This is another neipa-ish pale ale kinda thing, lots of oats and wheat. moderately high gravity of 1.069 and I used WLPD066, London Fog (dry) from White Labs and usually I get 2" of krausen, maybe 3" at most on a batch like this with other yeasts, but this one exploded. Thick yeasty goop right up through the gas lines and into the kegs I was purging with the blowoff.. what a mess. I had the top butterfly open to the hop bong and the krausen hit the top PRV of that too, had to take it all apart and clean it.

This was under ~5psi of pressure too, powerful, healthy yeast.

Brew smells great though. it's still pretty actively fermenting at the moment down from 1.069 to 1.022 so far and I'll give it a few more days to get to the target around 1.015 before dropping to dry hop temps (I use about 14c for dry hopping).

Recipe for this one was just some things I had lying around:

• 4 kg (62.5%) — Compass Pale Malt (Voyager Craft Malts)
• 800 g (12.5%) — Flaked Wheat
• 600 g (9.4%) — Rolled Oats
• 400 g (6.3%) — Chit Barley
• 400 g (6.3%) — Golden Naked Oats
• 200 g (3.1%) — Caramalt

mashed at around 68c or thereabouts, quick boil of 30 minutes.

Hops are mostly Rakau and Strata like last time since that was extremely successful (this recipe is also very similar tot he quick pale I did last time but a higher abv, "maltier" malt and different yeast, used voss last time), mostly hop stand/whirlpool but a bit goes in mid boil for a touch more bitterness than a classic neipa or other hazy pales, about 40IBU in this case. Dry hop also includes 5ml of Abstrax Quantum Motueka extract (roughly 150g pellet equivalent), used galaxy extract last time, thought Motueka would be nice this time and wanted to try more extracts.

This was my first brew in a new Brewzilla Gen4, which went quite well, I rigged up some extra hosing to be able to easily switch between chiller and whirlpool arm by having the chiller attached to the bottom tap, so I could direct wort either way just by opening and closing valves which was really nice because previously on the gen3 setup I had to change hoses on the recirculation output and always made a mess.

As for the last brew I posted, the quick hazy wheaty voss pale, that was really successful, it was grain to glass in about 6 days, which is always nice, the PH was slightly lower than it should've been from the start so it had an interesting tartness to it, after a few sips it became extremely more-ish.. so that keg didn't last long.

That recipe inspired this one, which is very similar but a bit bigger and with a more pronounced malt and some caramalt so it wont be as light and crisp it should be a bit deeper and richer in malt flavour.

After the very successful Vienna WCIPA ran out faster than expected I needed a super quick keg-filler, so I whipped up this hazy pale, using a pale malt base, lots of flaked wheat and oats, some GNO that I had, and some chit.

Grain bill was:

• 4 kg (66.7%) — Voyager Craft Malt ATLAS
• 800 g (13.3%) — Flaked Wheat
• 600 g (10%) — Rolled Oats
• 300 g (5%) — Chit Barley
• 300 g (5%) — Golden Naked Oats

Hops where whatever I could scrounge up:

• 25 g (12 IBU) — Rakau — Boil — 15 min
• 25 g (16 IBU) — Strata — Boil — 15 min
• 50 g (3 IBU) — Rakau — Aroma — 15 min hopstand @ 75 °C
• 25 g (2 IBU) — Strata — Aroma — 15 min hopstand @ 75 °C
• 25 g — Amarillo — Dry Hop
• 25 g — Rakau — Dry Hop
• 5ml — Abstrax Galaxy Quantum 5mL is ~150g equiv. (CO2 Extract) - at packaging

Used Voss, pitched and fermented at 35c, it was practically finished at 24 hours, but I gave it 3 days at 35, then 4 days at -2c, dry hop went in while it was chilling and just under 20c so it got some time as it passed through the "ideal" 14-16c range.

Final colour is difficult to capture, but it's a very nice pale, good hazy, flavour is great, bright, sharp acidity, feels good in the mouth, dry but has some body, great mix of hops, carbonated slightly higher than I usually do which really fits. here is a picture as it was just coming up to carbonation, it's brighter and paler than the image really shows, and this picture doesn't show the head.

some of my favourite IPAs either straight "IPA" or WC / NE specific styles are the ones with rich, full bodied, malt flavours. now' i;ve done a few NEIPAs with Golden Promise, MO and other standard pale malts, including basic extra pale malt but with lots of caramel/crystal additions and i've just never gotten the flavours I want out of the malt backbone.

so this was based on some pro brewers mentioning IPAs built on vienna and munich, with a caramunich II for a hint of extra depth and a more amber colour as a base for big full bodied higher ABV IPAs, so I scratched together this recipe as a bit of an experiment to see what it does.

