Pirate Life Pale Ale - All grain brew

[Hambone]

5 minutes ago, Dustin Frothman said:

Yep, you definitely do not need to spend that sort of money to brew all grain. But if it lasts and makes the job easy and enjoyable then I think it's worth the spend. 

It is certainly an impressive bit of gear. I hope the beer turns out well. I'm certain that if it doesn't it won't be the equipment. 😆

 

Haha yeah, fair enough. I usually blamed operator error for a poor result. 

Cheers 

[Rob Courtney]

OK, so a question to the grain brewers, why?

Is there a better taste ?

[Hambone]

40 minutes ago, Rob Courtney said:

OK, so a question to the grain brewers, why?

Is there a better taste ?

It's a little more nuanced than that. Once you have all your processes etc dialled, your knowledge base is well established, then you can make truly amazing brews. Aside from that, it's more about the flexibility of what you can create. 

Now I haven't tried any of my Brewprints at the appropriate conditioning time, so I'll reserve my judgement on those. But against kit and kilo, all grain is definitely better. Against unhopped extract and steeped specialty grains and your own hopping schedule etc, I reckon it's a close run thing and dependant on skill.

The point being, I suppose, if you get someone who really knows what they are doing, they will turn out a great tasting product whatever they use.

With the Beerdroid and Brewprints, I believe that need for exceptional knowledge and skill has been taken on board by the manufacturer. It's essentially been done by someone else. 

I hope this helps. 

Cheers 

[Rob Courtney]

19 minutes ago, Hambone said:

It's a little more nuanced than that. Once you have all your processes etc dialled, your knowledge base is well established, then you can make truly amazing brews. Aside from that, it's more about the flexibility of what you can create. 

Now I haven't tried any of my Brewprints at the appropriate conditioning time, so I'll reserve my judgement on those. But against kit and kilo, all grain is definitely better. Against unhopped extract and steeped specialty grains and your own hopping schedule etc, I reckon it's a close run thing and dependant on skill.

The point being, I suppose, if you get someone who really knows what they are doing, they will turn out a great tasting product whatever they use.

With the Beerdroid and Brewprints, I believe that need for exceptional knowledge and skill has been taken on board by the manufacturer. It's essentially been done by someone else. 

I hope this helps. 

Cheers 

Interested to hear your thoughts on grain v Brewprints at 8-12 weeks secondary.

I really wasn't a fan of kit and kilo, may have been moreso if i had not...well drunk beer before, thanks for the info though, makes sense to me

[Thagomizer]

Thanks to Rob Courtney for asking the important question.  We have been discussing how to brew all-grain beers, whereas the better question may be why?

I can give you my reasons:  I am a retired engineering professor, and I am fascinated by processes.  My bride of 52 years and I are now “empty nesters,” so I have ample time for brewing.  Could I conjure up a better brew than a good BrewPrint?  Maybe, but I need to try.  I have always wanted to know and understand how things were done.

And thanks to Captain Three Droids on the suggestion to sub-divide the larger all-grain recipes.  I am already doing that with large extract recipes.  The container for storing a wort in the fridge is a great idea, but I’ll probably stay with ten-liter procedures.  I’ll just have to order an extra yeast packet.

As to the forum content, I hope we can always discuss all BrewArt issues.  Although, I would not want to see it become just a beer-recipe swap-meet, I would like to see a continuation of openness on ingredients, equipment, methods and maintenance.  Information on use of the BrewArt attachments and components has been very helpful; and it seems that this was the intent of the forum.

So, more details of Dustin Frothman’s exploits in all-grain brewing would be welcome.  I have enjoyed what I have seen.  Great photos!

Life is good.🙂

[Captain 3 Droids]

8 minutes ago, Thagomizer said:

I would like to see a continuation of openness on ingredients, equipment, methods and maintenance.  Information on use of the BrewArt attachments and components has been very helpful; and it seems that this was the intent of the forum.

Throughly agree. It’s important that outcomes of recipes are made as this helps in brew recipe selections particularly with the number of “adjustments” brewers are making. Eg the various combination of hops being used. It is great to make recipe changes based on another brewers recommendation.

[Dustin Frothman]

Spending a very exciting NYE kegging this one tonight, cleaning the Droid and will do another all grain brew tomorrow morning.

It took about 12 or so days all up including the cold crash. Work this week delayed kegging so it spent an extra day or so at 4 degrees.

The colour is great and the aroma pretty good.

Keen to see how the taster bottle fares in a few weeks.

