Frank as Apollo AG

Brewing a Premium Bitter today – called Frank as Apollo.  This recipe was the winner of the 2012 Great British Home Brew competion.

Grains: Predominantly Maris Otter with just over 10% Munich Malt and 5% Caramunch.

Hops: Celia Goldings for the boil with Apollo added at the end and as dry hops.

• • Celia Goldings show 1.6% alpha acid (range is 2-5%) with character of Lemon, pine, floral
  • Apollo show 19.5% alpha acid so at the top end of the range (range is 15-19%). Character should be resinous, strong herbal.

The Mash

90 Minutes at 66C.
Added the water first this time round.
Calculated as 4.486kg x 2.5 = 11.215 (say 11.25l)
Water at 76C resulted in a mash of 66C which was spot on.

Sparge

Water certainly felt hotter than on previous occasions so think the thermometer must have been out.  Didn’t manage to get the balance quite right between in and out flow, but got 25l overall.

Have been setting the sparge water temp based on measuring the source in the boiler, but took some readings from the outflow and temp there was much less.  May need to play with this a little or ask on some forums as to whether increasing the temp may give me a better yield.

Gravity reading at this stage was 1.035.  I also double checked the hydrometer with some distilled water and no issues there.

Will see what I get post boil.

Boil

All the Celia Goldings go in at the start. Followed by half the Apollo at the end of the boil.
The remaining Apollo will go in as a dry hop once primary fermentation has completed.

Cool

Ferment

Primary fermentation at 18C. STC controller is proving great for temperature control. Will put up a separate article on the setup of this.