Christmas Brew Day

Hi all,

Though I’d share a quick post on a Christmas brew I made up yesterday. It should just be ready in time for Christmas if it all works out right.

I wanted to do something that I know everyone in the family would like but put a bit of a twist on it. Beer, easy, that’d be a stout, nice and easy drinking and although it would be hot down here in Aus for Christmas it should still make us feel nice and christmassy.

But what about the twist? I couldn’t just do another Guinness clone because let’s face it, if I wanted Guinness I could walk into any shop and buy some. No, this one should be different, I want it to have at least some reference to Christmas but not be a weird spiced fruitcake/Christmas pudding beer. It should also reflect a little on Christmas in Australia.

I got to thinking and stumbled upon the Star Wars Christmas Special. (Linked version has appropriate audio still under copyright edited out, please don’t illegally download media, it genuinely hurts the makers and makes for less content for the rest of us!)

Anyway, for those who don’t know, after Star Wars episode IV: A New Hope came out, they also brought out a Christmas special. It was beautifully horrendous, an eclectic mess of characters that shouldn’t be related or doing the things that they’re doing.

So I wanted to make a stout that followed these lines. A bit of an unexpected recipe, something that references Star Wars in a way but also reflect the area we are celebrating Christmas in.

Galaxy hops and Gladfield’s Supernova malt should do the trick! Let’s dig into these ingredients a bit more..

Galaxy is an Australian hop with lots of passion fruit and other tropical fruit flavours. Definitely not what you’d expect in a stout, could be great, could be a bit of an eclectic mess with lots of unexpected characters rearing their head when you least expect….wonder where I’ve seen that before?

Supernova malt is roasted malt that’s designed to be an alternative to crystal malts, adding a nutty, toasted caramel flavour to your beer as well as a little colour.

These should make for a pleasant but unusual stout that echoes back to Australian flavours and a little bit of a space theme!

Full recipe below, then we’ll get onto the brew day!

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Star Wars Christmas Special Stout

4.9kg (78.2%) Gladfield Ale Malt

220g (3.5%) Flaked Oats

150g (2.4%) Dehusked Carafa III

330g (5.3%) Gladfield Light Chocolate Malt

650g (10.4%) Gladfield Supernova Malt

15g Galaxy @ 60mins (20 IBU’s)

15g Galaxy @ 30mins (15 IBU’s)

20g Galaxy in 20 minute whirlpool (10 IBU’s)

Safale US-05

Mash at 66 for 60 minutes with 10 minute Mash out for 10 minutes.

Water Profile

Ca Mg SO4 Na Cl HCO3

46 8 53 39 60 119

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Brew Day

I started out by collecting my mash and sparge water, started the Grainfather App and began heating for the mash.

Once heated I mashed in.

Now as you can see, this was a seriously thick mash and I think the fact that I used oats and the de-husked variety of Carafa III caused some circulation and lautering issues. It was almost a stuck sparge, requiring a lot of stirring to try and make a pathway for the water to rinse the grains.

These issues aside I still managed to hit my desired efficiency and final gravity of 1.054 SG.

The boil went nice and smoothly. No boil overs since I try to scoop the hot break off the top as early as I can to avoid it building up. It only requires a few minutes of scooping before it’s all gone. Here’s a quick before and after.

After the boil, came cooling and transferring to the fermenter. I came out of the Grainfather’s counterflow chiller and through a Wortometer, a product from Grainfather to give you an accurate post-chiller temperature reading.

Because it has been hot here lately, my ground water temperature is quite a bit higher than normal. I was only able to get the wort down to around 30 degrees C. I left this in the temperature controlled freezer to cool down further to pitching temperature and pitched my yeast. US-05 at around 25 degrees C.

Once proper pitching temp was reached, I (quickly!) took the lid off and pitched the yeast as well as dropping in my new Tilt Hydrometer after it was sanitised.

I set the Tilt up to log to a google sheet for me on an old phone I had around the house. This phone will sit near it and constantly update the readings on the sheet, giving me update information on my brew from anywhere I can get an internet connection! This blows my mind a little, I can check on it while on a break at work, if I was overseas I could pull out the sheet, connect to wifi and see what it’s doing and estimate when it’s done. It’s a very high tech, thoroughly over-engineered solution to a problem that in reality…isn’t even a problem! I love it!

For now that’s all, I’ll keep you up to date on social media with how it’s going and show you the final result when it’s ready

By for now, Merry Christmas and happy brew year!

Sean

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