Brewers Weekend

What do Brewers do on a weekend?  Go away with other brewers to talk (and drink) beer!  Pip and I spent last weekend at Llantrwrtd Wells near ...... well it's not near anywhere really - maybe 20 miles north of Brecon.  We stayed at the delightful Neuadd Arms Hotel which has what all good hotels should have - its own microbrewery.  Recommended for a weekend of complete relaxation.

Anyway it's amazing what you learn in brief conversations with other brewers about yeast, heating elements, hopping rates, prices, maturation times, the SIBA DDS scheme - anything really.  We always keep our beer for two weeks to mature/condition before release but quite a few brewers seem to sell it as soon as it's in the cask. Some pride themselves on producing an enormous range - black, gold, brown, black, weisen, copper, chestnut - you name it.  Makes one feel rather inadequate with two!

The first time we went on one of these weekends last year we had only been brewing for about six weeks and I asked how people got the brown staining off the inside of their coppers as I was spending about an hour after brewing  scrubbing it with caustic soda solution to get it bright.  The answer I got was "what on earth would you want to do that for?" so my copper is now the colour of the inside of a well loved teapot - clean but a nice shade of brown.  That piece of advice has probably saved me a week of work since.

All In A Brewer's Day?

Wednesday 12th January started as an ordinary brewday at 7.00 in the morning putting the mash on for an 8bbl brew of Scholar.  This promised to be interesting as we are swapping a hop out to build the flavour profile (Scholar uses five hop varieties introduced in three stages).  Somehow it turned into a media day with BBC TV South Today filming bittering hops going into the copper at 13.00 and carrying out a news interview.  Then quite separately I was called by the BBC Radio Oxford Drivetime show at 2.30 for an interview.  Was this a new upsurge in interest in local brewing?  No.

It was because we responded to a BBC South Today item on the previous evening concerning late/missing post in Oxfordshire.  They asked anyone who had suffered from this to email in which we did because we have had letters taking weeks to get to us since November - it's a bit embarassing to chase money from customers to be told they sent it weeks before.  Anyway, before you could say "crap royal mail" we had a media invasion

Well, I did enjoy my 15 seconds on telly as "grumpy old man" at 6.30 which I just got home in time to see.  And the beer?  Well the late hops went in a bit later than usual but hey, what comes first, telly or beer?


Media Tart Brewer

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.