Kraken Brewing

The second beer I ever made was my first time going all grain. This recipe (here) was a Stone & Wood clone, designed to loosely resemble the beer. While this was one of the most successful beers I’ve made, I decided to re-do it, this time with a much better, fine-tuned setup. The aim of this is to get an understanding on the impact of changing certain aspects to a brew and how they affect the end result. The grain bill is remaining mostly the same, with slightly more Wheat malt and Carapils. I’ve also increased the hop additions, adding slightly more bitterness and hopstand additions. Furthermore, I’ve tweaked the water chemistry in order to favour a light, hoppy ale, while removing chloramine with campden tablets. The beer will be kegged, whereas previously it was bottled, presenting more chance for oxidation.

The updated recipe can be found here:

This recipe is adapted from the HoppyDays Hazy Crusher IPA, a hazy session IPA with low bitterness, low ABV and a large dry hop addition. The yeast being used for this beer is the new Verdant IPA yeast.
Target mash pH: 5.4 (need 5ml lactic acid)
Target water profile: Approximately 2-1 chloride to sulfate

Hazy Session IPA

Brew Method: All Grain
Style Name: American IPA
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 23 liters (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 27 liters
Boil Gravity: 1.048
Efficiency: 70% (brew house)

This sour is pretty much a copy of the strawberry sour/berliner weisse I did last time. The only changes i’m making this time around are:

- Adding more fruit (4kg) in a pureed form (wholesale) which contains 15% sugar. This will up the ABV so the grain bill will be lower than normal.

- Fruit addition will be added during primary/secondary to get a fresher flavour and remove cooked-flavours.

- A mesh bag will be used to catch the Raspberry particles and make kegging easier.

For future reference, I’m going to briefly run through the process for a closed transfer, both pressurised and un-pressurised. The goal of this method is to reduce oxidation/oxygen contact on fermented beer. Oxidation can hugely impact the flavour and appearance of a beer, giving it off-flavours or causing hop flavour and aroma to dissipate. Therefore, it is important to reduce oxygen contact when transferring finished beer, especially heavily hopped beer. These methods will be suited for the SS Brewtech Brew Bucket or other stainless fermenters that are pressure rated to at least 1-2psi.

This beer was designed to clone Balter’s XPA and be close as possible to the original. The head brewers released the hops they used, but not the grains or yeast. The clone grist consisted primarily of American Pale malt with some wheat and carapils for body/head retention and some cara malt for malty flavour. The water profile was higher in calcium and suflate to accentuate the hops, of which were primarily citrus/fruity. Mash was mid 60’s to increase fermentable sugar content and produce a semi-dry beer using US-05.

This recipe was taken from Hoppy day’s recipe list as a standard german pilsener/lager. Grain bill was mostly german pilsener with some gladiator malt for head retention and body, as well as some acidulated malt to lower the mash pH and get as many fermentable sugars as possible. This was aided with a low mash temp. Yeast is Saflager 34/70 being fermented around 10-12c for 2 weeks with a 6-8 week lager in the keg.

Lemon Myrtle XPA

Brew Method: All Grain
Style Name: American Pale Ale
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 21 liters (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 27 liters
Boil Gravity: 1.037
Efficiency: 70% (brew house)

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.048
Final Gravity: 1.009
ABV (standard): 5.16%
IBU (tinseth): 36.6
SRM (morey): 5.1
Mash pH: 0

FERMENTABLES:
3.8 kg – Pale Malt (80.9%)
0.5 kg – Wheat Malt (10.6%)
0.2 kg – Biscuit Malt (4.3%)
0.2 kg – Carapils (4.3%)

This was my first fruit kettle sour/berliner weisse. I decided to go with pureed strawberries at the end of the boil and sour using IBS capsules. The wort was pre acidified with lactic acid and acidulated malt to aid the souring. Some citra hops were used to add a bit more depth and flavour and citrus backing to the beer. Next time I’d probably add the fruit in primary at the end of fermentation to get a fresher flavour, as boiling the strawberry made it taste slightly different and somewhat artificial.

Grain Bill
-Base is pilsner, Vienna and Wheat malt to add body, head and character with a slight maltiness from the Vienna. Acidulated malt to lower mash pH. Hops
-Bittering hops to give approximately 30 IBUs and add spicy and fruity notes.
-Kent Goldings, Saaz, or Willamette to add mild floral/herbal notes without overpowering the fruit.

Water Chemistry
Calcium: 50
Magnesium: 5
Sodium: 20
Chloride: 30
Sulfate: 100
-Higher sulfates will give aid in drying out the beer and accentuating the hops/fruit.

Distilled water will be used in order to customise the water chemistry (30L plus 2L of tap water for the remaining sparge). Adding 6.5g of calcium sulfate (gypsum), 3g of calcium chloride, 4g of magnesium sulfate (epsom salt) and 1 gram of baking sodat to the strike water will give a mash + sparge water profile of:
Calcium 74 ppm
Magnesium 13 ppm
Sodium 11 ppm
Chloride 50 ppm
Sulfate 165 ppm
The higher calcium and sulfate ions (low chloride/sulfate ratio) will enhance bitterness and bring out more hop flavour. Adding 100g of Acidulated Malt will bring down the mash pH to the desired level of 5.45 (room temp mash pH).