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content/article/smashed-it/index.md

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+---
+title: "Smashed It"
+date: 2021-08-17T12:24:30+01:00
+draft: true
+Blog: []
+Categories: []
+Tags: []
+Image:
+Type:
+draft: false
+---

content/article/under-whelming/index.md

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+---
+title: "Under Whelming"
+date: 2021-05-30T12:34:26+01:00
+Description: "Notes from brew day #17"
+Summary: "A brief departure from my series of SMaSH IPAs to attempt a fairly straighforward Oatmeal Pale Ale from Siren"
+Blog: ["Brewshido"]
+category:
+    - "Homebrewing"
+    - "Craft Beer"
+    - "grainfather"
+tag:
+    - "Siren"
+    - "Undercurrent"
+    - "Oatmeal Pale Ale"
+images: ["/images/under-whelming/banner.jpg"]
+Type: ["article"]
+draft: false
+DisableComments: false
+---
+I like to break up the slight monotony of a series of the same type of brews with a guest beer brew day, where instead of focussing on a technique or ingredient influence, I can just chill out and make a nice beer.  For my 17th brew day, I opted for Siren's Undercurrent Oatmeal Pale Ale as something about the recipe resonated with me and I love oats in a beer.  I don't remember ever sampling this beer before and perhaps if I had, I may have opted for something a little more interesting (for my taste), __my attempt at__ Siren's Undercurrent was disappointingly underwhelming.
+
+---
+
+The brew day was pretty straight-forward with the only real difference to my normal routine being a slightly longer boil which, and I may be mistaken here, lends itself to a slightly sweeter finish.
+
+I wasn't able to get one of the hops (Palisade) so switched it out for Williamette.
+
+I was tired the night before so had decided to clean and sanitise the brewing kit in the morning before the brew, this is always a mistake but sometimes unavoidable and basically always leads to me struggling to get my head in the game. What should have been a very easy brew day turned out to be a series of micro-errors.
+
+* I had issues with recirculation during the mash stage which led to higher than desired temperatures for part of the process.  
+* Once _again_ the poorly designed additional filter around the grainfather inlet valve was swept to the side and rendered useless, leading to a little more grist getting into the wort.  
+* The hop spider got blocked and so required intervention post whirlpooling and cooling,  
+* And there were a disappointing lack of bubbles when transferred into the fermenter. Even after giving the wort a vigourous shake, the bubbles dissipated quickly leading to what I expected to be a fairly lacklustre fermentation.
+
+I did however, hit close to both original and final gravity targets but the resulting beer lacked a little character and as this was before I replaced the o-rings in my cornelius kegs it was ever so slightly oxidated.
+
+That said, every brew adds to my experience and knowledge and this one was no exception.
+
+Onwards.