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.