TasunkaWitko
Well-Known Member
I had yesterday off from work, so I decided to brew a beer mix from Brooklyn Brew Shop that I had purchased a few months ago; Green Tea Pale Ale:
https://brooklynbrewshop.com/collec...s/products/beer-making-mix-green-tea-pale-ale
Brooklyn Brew Shop gives a fairly straightforward description of this beer, and it sounds as though it will be pretty good:
But of course, I couldn't leave it at that; The Beautiful Mrs. Tas and I had just recently visited Australia and had brought back a small supply of very nice Earl Grey Tea, so I decided to substitute that in place of the Gunpowder green tea that came with the mix. We'll find out whether that was a good idea or not once the beer is ready to try.
Where the malts are concerned for this beer, I am only guessing, based on the description provided by Brooklyn Brew Shop: 2-row or Pale Ale malt, Some 10 and/or 20 Crystal and Vienna malt seem to be the main players here. I am also guessing that there is possibly some wheat in the grain bill, but I have nothing to back that up other than intuition. The expected ABV is 5%.
This beer employs Nugget hops, which have quite an interesting profile:
https://brooklynbrewshop.com/blogs/themash/hop-profile-nugget
This might be the highest AA hop that I've used, so I was a bit skeptical; however, Nugget seems, at first impression, to be a good match for this beer. I'll know more when it is finished. There are a total of 10 grams of hops for this 1-gallon batch: the first addition at 60 minutes is 2 grams, the second addition at 45 minutes is 4 grams and the final addition is at knock-out at 4 grams.
The defining characteristic of this beer is of course the addition of tea. The mix came with one bag of Gunpowder green tea, but as described above I chose to give the Earl Grey a try; since Brooklyn Brew Shop tends to go very subtle on the additions, I decided to use two bags of this tea. I don't think it will overwhelm the beer or throw it out of balance, but of course I won't know until I try the finished beer. The tea is added at knockout, along with the final addition of Nugget hops.
BrewDay was pretty straightforward with no real issues, and I encountered no real problems using the instructions provided by Brooklyn Brew Shop:
https://brooklynbrewshop.com/pages/instructions-green-tea-pale-ale
My mash temperatures were a little high during the first 10 minutes but after that held fairly steady at a couple of degrees higher or lower than 150 degrees throughout. The sparge seemed to take a little extra time and in my observation was a little sticky, but it was nothing terrible. The boil went well and on schedule, except that I never did seem to get a good hot break; Every time it looked like it was going to break, it just kept going until I finally stirred it in. I don't know exactly what this means but I hope it doesn't affect the clarity of the beer too much.
One note to myself is that this was my first brew since we got a "new-to-us" stove. With our previous stove, I was able to maintain the boil perfectly at about 4.5 on the dial; however, it seems that this stove requires the dial to be at 7.5 in order to get the same performance. No big deal, but I did want to make a note of it for future brews.
I was able to chill the beer down in about 25 minutes and had no issues with the transfer to my fermenter; the pitching of the yeast went well, also. I ended up with one gallon plus about 10% of wort, which is exactly what I was hoping for. I had planned to use S05 as the yeast for this beer, but when I checked my supply I found that all I had left was S33. I decided to use the yeast that came with the mix, which is a fast-acting yeast that leaves good malt and hop flavours and has never caused any problems for me.
I was running late this morning, so I was unable to check on the beer, but when I looked in on it last night, I could see that fermentation was definitely ramping up. Ambient temperatures are a few degrees lower than I would prefer, about 60 or 62 degrees; however, I am not concerned about this as I tend to give the beer at least three weeks to ferment and often go four or five. I'll take a look at it when I get home this evening and expect that it will be just fine.
I'll come up with a label for this beer as I can; since the hops are from Oregon and the tea is English that we brought back form Australia, I'd like to meld the two ideas somehow for the label. One idea might be a maritime theme with a clipper ship etc.; another might be a play on the "54-40" controversy in the intertwined histories of Oregon and England. Or, I might go with something totally different.
