Pouring beer away

Sigh. It had to happen sooner or later. To be fair, we’ve made seventy batches of beer now (the first being in May 2010) and this is the first time I have been forced to pour a barrel away.

What happened? Well this was a Rye IPA, which we made on 9th June. It was OK initially, but got overlooked by other more exciting beers like the CF103 trial. Fairly early on I had some problems with the rubber seal inside the barrel cap – it was old and had become a bit perished and warped so it did not fit snugly inside the cap. The photo below shows the replaced seal – the bright white ring. The faulty seal meant that I couldn’t get the cap to close properly and when beer was drawn from the barrel air was being drawn in at the top. It must have been more than I expected, because despite changing the seal the beer eventually went sour.

I have to admit that in the past we have drunk up at least one barrel that went a bit sour. I remember way back we made a Belgian Pale Ale, but souring resulted in a “rebranding exercise” to a “Belgian Sour”. Hmm. I think pouring it away and making a fresh batch is a better solution. It hurts a bit at the time, but I’d rather drink perfect beer. (And anyway, it gives me something to blog about!)

CF103 Trial Hop

We love experimenting with new ingredients. So when I spotted a bunch of trial hops at The Malt Miller I bought three different ones straight away.

The first one we tried was called “Bishop” and you can read about it here.

More recently, we have made a trial beer with a variety only known as “CF103” (although I have a suspicion that the final name will be “Duchess”). This hop was described only as “peppery, spicy, floral”.

We have a very simple recipe we use for trialling hops. It’s mainly maris otter pale ale malt, with a small amount of biscuit malt to give it a slightly richer bready flavour.

I was keen to use most of the hops at the end of the boil, ensuring that we got the best flavour and aroma that we could from the trial hops. So we used Northern Brewer hops for the bittering, saving all the CF103 for later in the boil.

I have recently become increasingly concerned about high fermentation temperatures (with it being summer and all that). I know English ales are fermented at reasonably high temperatures, but I am becoming convinced that if you want a clean uncluttered flavour you need to be fermenting at 18C, not 21C. Which makes a temperature controlled fridge essential kit, especially during summer. This brew was fermented at 18C throughout. I think this has made a considerable difference. The flavour is cleaner right from racking into the keg. In the past we’ve had “that homebrew taste” which we have only been able to get rid of through many weeks of maturation. (It’s probably diacetyl, which tends to be produced in the early stages of a rapid fermentation). The problem is many weeks of maturation result in loss of hop aroma, flavour and bitterness. It’s OK for a dark malty ale, but not a light hoppy beer.

OK, so what does CF103 taste like? In short, Boddingtons!! At the moment, because it is young, the beer has a strong hop aroma and flavour. There’s a straw-like aroma that is very reminiscent of Boddingtons. That goes through into the taste, and you get it very clearly in the “back-aroma” when you breathe out after swallowing.

So there’s an irony here. This beer in the closest we have managed to get to Boddingtons in terms of aroma, flavour and colour. And we weren’t even trying. (To read about our most recent attempt go here).

Andy has suggested that we should call this beer “Duchess of Strangeways”. :-)

Second attempt at making camembert

Back in March I went on a day course to learn how to make cheese. On the course we made three cheeses, one of which was camembert. (You can see me making the other cheese we learnt about here and here). The camembert came back with me after the course and I looked after it for a number of weeks, hoping it would grow the necessary mould on the surface and also develop a nice mature flavour.

It didn’t really work as I had hoped. Despite having the luxury of a temperature controlled fridge (used for the beer making) so I was able to hold the cheese at exactly 12C whilst the mould developed... it didn’t. After a lot of fussing and worrying, I ended up with some rather hideous cheese with green and orange mould on it.

I was terrified about eating it – and especially giving it to anyone else. I didn’t want a case of listeriosis on my conscience! In fact we did try just a tiny tiny bit – it had been matured for so long it tasted like a real stinking Roquefort.

Hmm. So for many months, despite investing in rennet, culture and penicillin mould, I just avoided the idea of trying again.

Until ten days ago. I had a Saturday afternoon free, and so I decided to bite the bullet. But this time, because it was in my own kitchen with my own ingredients, I would take complete control over sanitation, so I could be as sure as possible that the cheese was safe to eat.

Well I’m pleased to report that the cheese making day went well, and over the last ten days the cheeses have been in the fridge at 12C. Four days ago the mould started to appear – this time it was fresh, white and evenly coated. Success!

So today the cheeses have been wrapped and will be chilled down to 4C to allow them to mature a little longer. I won’t be waiting as long as last time though. I know now that 8-10 weeks maturing makes a very stinky cheese! I made four, so I’ll be trying one a week from next weekend and seeing how the flavour progresses.

The photos below are of the new batch.