Digging Out The Separation Tank

I used to think the most unpleasant part of brewing was digging out the mash tun and boiler hops after a brewday but you get so used to it it's just another part of the process.  Today, on a quiet holiday week Wednesday after a year of brewing I decided to clean out the separation tank.

The separation tank is something demanded by Thames Water and The Environment Agency.  It is a 1.2M deep plastic tank in the floor with a vertical separator in it.  All the brewery waste water flows into the receiving side and it gently "waterfalls" over the separation wall into the outlet side where it can be treated if necessary and then pumped by submersible pump to the sewer.  All solids fall to the bottom of the receiving tank and relatively clear water overflows and gets pumped out.

I had no idea what would be in the bottom of the receiving tank.  Only water, yeast and malt/hop debris goes in there and we always neutralise the ph and kill the yeast sediment with caustic soda in the fermenters before cleaning them out (live yeast leaches Oxygen in river systems).  After pumping the water out with a submersible pump I uncovered about a foot deep layer of pretty stinky sludge at the bottom of the receiving side.  I suppose big breweries pay for a tanker to suck it out but as we are small I laid on my stomach on the wet floor and emptied it with a bucket into a plastic dustbin.  All I can say is that it reminded me of the look and smell of a pit latrine in West Africa!  It's all organic though and stinky or not, it will find its way onto our veggie patch.

The tank now smells as sweet as violets  though I don't.  Clothes straight into the washing machine and shower is required.  At least it's only once in a year.

Prospect Wins an Award

Well it was actually for joint Runner Up in the Champion Locale competition at The CAMRA Oxford Beer Festival which took place in October.  It was a blind tasting by a panel of judges of over twenty beers brewed within 35 miles of Oxford.  We were invited to judge and declined as we had a beer in the competition.  A posse of CAMRA members came to the brewery on Saturday morning to present the award and a rather nice hour and half was enjoyed by all, together with a tasting of some interesting limited edition bottled beers.  The version of Prospect dry hopped with Nelson Sauvin hops seemed to go down particularly well.  There is a pic on our facebook page.

Brewday

We brewed 1300 litres of Prospect today.  Brewday really starts two days before when we prepare the liquor (water) and pre-set the automatic temperature control to strike temperature.  The malt is usually prepared the afternoon before but we did it Monday evening this week as we snatched a day off on Tuesday.  A brewday starts at about 07.00 with a pre-heating of the stainless steel mash tun with hot liquor followed by the hand hydration of  200kg of malt.  This a steamy business!  The mash is usually "on" by 09.00.  Hitting mash temperature is something of a brewers art given the changing temperature of the malt and ambient through the seasons but we usually get it within 1degC of target.  Transfer to the copper (boiler) starts at around 10.30 and takes about 2.5 hours.  Boil is on by 13.00 with the primary hops; late hops go in 5 mins before the end of the boil and at "heat off" followed by a nice long soak (infusion). The wort is usually in the fermenter and yeast pitched by around 17.00.  After clear up there is usually time for a quick pint round The Queen's Head (which conveniently opens  at five) on the way home. Now it's time for a hot bath! 

Collectors

Having just seen one of our beer labels for sale on ebay for the second time has caused me to reflect on collectors.  We receive quite a few requests from people claiming to be collectors.  The UK ones sometimes enclose a self adressed envelope but a massive number come in by email - usually from Russia or Ukraine.  We sometimes send out unused bottle labels if a SAE is enclosed but does irritate wnen a plausible letter from a clergyman or market researcher turns out to be from a trader wanting to make a quid by flogging them on ebay. And then I wonder why be irritated?  It doesn't cost us anything.  I suppose it's because of the duplicitous nature of the letters. If someone said that they were a trader trying to flog stuff on ebay I probably wouldn't send anything.    Maybe  we should try and flog our own labels on ebay - might be more profitable than flogging beer!

Bottling Day

We bottled 1170 bottles of Scholar this morning in pretty much record time - about 90 minutes preparation then filling and capping took three of us about three hours using our four head hand bottling and capping setup fed from the conditioning tanks.  When we started last November it took us about ten hours to do the same work and I wouldn't have believed it could be done in half a day.  As they say in manufacturing "repetition breeds competence".  It then takes another hour or two to clean everything down afterwards and move the bottled beer.  It's now in the conditioning room warming up nicely to around 21deg where it will sit for a week or two carrying on fermenting to become true bottle conditioned ale.  Can't wait - there is something about a bottle of fresh Scholar that reminds me of newly baked bread.  We also prepared the malt for tomorrow's brew of Prospect.  The liquor (aka water) was prepared on Monday.  07.00 start. Mash on by 09.00 followed by a bacon sandwich.

Dry Hopping Again

Since the Plot 16 project we have experimented with three other dry hopped bottled beers

• a batch of Prospect finished with the hard to get NZ Nelson Sauvin hop (this hop is already part of the Prospect recipe) in 330 ml "limited edition" bottles.  These are now on sale at Jacobs and Field in Headington and the Lassco cafe at Milton Common.
• a batch of Prospect in 500ml bottles finished with English Challenger hops.  Very distinctive and just about ready to go on general sale
• a batch of Scholar finished with US Amarillo now ready for bottling tomorrow.

While the impact on the beer flavour and aroma profile is dramatic, dry hopping seems to introduce new issues.  The beer seems to take longer to drop clear and head retention seems to be shorter than on our normal beers - this is probably related to the increase in hop oils present and we hope will improve with age as these beers are still young.  It is certainly worth the experimentation as Prospect 3.7% takes on the character of an ESB.  We can't wait to try the Scholar.

The Curse of Plot 16

The green hopping experiment with Modern Art Oxford's fresh green hops was a happy accident.  The Fuggles from the Rose Hill project were picked and taken to the Berkshire Hop Company at Kingston Bagpuize to be dried so they could be used as part of our normal brewing programme.  Unfortunately they were destroyed by a major fire in the hop drier on Friday 17th September.  The volunteers had to go back to the allotment and scavenge for what flowers were left on the bines on the Saturday morning.  The 3kg of fine plump green cones they managed to gather were kept in a chest freezer overnight and introduced to the green beer (green hops in green beer!) on Sunday morning and had a two week infusion.  After a tasting or two from the conditioning tank MOA decided that 330ml bottles were the right size for this special beer.  Unfortunately the pallet of bottles collapsed in the delivery lorry and we ended up with 1800 bottles lying in wooden boxes outside the brewery.  Another group of emergency MOA volunteers spent a half day cleaning, sterilising and crating them ready for filling and we finally got the bottles into the conditioning room by 5pm.  This beer is truly unique.  Will the drama come through in the flavour -who knows?

Dry Hopping

One of the great things about running a craft brewery is experimentation.  In September we created a limited edition beer of 1200 bottles of Prospect Ale dry hopped with fresh green fuggles.  This was a collaborative project with Modern Art Oxford and the green hops were grown on a community allotment in Rose Hill, Oxford as part of the Art in Rose Hill project (see http://www.modernartoxford.org.uk/about-us/art-in-rose-hill/)
We had never done this before and the advice within professional circles was conflicting - "don't be stupid unless you want rancid beer" to "no worries - give it a go".  The result of a two week infusion of fresh fuggles in 400 litres of beer has been a revelation.  The hop aroma and flavour impact is massive - Prospect is already a hoppy beer but it moved it to a new dimension. If brewers seek that elusive hop aroma then this is certainly one way of getting it.  The beer is called Plot 16 and will go on sale at Modern Art Oxford in Pemproke St., Oxford on December 17th.  We are currently experimenting with other dry hop variations