Gravity, Dry Hoppin' & Hops

Just a small update. I tested the Pale Ale tonight, massive smells from the Cascade and Motueka hops!!! Peach, mango, slight hint of apricot and pine......smells awesome.

Gravity has dropped from 1.072 to 1.020 pretty quickly, so I've gone ahead and thrown 29g each of Motueka and Cascade. That'll be in there until my ghetto cold crash is ready. Queue a couple of 10L water containers half full, frozen and swapped out every 8 hours. Should be good enough right?

I'll leave it for as it is now for a day, test the gravity again, maybe throw more hops in, another 29g of Motueka.....Can't hurt, or can it? Once the cold crash gear is ready, 7 days at cold crash temps, then bottling time.

 

Checked the hop plants tonight as well, huge winds in the Manawatu so wanted to make sure they were OK. The Mystery German has exploded with new growth and the Smoothcone has now sprouted! Two hops plants on the go! I've get some pictures up when the weather settles down.

 

Brewing a Xmas Stout this weekend with Shady. Just a Guinness Clone from HBT with one slight change - the yeast will be Wyeast 1335 British Ale II, not WLP004. Second attempt at a liquid yeast. My last attempt didn't go so well. Decided against an Imperial Stout, just to close to Christmas and I'm not 100% sure it would be ready by Christmas time. Figured a lighter stout would be, so I'll get it under way now and see how we go.