I knew I'd regret it

I feel as if things have been busy lately. Perhaps they have, but I still can't justify the degree of neglect this blog has received. My laziness came back to haunt me again earlier this week when I decided to stuff my Cobweb Ale into a Cornelius keg that was in no way ready to hold it. I bought the kegs a few months ago, but owing to lack of space I have yet to get a fridge to put them in or any gas to run them. But that didn't stop lazy old me from racking 18 litres of ale into one. It was part laziness - the thought of preparing and sanitising sufficient bottles horrified me - but also I thought I had found a way around the gas problem by buying some small 16 gram CO2 cartridges that I could prime the keg with. I knew I would run into trouble but it didn't stop me because the beer had sat on a bed of dead yeast for far too long and a move had to be made.

So I whacked the ale in the keg along with some finings and priming sugar just before I set off on holiday for a week, and returned to find the keg nicely pressurised but not at all bright and tasting kind of sharp. I think the beer was off before it went in the keg, but it became clear that any chance I had of properly carbonating it was ruined after a glimpse at the gas pressure tables told me that at the ambient 20 C the beer was sitting, a pressure of around 24 pounds per square inch is required to get sufficient gas into the beer. That's higher than the keg is rated for, I think.

A fridge is definitely in the pipe line.

Cobweb ale

I dusted the cobwebs off my brewing equipment yesterday. Literally. Too long a stint in the attic draped them with silken threads. Another golden ale was my plan yesterday, but this time with a little more body than the last one. To this end I added 10% dextrin malt to the grist, which will fill out the body but will not alter golden colour I desire. It looked like this:

3.9 kg Maris Otter
400 g Carapils

35g Northdown 60 mins
15g Cascade 20 mins
15g Centennial 10 mins
15g Centennial 0 mins

Mashed at 66 C

40 IBU

Saf o5

OG 1.040

I made modest additions of calcium sulphate and calcium chloride to boost the calcium in my liquor and add some fullness. I had to make some major adjustments to my tap water because a grist that pale will not tolerate 200 ppm alkalinity, which is what I found in my water. I used lactic acid to bring the pH down to around 5.5 which corresponds to alkalinity of around 25 ppm.

While brewing I sampled two ales from this quarter's CAMRA beer club delivery. Interestingly, in the literature with the delivery CAMRA almost apologised for the inclusion of a golden ale, noting that a great many of them are not up to standard. I have whinged about this for quite some time, having been plagued with entire deliveries from CAMRA of listless, thin and gassy golden ales. Crop Circle from the Hopback Brewery was the worrisome golden ale in this delivery, but it can't be dismissed as bland. In fact this ale packs quite a bit of flavour, with a harsh hop character. Lemons strike you on the nose and the addition of maize to this beer gives it a lighter body. Along with this I tried Potholer from Cheddar Ales. This is my kind of English ale. Full biscuit malt with lip smacking, well rounded hop bitterness, topped off with rich foam and a mouth watering copper hue.