I also forgot an ingredient in the grist (GNO, goes in everything honestly!) on brew day when the boil was already underway and I didn't want to try to cool back down and re-mash the missing ingredient so I quickly calculated how much DME I needed to make up for it, didn't have enough in stock so I cut it with some brown sugar and overshot the gravity but whatever, it was going to be a normal-ish gravity now it's a double.

What I ended up brewing was this:

Malts (5.5 kg)

4.2 kg (76.4%) — Gladfield Malt Gladfield Vienna Malt — Grain — 8.2 EBC

800 g (14.6%) — Weyermann Munich I — Grain — 15 EBC

300 g (5.5%) — Gladfield Malt Gladfield Chit Barley — Grain — 3 EBC

200 g (3.6%) — Weyermann Caramunich II — Grain — 124 EBC

Other (750 g) - cause I forgot 500g of GNO and had to improvise.

500 g — Extra Light Dry Extract — Dry Extract — 5.9 EBC — Boil

250 g — Brown Sugar, Light — Sugar — 15.8 EBC — Boil

Mashed at 67c for an hour, 77c mashout for 15 minutes, 1 hour boil. Post Boil OG was 1.071.

Hops are mostly Aussie hops in the standard WC flavour profile. made it up as I went along but this is what I ended up with:

• 5 g (11 IBU) — Vic Secret 18% — First Wort
• 5 g (7 IBU) — Ella (aka Stella) 16.3% — Boil — 30 min
• 25 g (14 IBU) — Chinook 13% — Boil — 10 min
• 20 g (16 IBU) — Vic Secret 18% — Boil — 10 min
• 50 g (8 IBU) — Vic Secret 18% — Boil — 0 min
• 50 g (8 IBU) — Vic Secret 18% — Aroma — 20 min hopstand @ 75 °C
• 20 g (3 IBU) — Ella (aka Stella) 16.3% — Aroma — 20 min hopstand @ 75 °C
• 75 g — Vic Secret 18% — Dry Hop — 2 days
• 50 g — Ella (aka Stella) 16.3% — Dry Hop — 2 days

Piched a new yeast to try, Cellarscience West Coast, which might have needed 2 packs due to the higher gravity in hindsight, but it's going happily, just a bit slower than I’d expected. I always add yeast nutrients and dont worry too much about trub in the fermenter so there’s plenty for the yeast to munch on.

Currently it's about 7 days along at 17c and has come down to 1.021, it will get another 2 days at 17 then a few days at 21 just to drive off whatever else it can do and help clean up any potential off flavours. I was originally planning on a 1010 finish but I think I mashed a bit hotter than planned and it might not get below 1016, but that's perfectly fine for a big IPA that is trying to be rich and full bodied.

The Dry hop will happen after that at 14C for a couple of days, then since this is going to be at risk of hop burn it will get a solid week at -2c for a good cold crash before kegging.

Picture was 5 days into fermentation, still a lot of activity. it was near black when it went in, but it's turning more orange/amber as it goes. final colour target is 17.5 EBC, so a nice amber, and should be quite clear by the time it's in a glass.

Wish me luck, I will report with the finished product later.

No pictures yet since I'm not planning on starting this brew until the weekend, but I'm going to be brewing a dark ale style thing. I will post updates if I remember.

I'm Australian, and despite decades of making fun of macro lagers and the people who drink them, I have a soft spot for "Tooheys Old" and other's like it a simple macro dark ale, theirs is fairly light in body and abv being a cost cut mass produced thing, but it has a nice roasty bready biscuity thing going on with a mild bitterness and a light malt sweetness but with a dry finish. similar (but better) beers aussies will recognise are white Rabbit Dark, Coopers Dark, and maybe Monteith’s Black for our NZ friends.

So my recipe that started as a straightforward clone but has morphed into a darker, bigger, richer brew, but still with some sugar added to keep the finish dry and stop it from getting too heavy. looks something like this:

21L batch, Brewzilla 35L, ~6.0% ABV , 1054 to 1008 expected.

