Bottled the ESB today, which will come out just over 6% one primed. The sample was really promising, which I'm really pleased about because I made the recipe up myself. Clear as a bell (my sample jar is plastic and not totally transparent), which I find is always the case with Mangrove Jack's Liberty Bell yeast. Lots of malt, balanced with hop bitterness, East Kent Golding flavours and some aroma. It's no hop bomb; more nice fruity yeast esters with caramel malts. I don't think the crystal will be overpowering, or too much, but I won't really know this until its fully conditioned and I can sink a few. It reminded me a bit of Batemans Victory, but perhaps I am sipping it through rose tinted taste buds. Certainly, pushing the yeast to the top end of its recommended temperature range has worked really well.
I actually found that bottling wasn't such a chore this time; perhaps I'm getting used to it and my technique becoming more efficient. I do, however, need to change the FV that my little bottler tap is fitted to as its mounted too high in the present one and needs lowering so that I can more easily get the last few bottles out without having t tip the FV. That's something I'll look into soon. I also solved the issue I've always had with my brew fridge that I couldn't fit an entire brews worth of bottles in at one go. Voila! A quickly cut up piece of chipboard and an improvised shelf that sits on the bottles below. The chipboard should spread the weight across the bottles, so I don't think it will be putting a huge strain on them. I'm brewing tomorrow, but will be popping that in a builders tub water bath, so the fridge won't be required and the bottles can sit there until carbonated (7-10 days with this yeast in my experience).
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