We brewed again today, this time a second batch of Bishop’s Farewell, a citrusy best bitter from Oakham Ales in England.  While I was getting the mash liquor heated up our power went out, which was bad timing.  I thought we might have a very tough day if it stayed off for a while, but thankfully the electricity was restored before the mash was over.  The grain bill was Maris Otter and 1.4 pounds of wheat, and the runoff to the kettle was hazy but we didn’t get a lot of grain particles coming through.  Hops were Phoenix pellets for bittering, followed by homegrown Cascade and Ahtanum for aroma.

Original gravity was spot on, at 1.043.  We tried to chill the ground water using the immersion chiller but the method we tested was a failure.  We had ten half gallon juice bottles frozen solid, placed in with the immersion chiller, but you cannot get a good heat exchange through the plastic, and with such large blocks of ice.  Next week we will try another way - freezing the immersion coil directly in a container and then running the cooling water through there.

The Chiswick Bitter from last week was racked to a firkin and dry-hopped with almost three ounces of East Kent Goldings.  The gravity dropped to 1.014, so it’s 3.7% ABv right now, with a couple more gravity point drop expected in the cask.  The strength will be a little higher than the real thing, which comes in at 3.5% ABV.  The flavour out of the primary was very nice though, a good balance of malt and hops.

It’s National Homebrew Day, so it was fitting to begin brewing again today.  The recipe was suggested by the American Homebrewers Association, a clone of Chiswick Bitter from Fuller’s, because it was one of beer writer Michael Jackson’s favourites, who died in August 2007.  The recipe was Maris Otter, caramunich, and Special B.  The bittering hops are Target, but I had to substitute Northern Brewer for the aroma hops of Challenger and Northdown, since they are unobtainable due to the hop shortage.

Target gravity was 1.040. and we reached 1.041.  The colour in the primary looked quite dark, although it calculated to be gold in colour, at 7 SRM.  The ground water is starting to be warmer than optimal for chilling the wort, in order to maintain mid 60s we had to throttle the runoff to about half speed.  Fermentation with White Labs English Ale made in a starter on Thursday took off within 4 or 5 hours, keeping it at 66F.

We also racked the Belgian Strong Golden Ale out of the primary, after 3 weeks.  Gravities were 1.006 and 1.007, so the beer really dropped during the last of the 3 weeks.  The beer is being cooled now in an attempt to get it to clear, it is still quite hazy with yeast.