Brewday – Renovation Ale

Until now I’ve exclusively made beer based on a recipe, either from Graham Wheeler’s book or a recipe from the excellent database at the homebrewforum, most of these have turned out pretty well and I’ve learnt quite a lot by following the recipes. Naturally I want to see if I can produce my own beer and it be drinkable, so with a freezer drawer full of leftover bits of hops I decided it was time to have a go at designing my own recipe, and here’s what I came up with.

I used the Brewmate software to work out the recipe, this is a nice and simple to use programme for recipe design and working out your water quantities etc.

Renovation Ale

Recipe Specs
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Batch Size (L):           23.0
Total Grain (kg):         4.925
Total Hops (g):           97.00
Original Gravity (OG):    1.047  (°P): 11.7
Final Gravity (FG):       1.012  (°P): 3.1
Alcohol by Volume (ABV):  4.62 %
Colour (SRM):             6.9   (EBC): 13.6
Bitterness (IBU):         37.5   (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 70
Boil Time (Minutes):      90

Grain Bill
—————-
4.600 kg Maris Otter Malt (93.4%)
0.250 kg Caramalt (5.08%)
0.075 kg Crystal 120 (1.52%)

Hop Bill
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35.0 g Challenger Leaf (6.1% Alpha) @ 90 Minutes (Boil) (1.5 g/L)
12.0 g East Kent Golding Leaf (4.7% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (0.5 g/L)
10.0 g Styrian Golding Leaf (4.4% Alpha) @ 30 Minutes (Boil) (0.4 g/L)
20.0 g Styrian Golding Leaf (4.4% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)
10.0 g Cascade Leaf (7.8% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Aroma) (0.4 g/L)
10.0 g Styrian Golding Leaf (4.4% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Aroma) (0.4 g/L)

Single step Infusion at 66°C for 90 Minutes.
Fermented at 20°C with Safale S-04

The brew day went pretty well but my efficiency was down a bit and I didn’t quite hit what the software thought I should. I think this may be down to using my very hard tap water rather than bottled and not treating it other than a campden tablet (I’ve not got to the point of trying water treatments yet)

Not many pics this time as they tend to all end up looking the same but did take a few

The hops weighed out and ready to go, never used so many varieties in one brew.

Plenty of break material in the bottom as the wort drains

Slightly mis shapen cube! It didn’t pop out on emptying either!

The name Renovation Ale is one I chose due to the ongoing renovations of our house at the moment, thought it was quite fitting. Originally I was going to call it Pudding Ale with the ‘pudding’ coming from Hertfordshire pudding stone which is a conglomerate sedimentary rock composed of rounded flint pebbles cemented together, ie lots of bits thrown together, but thought that suited a darker beer more than this which is fairly tawny/golden.

It’s now fermenting with some Safale S-04 yeast at around 18C can’t wait to see how it turns out.