[Wazza_wantsbeer]

On 18/12/2021 at 9:36 PM, Hambone said:

Yeah it's the huge time suck that got to me in the end. It's not just the 5 hours of brew time on the day. Deciding what to Brew, the recipe creation/adjustment, planning, organising ingredients and ensuring all the equipment is in order. 

The plug and play nature of the Brewart is what I'm absolutely loving. I've not even bothered adjusting any of the Brewprints. Order and brew. It's fantastic. 

Cheers @Captain 3 Droids , for the input in the thread on the craft brewing forum. That's what got me here.

 

Bottoms up. 

It's funny how different things are and how we see things at various stages in our lives and also, maybe the impact of COVID may change our respective outlooks.

For me personally, I really have to say that the planning, creation and adjustment, the organising are all stuff I really enjoy.

To go off on a tangent but... to give a good example, when my wife and I are planning on a holiday, I'm the one who does all the research, planning and booking. Many times we show up to the airport on our way off on the holiday and my wife really only knows the destination of the flight and little else. She knows I love doing that stuff and she really doesn't like it so she is cool with it and trusts me to plan it all out. However, there is one thing she is very keen to make sure of... the budget  🤣

Yeah, I am known to be a bit extravagant at times when booking accommodation and activities but hey, YOLO!

Anyway, back to brewing. I do love how the Droid and the BrewPrints and the BrewArt Ingredients give you a set and forget/plug and play way of brewing really good beer. But for me who is completely new to home brewing, the world of partial and full mash/all grain is really gripping me, especially seeing how @Dustin Frothman progresses.

In many ways, @Dustin Frothmanreminds me of me 10 years ago, We both work in IT, I'm mid-50's, my wife and I have always lived without children in our home as my son was outsourced (lived with his Mum so I just paid child support and saw him whenever I could and he's now 20 and I haven't seen him for several months as he's either with his friends or his new GF), we both work and earn good money (my wife even more so as she's a lawyer and a bloody good one at that) and with COVID especially, I have plenty of spare time on my hands and I've been an avid craft beer wanker for decades.

So this really appeals and I'm already on the look out for a similar system to the one @Dustin Frothman is using here such as the Brewzilla 35l Gen 3.1.1

I've said it a few times and I'll say it again, this hobby is a bloody rabbit hole and once you go down, there's no coming back (or at least not until you get sick of it all as @Hambone writes above.

[Dustin Frothman]

2 hours ago, Wazza_wantsbeer said:

It's funny how different things are and how we see things at various stages in our lives and also, maybe the impact of COVID may change our respective outlooks.

For me personally, I really have to say that the planning, creation and adjustment, the organising are all stuff I really enjoy.

To go off on a tangent but... to give a good example, when my wife and I are planning on a holiday, I'm the one who does all the research, planning and booking. Many times we show up to the airport on our way off on the holiday and my wife really only knows the destination of the flight and little else. She knows I love doing that stuff and she really doesn't like it so she is cool with it and trusts me to plan it all out. However, there is one thing she is very keen to make sure of... the budget  🤣

Yeah, I am known to be a bit extravagant at times when booking accommodation and activities but hey, YOLO!

Anyway, back to brewing. I do love how the Droid and the BrewPrints and the BrewArt Ingredients give you a set and forget/plug and play way of brewing really good beer. But for me who is completely new to home brewing, the world of partial and full mash/all grain is really gripping me, especially seeing how @Dustin Frothman progresses.

In many ways, @Dustin Frothmanreminds me of me 10 years ago, We both work in IT, I'm mid-50's, my wife and I have always lived without children in our home as my son was outsourced (lived with his Mum so I just paid child support and saw him whenever I could and he's now 20 and I haven't seen him for several months as he's either with his friends or his new GF), we both work and earn good money (my wife even more so as she's a lawyer and a bloody good one at that) and with COVID especially, I have plenty of spare time on my hands and I've been an avid craft beer wanker for decades.

So this really appeals and I'm already on the look out for a similar system to the one @Dustin Frothman is using here such as the Brewzilla 35l Gen 3.1.1

I've said it a few times and I'll say it again, this hobby is a bloody rabbit hole and once you go down, there's no coming back (or at least not until you get sick of it all as @Hambone writes above.

I was an IT professional. I only really dabble in it on the side as a consultant now just to keep the skills intact in the event that I lose my work medical.

The Brewzilla is a great unit, I reckon I'd wait until Gen 4 though. You may be waiting a while and there's perhaps a question mark around their product development track record, but overall Kegland make some good stuff. It's certainly a lot of bang for buck.

