I have christened my latest brew Oxxxford Beer, since it is based on Graham Wheeler’s Brew Your Own British Real Ale clone of Batemans XXXB. I haven’t tried the original but grains produce a strong and relatively dark wort that should turn out fine.

This brew sees two innovations to my regular practise. Firstly, I used spraymalt as I was short on grains. That does save the mashing stage although also works out more expensive. I can get spraymalt locally but grains take a bit more planning so it may prove to be a useful dodge when I have time to brew but not to top up my stocks. Secondly, rather than setting it fermenting the day after I created the wort (Monday) I left it sitting in a sealed plastic Jerry can until today. The wisdom of the internet suggests that wort can be left this way for a long time; if the container was sanitised and the wort was near boiling hot when added, it is a clean environment and some people have reported delaying the next stage for months.

Anyway, it is now fermenting away with some Nottingham yeast. Original gravity was 1.048 @ 18°C (which is corrected to 1.049), only a small amount over the original target. In my experience Nottingham is a fast working so I could be bottling within the week… and then I’ve got another experiment lined up.