• 3.5 kg (74.5%) — Barrett Burston Extra Pale Malt — Grain — 3.4 EBC
• 250 g (5.3%) — Voyager Craft Malt CHOCOLATE — Grain — 1150 EBC
• 250 g (5.3%) — Weyermann Caraamber — Grain — 71 EBC
• 250 g (5.3%) — Weyermann Caraaroma — Grain — 350 EBC
• 200 g (4.3%) — Simpsons Golden Naked Oats — Grain — 18 EBC
• 250 g (5.3%) — Brown Sugar, Light — Sugar — 15.8 EBC — Boil

lightly hopped just for bitterness and a tiny bit of all round hop character by using Pride of Ringwood, a classic aussie hop, a little bit spicy, herbal, but with balanced fruity characteristics , popular in our macro lagers and plenty of pale ales, and then Chinook for a bit of pine and resin.

• 5 g (6 IBU) — Pride of Ringwood 9.75% — Boil — 60 min
• 5 g (4 IBU) — Pride of Ringwood 9.75% — Boil — 30 min
• 20 g (11 IBU) — Chinook 13% — Boil — 10 min
• 15 g (6 IBU) — Pride of Ringwood 9.75% — Boil — 10 min
• 5 g — Chinook 13% — Boil — 0 min

I usually just lump all boil additions into one that matches the target IBU, since I generally brew a lot of IPAs and NEIPAs where most of the hops are post boil. I guess this is just to give me something to do during the boil.

Lutra to keep things quick since i'm almost out of my last brew, a slightly more old school WCIPA, before we turned them into bitter pine monsters.

Hoping for a 1 week ferment and keg, I used to use Kvieks like Voss a lot before I invested in a full temperature control setup, especially in Aussie summers where my fermenter would be in a room that could be 27-30c during the day. I'm quite fond of Voss but it's orange peel flavours would be out of place in a dark ale, so I’m trying Lutra for the first time for something more neutral. If I were brewing this again in less of a rush i'd try something like London Fog or a similar English ale style.

Planning a WC-TIPA / Barleywine thing next after this, will be doing two mashes to get the gravity up on that one, I’ve done high gravity before with a very successful belgian quad, but that used a lot of adjunct sugars so it was just one big mash that just barely fit the brewzilla with extra sugars added at the boil. this will be a proper double mash, efficiency be damned.

Tonight I'm listening to the flawed but in many ways revolutionary debut from Maudlin of the Well, My Fruit Psychobells... A Seed Combustible.

Brilliant, otherworldly writing but a deeply flawed recording. This album pushed avant garde and progressive metal in directions it had never been, possibly flying too close to the sun and trying to do things too far outside the bands skills at the time. Every track is quite different like they were trying to find their sound, but their later albums were the same, so varied and every track unique. But i love it, warts and all, and it started my fascination with experimental music in general. If you've been interested in Maudlin or Kayo Dot and never touched this one due to its reputation for being "unlistenable" please give it a go.

What I wouldn't give to hear this rerecorded.

Favourite tracks: (basically all of it)

Ferocious Weights

A Conception Pathetic

The Ocean, The Kingdom, and the Temptation

Catharis of Sea-Sleep and Dreaming Shrines

The Crystal Margin

Classic.

KAUAN - Ice Fleet.

Achingly beautiful music, doom, atmospheric, ambient, progressive.

If you haven't listened to them, they played two albums, Pirut and their masterpeice Sorni Nai live in full in Kyiv some years ago, it's here for those interested. If you've never cried to music with lyrics you don't even understand, give that a go.

I didn't have any vinyl starting with H, so tonight it's I.

Ihsahn - Das Seelenbrechen

Probably his most experimental solo album, and one I'm quite fond of, though i prefer After or The adversary personally. Standout part of this album has to be the semi improvised drum parts by Tobias Andersen range from groovy to unhinged and I love it.

In my opinion, Gojiras best work.

Love the story and lyrics on this album.

https://eadoom.bandcamp.com/album/ea-taesse

Atmospheric funeral doom with a neat gimmick of being in their own ancient language and lyrics based on sacred texts of said civilisation.

Combining my love of conlangs, worldbuilding and funeral doom!