The three long-lost stainless shanks for the draft system finally arrived today, so by late night I had them installed and the kegs pouring. Pictures are posted here (scroll down to the section headed “Co2 Draft System”.  More pictures of the inside are farther down the page under “Beer Serving Tanks”).  I have to say it’s a huge improvement over the plastic picnic faucets.

Brewed again today, the weather was so nice that instead of using the shed we set up the structure on the driveway and enjoyed the sun. The batch today is the first attempt to clone a very fine bitter I had at the Eastbourne Beer Festival in October, Bishop’s Farewell from Oakham Ales. Grist was Maris Otter and 8% wheat malt, with Challenger for bittering and Cascade for aroma. I substituted some high-alpha Phoenix pellets for the Challenger. Target graviy was 1.046 and although our pre-boil gravity was right on at 1.038, we only reached 1.044 post-boil.

The Landlord from last week was racked to the pin and a corny, dry-hopping with the last of the Styrian Goldings. With the current hop shortage, I doubt I will see any more of those until next year or later. Racking gravity was 1.014 on both fermenters. The Boathouse Bitter previously in the pin was finished last night, while late Saturday night as I was cleaning the new faucets and shanks the last of the Palmer’s Best Bitter clone was finished.

Back into brewing, the first batch of 2008. In making the yeast starter, we made use of a stir plate lent to us by fellow homebrewer Jonathan Page. The highly flocculent English ale yeast certainly forms considerable clumps when spun on the stir plate. I think the lag time after pitching was reduced, perhaps by a couple of hours. I had two flasks for the starters, so I alternated each one on the stir plate.

The recipe was the thirteenth brewing of the clone of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord. The recipe only changed with the addition of an ounce of debittered black malt, in an attempt to get the clone closer in colour to the real thing, and a slight increase in the hops. I brought back a bottle of Landlord on my last trip to England, so when we tap this batch we can compare the two. The original gravity was 1.045, mashed without sparging, and hops work out to 40 IBU, an increase from 36 IBU for the last couple of versions.

After a fun New Year’s Eve party over at Steve’s where we managed to polish off 3.5 gallons of homebrew, today I worked on upgrading the pump on the brewing structure.  I replaced the three 3/8″ stainless steel hose barbs with 1/2″ ones, so the flow through the pump should be better because there won’t be as much restriction for the grain that does get through the false bottom and screen to clog the pump.  I cleaned all of the fittings and the pump impeller, and replaced the braided hose as well.

On New Year’s Eve day I had time to rack half of the latest batch of Simcoe IPA to a corny keg, dry hopping with one ounce of Simcoe.  Normally I would use twice that for the dry hop, but due to the hop shortage I need to cut back!

This weekend we were supposed to go to Vermont, but thanks to the evil airlines never made it.  Instead of brewing I did a lot of brewery cleaning, including a complete soak and flush of the six new faucets and shanks (hot water, PBW, BLC, and sanitizing steps), plus a thorough cleaning of the three handpumps (hot water, acid cleaner, and PBW).  Finally, the floor got a good mopping and the rubber mats got hosed off and cleaned with bleach.

I also vented the pin of the Boathouse Bitter, probably about three weeks past when it should have been done.  Needless to say, it was highly carbonated.  After venting for about 5 hours, in which several pints were lost through the shive, I hard spiled it and put it in the serving tank.  The first half of the batch was finished on Friday, so now there’s space to serve the pin.  The first keg of the Christmas Ale bit the dust as well, so the second keg is hooked up now.  I meant to keg another five gallons of Simcoe IPA, but didn’t get to it, so that will be a task for New Year’s Day.

This weekend I installed the collar on the chest freezer where the new stainless steel faucets will go.  First I replaced the weatherstripping on the edges of the freezer so the collar will seal well.  The collar was exactly the right size to fit on the freezer lip, so that worked out well.  I took out all of the kegs and cleaned the inside of the freezer, then put the collar on and bent the steel wood ties to match the shape of the inside lip of the freezer and the collar, so as to hold the collar in place.  The wood ties were screwed to the collar and render it immovable.  The the lid went on top of the collar, and the hinges were screwed to the collar.  New holes were drilled in the hinges to screw into the top holes on the freezer, and extensions were made out of aluminium bar stock to extend the hinges down to the original bottom mounting holes on the freezer.  This keeps the hinges and place and prevents the lid from working loose after repeating use.

By Christmas Day, I had all of the parts needed to set up six of the nine stainless faucets.  Installation was easy, the only tricky bit being heating the 3/16″beer line in boiling water to make it soft enough to stretch onto the 1/4″ hose barbs on the tailpieces.  After hooking all six up, they seemed to pour pretty well, with some foaming at the beginning when the shanks had not yet cooled to the temperature of the beer.  I didn’t get a chance on Christmas to dispense any except the Christmas Ale, which filled a take-away bottle without excessive foaming.  I kept the beer line length the same for now, we may need to shorten them after some testing.

