First brew in 4 years wish me luck!

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I dug out old equipment recipes and brew notes and went to the LHBS to get some ingredients, here goes nothing! Yeastie-beasties don't fail me now!

 

[JDGator]

Well good luck. I'm sure it will turn out good.

 

[urbanmyth]

Good luck!

Whatcha brewin'?

 

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The beer is a 3 gal batch, somewhere between a pale ale and a blonde, mostly extract with about a 1lb partial mash (half of that is 2row, 25% caravienne 25% victory). It gets 1lb xtra light extract, 1lb pilsner extract, and 1lb wheat extract, and the hops are fuggles and willamette. OG should be about 1.045 and bitterness about 20 IBU, shooting for something easy driking and refreshing, fresh tasting but with some different notes to the grain profile.

 

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O yeah the yeast will be nottingham

 

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Real good airlock activity after 18 hours with the stick-on thermometer reading 63. Temp-controlled chamber seems to be working good, I'll leave it right there and look forward to bottling in a week or so!

* EDIT- due it being the first time using a new (to me) freezer with external thermostat and not having everything calibrated correctly yet I set the thermostat too high and a temp check 8 hours after yeast pitch showed 72 on the stick-on thermometer, I adjusted it down and at the next check (the 18 hr one referenced above) it read 63. The rest of the ferment it held between 63 and 65 degrees until I cold-crashed to 45. Thought I should put this in here in case by some freak of circumstance anyone ever reads this thread again.

 

[Cyclman]

Welcome back! Good luck.

 

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Tasted the hydrometer sample today, it has some delicate floral hop aroma and a subtle tartness at first taste followed by some satisfying but not overpowering grainy notes. It is clean and balanced. Fermented from 1.048 down to 1.0075, I am going to cold crash at 45 deg for a few days and get this in a bottle because I want to try it cold and carbonated!

 

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Bottled last night, tastes awesome. The tartness has rounded out nicely into what I would describe as a notable but not overpowering (to my taste) British ale-type yeast ester palette that is well-balanced with malt and hop character. The fresh floral hop flavor is the defining aspect of this beer and really very pleasant. I can't wait for this to carb up! Only wish I made more. In the future I may try fermenting a little cooler to see if the yeast character is less pronounced, but that is more out of curiosity than necessity I like this very much the way it is. I may also experiment with removing the wheat from the grain bill and/or with different yeast strains.

 

[woknblues]

Bottled last night, tastes awesome. The tartness has rounded out nicely into what I would describe as a notable but not overpowering (to my taste) British ale-type yeast ester palette that is well-balanced with malt and hop character. The fresh floral hop flavor is the defining aspect of this beer and really very pleasant. I can't wait for this to carb up! Only wish I made more. In the future I may try fermenting a little cooler to see if the yeast character is less pronounced, but that is more out of curiosity than necessity I like this very much the way it is. I may also experiment with removing the wheat from the grain bill and/or with different yeast strains.

Welcome back to the fold!