[Dustin Frothman]

On 31/12/2021 at 9:48 PM, Dustin Frothman said:

... will do another all grain brew tomorrow morning.

And yeah I didn't get to this. 😐

I will probably put a Brewprint on this evening and will try again for an all grain adventure on my days off later this week. If I don't get called in to work again that is.

[Dustin Frothman]

Taster bottle at bang on 2 weeks maturing.

I'm very impressed with the clarity and the head retention is pretty good too.

Not bad for a first go. Taste wise, it's nice and malty with pleasant bitterness. The aroma is good. Perhaps a little more needed in the dry hops department but will reserve judgement until the keg has matured. 

Does it taste like Pirate Life Pale Ale? Kind of. Perhaps too early to tell. It's a nice beer either way.

In another 2 weeks it should be good to tap the keg.

Edited January 14, 2022 by Dustin Frothman

[Dustin Frothman]

Interestingly the promo photo of this beer shows the colour to be quite light. My clone is not that far off.

But the original beer brewed in Hindmarsh and prior to Pirate Life being taken over was quite a bit darker. The recipe has certainly been tampered with a bit since CUB's buyout. 

I'm not sure which version the recipe designer was aiming for but I'll hazard a guess that it's the recent iteration.

[Dustin Frothman]

 

Tapped the keg today; that’s about 8 weeks maturing. I used my spunding valve to bleed some pressure off the keg as it was too high.

First things first, it doesn’t taste like Pirate Life Pale Ale at all. I don’t think the dry hopping schedule was enough for this beer. It’s a nice pale ale but just lacks some oomph.

I am really impressed with the clarity and the head. It’s bright white and really creamy and I think this is what differentiates it from a Brewprint. I’ll make the uneducated assumption that it’s the proteins from the grains even though I don’t understand how this would differ whether the wort was dried or fresh.

Anyway, I’m very happy for a first go in the super duper Rolls Royce kettle and am looking forward to churning out better brews as my experience grows.

[Dustin Frothman]

I just tipped the last of this down the drain, and by the last of it I mean a few litres worth.

It had developed a bit of a medicinal after taste and I just couldn't drink it anymore. So I could probably also add these comments to the "Brewing Mistakes" thread.

I've made quite a few all grain brews since this first effort and one of the biggest lessons I've learned is to treat the brewing water with a Campden tablet the day prior. Since our state government allowed recreational activities in our reservoirs they have added chloramines to the supply and I suspect this has something to do with it. I naively thought that by double filtering the water and the boiling of the wort would address this but have since learned otherwise.

Anyway, I have a brew sitting in a Droid in storage that I was keen to keg so this at least makes room and also frees up a tap on the kegerator for the weekend.

Edit:

And this is another reason why I wanted a small grain kettle and 10L kegs. It doesn't hurt when you tip out a few litres but if it was 20 there'd probably be a few choice words uttered.

Edited May 13, 2022 by Dustin Frothman

[Captain 3 Droids]

20 minutes ago, Dustin Frothman said:

And this is another reason why I wanted a small grain kettle and 10L kegs. It doesn't hurt when you tip out a few litres but if it was 20 there'd probably be a few choice words uttered.

Agree a big advantage and great for experimental purposes.

That was a good looking ale, pity about tipping some, however the Campden tablets will fix the problem.

[J P]

I've definitely learned something.

Campden tablets had to google that one.   

I would imagine some sulfites would remain and for those who react, be unpleasant?

apparently (quoting wikipedia) if using only for dechlorinating tap water, 1 tablet per 75L of water is adequate??  wow.

interesting...

[Dustin Frothman]

1 hour ago, J P said:

I've definitely learned something.

Campden tablets had to google that one.   

I would imagine some sulfites would remain and for those who react, be unpleasant?

apparently (quoting wikipedia) if using only for dechlorinating tap water, 1 tablet per 75L of water is adequate??  wow.

interesting...

Not sure about the sulphites.

I have a bag of 100 tablets and am only treating 20 or so Litres of water at a time so am using only a fraction of a tablet.

Edited May 16, 2022 by Dustin Frothman

[Wazza_wantsbeer]

You can also use straight Sodium Metabisulfite in your water as it's the primary ingredient in a campden tablet.

It will remove chlorine and chloramines and tt also acts as a really good O2 scrubber so I've taken to using a pinch in my water as a part of my overall water treatment prior to brewing.

I purchased a 500g bag of it and it will last a long long time.