The stainless steel faucets sure look nice, I am eager to get the other three shanks so the remaining faucets can be installed.

There won’t be any more brewing this year, but today I kegged up the first 5 gallons of the Christmas Ale so it will be on tap before the holiday.  Final gravity was 1.012, so it’s 7.4% ABV.  The cinnamon and ginger flavour is subtle, but enough not to need any more additions at kegging.

On Friday I tapped the cask Boathouse Porter, and compared it to a bottle of Sam Smith’s Taddy Porter.  They look identical, but the Taddy Porter is sweeter, while the Boathouse has more of a roast and chocolate flavour.  It’s not overly roasty, but it’s enough for the strength.

On Saturday Steve and I began construction of the collar to go on the chest freezer which holds the force-carbonated kegs.  The collar will hold the new faucets, replacing the plastic picnic faucets with nine stainless steel Ventmatic forward-sealing faucets.  We got the collar built and the holes drilled for the shanks to go through, then painted it with a couple of coats of primer.  On Sunday I put on three coats of gloss white paint.  Once it’s dry we need to drill a hole for the co2 line to pass through, then modify the hinges and install it on the freezer.  Once Christmas rolls around we can put in the faucets and hook everything up.  Pictures will be posted on the site when it is all finished.

The Christmas Ale has had eight days in the primary, so we racked it to a couple of secondaries.  Gravities on the primary fermenters were 1.012 and 1.013, so quite a good drop from the 1.068 original gravity.  Looks like we won’t have any trouble hitting 7.5% alcohol by volume.  The cinnamon and ginger flavours are there, but pretty subtle, which isn’t a bad thing.

The Boathouse Best Bitter was tapped on Friday, and the corny keg was quite lively, so the first few pints through the handpump were primarily foam.   Even on Saturday night the  condition was higher than it should be.

Time to brew the annual batch of Christmas Ale so that it’s ready in time for the holiday.  It’s also the last use of the yeast, which works well since there will be cinnamon and ginger left over in the trub which would not be good for any subsequent batch.  The clarity of the wort run off to the kettle was great, and no slow runoff issues today.  Target gravity was 1.068, and on reaching full wort volume in the boil kettle we were set to hit 1.060, so the rest was made up with honey.  We ended up needing a quarter of a pound more honey than we planned on, and we hit 1.068 on the nose.  Hops were Cascade throughout, with the cinnamon and ginger added during the last 5 minutes of the boil.

The previous batch, the brown porter, had 8 days in the primary, and on racking the gravity was still up at 1.018.  That’s higher than it should be, but it didn’t taste sweet.  One half was racked to a corny for conditioning, the other to a secondary where it’ll perhaps ferment out a little drier.

The yeast has now been pitched four times, so for the fifth use we brewed a darker beer, a brown porter.  The recipe was cobbled together from many different sources, trying to get a good balance of dark malts as well as use some brown malt, which was historically used in porter.  The recipe ended up with Maris Otter, 9% brown malt, 9% crystal malts, 8% chocolate, and a touch of roast barley for a deep red colour.  Fuggle is a good traditional porter hop, supplemented with an ounce of high-alpha Phoenix.

The Boathouse Bitter from a week ago was racked, half to a corny using the last Surescreen, the other half to the pin which was just emptied a couple of hours before it was filled.  Dry hops were easy, a few plugs of First Gold in each.  Gravities were normal, at 1.012 and 1.013.  There is a nice selection of cask ales now, with even the porter destined for cask-conditioning, at least half of the batch.

A solo brew day today, which means I’m busy but if there are no distractions the session usually goes pretty well.  Today was no exception, everything went well even when I overheated the mash liquor.  I just added a bit of cold water and brought it back down before adding the malt.  This was the eighteenth version of Boathouse Bitter, this time with malted oats, wheat, and some honey malt.  Hops were a mix of pellets and whole hops, all English except for the New Zealand Pacific Gem.  Target gravity was 1.042 and actual was 1.044, which is close enough considering the malt mill gap had to be adjusted for the Maris Otter malt from Hugh Baird rather than our previous supply of Thomas Fawcett’s.  The yeast is on its fourth use, the plan for the final two batches are a mild or a porter, followed by the annual Christmas Ale.

The Hophead clone from last week was racked to a couple of corny kegs, using my last two Surescreens.  I dry-hopped them differently since the plan is to tap one before the other.  The first one to be served only has .75 ounces of Cascade, while the second has 1.25 ounces, so that the first is not overly grassy because I didn’t let them warm up for a day in advance of dry-hopping.  Gravities were 1.011 and 1.012.

The Palmer’s Best Bitter clone was drinking very well this weekend, the slight sweetness has attenuated out and the condition has come up.