The Stormcock Community

I've been a little remiss on updating everyone on the beer making. I suspect I've been a little too busy making it, and drinking it, to write about it. The Landlord that I made (see last blog entry) turned out to be a little bit of a failure. I added too much water so it was a bit weak but more importantly my thermometer had been reading too high so I ended up mashing at too low a temperature. This meant that I got less fermentable sugars. So in the end the brew was a hoppy and tasty "session beer". Not a bad thing in itself but it also took an absolute age to clear, probably because of the weird mash temperature.

Anyway I have moved on since then and made some more brews. I am just finishing off the barrel of the next one, Wadworth 6x and that has been lovely. The one after that which is maturing is Big Lamp bitter, a brew I remember from my student days at Newcastle. After that will come exmoor gold, and for that I've started treating the water to reduce the carbonates which should make the mash work better and allow more hop character to come through. I've also been adding some gypsum salts to the water to give it a "Burton Water" effect. We'll see what that turns out like.

I also got an ebay bargain, a stainless steel boiler for £42. It's made by "Acis", not a famous make (most people swear by Burco), but has so far served admirably. I will do another fully photgraphed brew day soon but for now here are two photos.

A brew in action

And the finished product, in this case my summer lightning clone. Makes you thirsty, doesn't it?