Recent content by Fergal

I've had peacharine in a few beets here now and it was pretty good. I wasn't blown away and rushing back to get more though so it's not like it's the next & greatest in my opinion. I'm personally more looking forward to the NZ hops being available in cryo, I think that could be a game changer...

Got one of these approaching the end of fermentation. Went all NZ hops I picked up from the source a few months back. Going Nelson, Motueka, Taikeke, 2,1,1. The best version I've tried here was nelson/riwaka but couldn't get the riwaka from nz hops. Incidentally the breweries here in OZ seem to...

Choice Bros. Was called phlex. Was just a really fresh beer that hit all the good nz notes. The guys were so generous and sent me the recipe too.

Just got back from NZ where I was working for the week. Called into NZ hops to try and buy from the source - glad I did. 500g each of Nelson, Taiheke, Nectaron & Motueka. Was really cool being in the region and driving through all the towns that the hops are named after. Not to mention the hops...

Check this video out for some great info if you haven't seen it already. Backs up the heavy pils malt bills. I've brewed a few based on this and it's been really good.

Hey mate, any chance you can elaborate on the break / clean wort topic a bit. Always a lot of differing views on this and haven't really been able to find any good online articles. Cheers.

Someone mentioned it before, but I would look at the boil intensity. Not sure on the watt density on the Brewtools system but I would imagine having those coils in direct contact with the wort might increase the maillard/caramelization a bit? Maybe a shorter boil might help?

I noticed a huge difference with my hop spider getting blocked depending on my additions. Any early additions and it just gets clogged. For all late addition hazys it was fine as it was only in the boil for a short period. I don't use it anymore though, my brewzilla does a pretty decent job...

A while back I felt like I was getting a chalkiness to my beers so I now intentionally keep the calcium below 100 and usually around 80-90. I have to use Na to keep everything else in check. I've been happier with my beers at this range but having said that every beer I brew is usually very...

I'm a big fan of Talus. Has all the punch of Sabro without the coconut weirdness to my palette. I've paired it with centennial in a standard US-05 pale ale and also with Nectaron & Idaho 7 in a hazy. Both turned out really well but it does dominate.

For those interested I finally tasted these beers last weekend. Huge differences between the two. I'm not great at explaining aromas but one thing that was very clear is that the early picked hops had that distinct fuel / diesel thing you get with NZ hops while the late had none. My wife even...

Interesting topic re. early vs late picked hops. A good Australian IPA brewery have just released two identical beers with the only difference being early vs late hop harvest. Keen to give it a shot this weekend.

I've been thinking of ways to use more of my homegrown hops of which I have a lot. Going to pick up a hop missile/rocket so I get more use out of these hops going forward. One of the ideas I had was to connect it into my system (brewzilla) and use it during the mash as the wort recirculates...

Any standout hop combos from the list below?

I tried some of that shipment too and it is night and day in comparison to tasting it at the brewery. My best mate lives in Gowanus so every time (I used) to go to the States with work I would shoot up to Brooklyn for the weekend and get on the beers at Other Half. This last shipment had that...