I wanted to re-use the British and English yeasts again, so this was the fifth pitching. Because of the past two brews’ low extract efficiency, I lowered the mill gap and got a much finer crush, ending up with a 90% efficiency. The original gravity was therefore higher than expected, reaching 1.045 instead of 1.040. The recipe was version 17 of Boathouse Bitter, with Galena for bittering and Northern Brewer for flavour and aroma. The ground water temperature is definitely getting up there, I think this might be the last brew of the summer where we can just use the counterflow chiller. Next time we’ll chill the wort in the kettle with the immersion coil as the first stage, then use the CFC after that.

The keg of Three Floyd’s Alpha King that I got for my birthday late last year is gone, so we replaced it with the first keg of the Two Hearted Ale clone. I tried a new technique with the dry hop this time, taking out from the freezer a couple of ounces of Cascade on Friday night, to let them warm to room temperature to volatilize some of the harsher, negative aroma compounds, which will theoretically make the dry hop come through cleaner and without some of the raw, grassy flavours you sometimes get. Initial tastings were favourable, but that was only an hour after kegging. Further tastings a few days to a week from now should confirm whether it makes any difference.