That's all for now; more as it happens, etc. &c....
Ron
https://brooklynbrewshop.com/collec...s/products/beer-making-mix-green-tea-pale-ale
Brooklyn Brew Shop gives a fairly straightforward description of this beer, and it sounds as though it will be pretty good:
But of course, I couldn't leave it at that; The Beautiful Mrs. Tas and I had just recently visited Australia and had brought back a small supply of very nice Earl Grey Tea, so I decided to substitute that in place of the Gunpowder green tea that came with the mix. We'll find out whether that was a good idea or not once the beer is ready to try.
Where the malts are concerned for this beer, I am only guessing, based on the description provided by Brooklyn Brew Shop: 2-row or Pale Ale malt, Some 10 and/or 20 Crystal and Vienna malt seem to be the main players here. I am also guessing that there is possibly some wheat in the grain bill, but I have nothing to back that up other than intuition. The expected ABV is 5%.
This beer employs Nugget hops, which have quite an interesting profile:
https://brooklynbrewshop.com/blogs/themash/hop-profile-nugget
This might be the highest AA hop that I've used, so I was a bit skeptical; however, Nugget seems, at first impression, to be a good match for this beer. I'll know more when it is finished. There are a total of 10 grams of hops for this 1-gallon batch: the first addition at 60 minutes is 2 grams, the second addition at 45 minutes is 4 grams and the final addition is at knock-out at 4 grams.
The defining characteristic of this beer is of course the addition of tea. The mix came with one bag of Gunpowder green tea, but as described above I chose to give the Earl Grey a try; since Brooklyn Brew Shop tends to go very subtle on the additions, I decided to use two bags of this tea. I don't think it will overwhelm the beer or throw it out of balance, but of course I won't know until I try the finished beer. The tea is added at knockout, along with the final addition of Nugget hops.
BrewDay was pretty straightforward with no real issues, and I encountered no real problems using the instructions provided by Brooklyn Brew Shop:
https://brooklynbrewshop.com/pages/instructions-green-tea-pale-ale
My mash temperatures were a little high during the first 10 minutes but after that held fairly steady at a couple of degrees higher or lower than 150 degrees throughout. The sparge seemed to take a little extra time and in my observation was a little sticky, but it was nothing terrible. The boil went well and on schedule, except that I never did seem to get a good hot break; Every time it looked like it was going to break, it just kept going until I finally stirred it in. I don't know exactly what this means but I hope it doesn't affect the clarity of the beer too much.
One note to myself is that this was my first brew since we got a "new-to-us" stove. With our previous stove, I was able to maintain the boil perfectly at about 4.5 on the dial; however, it seems that this stove requires the dial to be at 7.5 in order to get the same performance. No big deal, but I did want to make a note of it for future brews.
I was able to chill the beer down in about 25 minutes and had no issues with the transfer to my fermenter; the pitching of the yeast went well, also. I ended up with one gallon plus about 10% of wort, which is exactly what I was hoping for. I had planned to use S05 as the yeast for this beer, but when I checked my supply I found that all I had left was S33. I decided to use the yeast that came with the mix, which is a fast-acting yeast that leaves good malt and hop flavours and has never caused any problems for me.
I was running late this morning, so I was unable to check on the beer, but when I looked in on it last night, I could see that fermentation was definitely ramping up. Ambient temperatures are a few degrees lower than I would prefer, about 60 or 62 degrees; however, I am not concerned about this as I tend to give the beer at least three weeks to ferment and often go four or five. I'll take a look at it when I get home this evening and expect that it will be just fine.
I'll come up with a label for this beer as I can; since the hops are from Oregon and the tea is English that we brought back form Australia, I'd like to meld the two ideas somehow for the label. One idea might be a maritime theme with a clipper ship etc.; another might be a play on the "54-40" controversy in the intertwined histories of Oregon and England. Or, I might go with something totally different.
That's all for now; more as it happens, etc. &c....
Ron
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