Todays Brew

I spent the day homebrewing today. I wanted to make something special for my brother and sister who have both recently had kids. Well, OK, one of the kids is nearly a year old now but I've been plotting this for some time. In the excellent Old British Beers and How to Make Them there is a recipie for a very strong beer that was brewed by Youngers brewery to celelrate the birth of an heir and be drunk on the luck offsprings 21st birthday. Now the chance of  booze lasting 21 years in the houses of any of my family is pretty slim but the idea still appealed to me. 

To try and avoid the cloying problem many strong ales suffer from I've used only pale malt and used cane sugar to bump up the original gravity to a hefty 1.120. I hope this will ferment out enough to be strong but still drinkable. I pitched a lot more yeast than normal and I'm considering adding a Champagne yeast as well if I don't get the attenuation I'm after. 

Here a picture of the sparging:

   

I think that's enough blogging for today, there's Oz Clarke doing some boozing on the telly soon.