's very easy to take apart.
Then I started the boil. Tossed in 1tsp of the Burtons salts right at the beginning. One hour, starting when it was visibly boiling. I added 1oz of the EKG hops with 30 minutes remaining for a bit of bittering and 1oz at 5 minutes remaining to get more of the flavor and aroma. I put all hops in a fine nylon mesh bag to cut back on gunk in the fermenter.
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| Mmmm, wort. |
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Next I started cooling it, which, to say the least, took entirely too long. At least an hour in fact. Didn't have enough ice on hand. But, finally, it was down to a reasonable temperature. I dumped the wort into my fermenter, re-hydrated my yeast in warm water, pitched the yeast, and aerated the mixture with a whisk for a few minutes. I filled it with water to 2.5 gallons. After that, into the fermentation chamber it went. Temperature was set to 65F. Starting gravity was 1.052. If I did the math right, I got about 70% efficiency with my mash.
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| My fermentation chamber/keezer |
It started bubbling after about 6 hours. I'll post about how it turns out in the coming weeks!
Edit: A link to the future!
Go directly to the tasting!
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