Recent content by cire

And I'll strongly agree. To reach perfection, do you keep and serve the beer at cellar temperature with plans to serve it through a beer engine?

Of course, a Mild brewed by a British Commercial brewer and made in large volume would be pitched at their standard pitching temperature and allowed to free rise before being attenuated by cooler water passed through pipes in the FV should the temperature rise above their predetermined rate and...

You've got only 22 ppm calcium in the mash. While this will lower mash pH to less than your estimated 5.5, I doubt it would pull mash pH as low as you suggest. Do a small scale (2 ounces total) trial mash and measure it after 60 minutes if you have doubts. Calcium into the kettle will aid the...

You won't need that much alkalinity, it's far too high. Mash with plenty liquor, your supply water untreated, and you will likely have mash pH at 5.2. Throw 5 grams of Calcium Chloride Flake and 1 gram of common salt in at the start of the boil.

Northern British drinkers demand a decent head, the only limitation is getting full measure. That's not a problem when it is your own beer and you don't have to pay full price for the head.

Thank you for the chance to clarify my posting. My water profile above is almost certainly not what Guinness used, but it makes a beer similar to what it was when their yeast could be used from a bottle of Guinness. That was when I first brewed this recipe and tried side by side with the...

It's quite a while since I last brewed Guinness to the well accepted 70:20:10 ratio, but always have a stiff mash with alkalinity preadjusted to between 70 and 100 ppm as CaCO3 using hydrochloric acid. Mash pH usually stabilizes near 5.3 and the acid increases the chloride ion content. I prefer...

Precisely that. It can be thought of as Pilsner Malt with less protein grown in a less Continental climate.

Unless you are brewing a very dark beer, you don't want to add chalk. It doesn't easily dissolve in any case.

If the citric acid addition lowers pH to circa 2.2, a 15 minutes gentle simmer can invert most sucrose. Further heating from that point can serve to first destroy the fructose, which has a melting point of 103C. The influence of further baking depends upon the water to sugar ratio, for the lower...

You don't think they would stop using sugar if they knew what you do? Sugar is used for many reasons and I brew most beers with sugar for more reasons than authenticity. I've learned a lot from trying different methods of brewing and in other disciplines. For a lot of years, most breweries in...

Well on the 2nd day out of the fermentor, it's very mild. Brewed Wednesday, yeast harvested late Friday, heat held at 23C for full day, then stopped and allowed to cool naturally. Racked into a plastic pressure vessel yesterday morning when at 8C, with a litre plus of water acidified to pH 4...

Black Sheep have cylindrical stainless steel fermenting vessels, a sort of Yorkshire Square. Black Sheep have a fixed regime for consistency and production requirements, which I don't. My fermentations last 2,3 or 4 days, during which the yeast will be harvested in a single operation. The...

No real science from me, I've read how it might be done, but find it unnecessary at my scale, plus the relative unimportance of time compared to a commercial production facility. Yesterday I'd intended to cask last Wednesday's brew, but circumstances meant it didn't happen until this morning...

There's nothing scientific about my method, but it uses a sanitized spoon with no oxygen. A starter of a pint at least is pitched into a 5 gallon brew and yeast harvested from that brew can be enough for up to a 15 US gallon brew. Usually there will be a covering 12 hours from pitching...