roger mellie
Defender of the WW - Scars to prove it.
- Joined
- 28/4/06
- Messages
- 746
- Reaction score
- 43
I knew it was all to good to be true...
<Rewinding clock>
6 weeks ago...
1st AG experience can be best summed up as seamless. On Ross's recommendation I made my first AG with 4.5KG of Maris Otter and 0.5 KH Torrified wheat topped off with Nelson Sauvin hops. Everything went well - learnt heaps from this experience - the 19L keg that was the product of this is very nearly all gone and all who have tasted dont believe its home brew.
I was hooked - this was easy - an affirmed KKK defector me.
<Back to reality>
Sunday I did a Pilsener, 4.5 KG of Weyermann Pils and 0.5 Carafoam. All brought from local HBS with some liquid yeast (Wyeyeast 2000 Budvar Lager). Did some yeast splitting according to the gospel according to Ross - split the pack into 10 vials - made a starter - used the newly patented Fiori Megamixer (so called for its ability to pull a vortex in a 20L pail) - all was good.
After the last effort, was planning a nice relaxing day, with chores planned for the off times whilst waiting for the 'stuff to happen'.
How wrong I was. You name it - it went wrong.
The only thing that went to plan was hitting the original temp target for 15L of water to 5KG of grain. Following that:
Discovered a tiny crack in my thermometer which made it read way high 40 degree ambient mercy dash to a friends place to borrow his would explain a few things.
The sparge system that worked so well for my first AG clogged after about 1 litre of run off - no matter what I did it wouldnt clear. It looked to me as if there was some glue like stuff clogging the strainer (braided hose type). Ended up using the hop sock to strain the grains even that was difficult whatever material was in the mask did a pretty good job of clogging holes.
On with the boil BG was 1.036 and 30 L (planned for 29.61 according to Beersmith) so that wasnt bad.
The new HP regulator I scored made so much difference to the boil I calculated that the 19 L I ended up with (with 1 -2 L of break in the kettle) gave me a boil off of 30%/hour bloody hell (previous regulator gave around 18%/hr with lid off). I thought the level was dropping so I put the lid on my kettle net result the level came up in my kettle above the top of the suspended hop sock hops in the boil.
CFWC worked well got me down to 22 degC (4 degree approach to Cooling water) one bright light on a dark dark day.
But the wort in the fermenter resembled cold 2 week old pea soup cold break I gather lots of it. My newly acquired beer filter will hopefully sort this out.
Taste wasnt bad mind you OG 1.051 - .001 less than target.
Pitched 1L starter after 20 minutes of aeration. Starter looked like yeast had grown plenty but then again I used aforementioned thermometer to measure pitching temp might have been a tad cold.
Checked this morning nothing not even a sign of a ferment. Off to LHBS to buy a packet of 34/70 or 23 whatever I can get.
Pilsener already named Profane Pils due to the amount of profanity and verbal abuse it was subjected to over the course of the brew day.
Took spent grain and hops to a mates farm and fed to his chooks just waiting for a call to tell me that they are all dead - such would be my luck.
If it comes out Ill be surprised.
RM
PS I can only surmise that the fact that the HBS where I got my grain from gave me duff gen when telling me to run the grains through their mill twice. Wont make that mistake again.
Next project Grain Mill.
Im still hooked.
<Rewinding clock>
6 weeks ago...
1st AG experience can be best summed up as seamless. On Ross's recommendation I made my first AG with 4.5KG of Maris Otter and 0.5 KH Torrified wheat topped off with Nelson Sauvin hops. Everything went well - learnt heaps from this experience - the 19L keg that was the product of this is very nearly all gone and all who have tasted dont believe its home brew.
I was hooked - this was easy - an affirmed KKK defector me.
<Back to reality>
Sunday I did a Pilsener, 4.5 KG of Weyermann Pils and 0.5 Carafoam. All brought from local HBS with some liquid yeast (Wyeyeast 2000 Budvar Lager). Did some yeast splitting according to the gospel according to Ross - split the pack into 10 vials - made a starter - used the newly patented Fiori Megamixer (so called for its ability to pull a vortex in a 20L pail) - all was good.
After the last effort, was planning a nice relaxing day, with chores planned for the off times whilst waiting for the 'stuff to happen'.
How wrong I was. You name it - it went wrong.
The only thing that went to plan was hitting the original temp target for 15L of water to 5KG of grain. Following that:
Discovered a tiny crack in my thermometer which made it read way high 40 degree ambient mercy dash to a friends place to borrow his would explain a few things.
The sparge system that worked so well for my first AG clogged after about 1 litre of run off - no matter what I did it wouldnt clear. It looked to me as if there was some glue like stuff clogging the strainer (braided hose type). Ended up using the hop sock to strain the grains even that was difficult whatever material was in the mask did a pretty good job of clogging holes.
On with the boil BG was 1.036 and 30 L (planned for 29.61 according to Beersmith) so that wasnt bad.
The new HP regulator I scored made so much difference to the boil I calculated that the 19 L I ended up with (with 1 -2 L of break in the kettle) gave me a boil off of 30%/hour bloody hell (previous regulator gave around 18%/hr with lid off). I thought the level was dropping so I put the lid on my kettle net result the level came up in my kettle above the top of the suspended hop sock hops in the boil.
CFWC worked well got me down to 22 degC (4 degree approach to Cooling water) one bright light on a dark dark day.
But the wort in the fermenter resembled cold 2 week old pea soup cold break I gather lots of it. My newly acquired beer filter will hopefully sort this out.
Taste wasnt bad mind you OG 1.051 - .001 less than target.
Pitched 1L starter after 20 minutes of aeration. Starter looked like yeast had grown plenty but then again I used aforementioned thermometer to measure pitching temp might have been a tad cold.
Checked this morning nothing not even a sign of a ferment. Off to LHBS to buy a packet of 34/70 or 23 whatever I can get.
Pilsener already named Profane Pils due to the amount of profanity and verbal abuse it was subjected to over the course of the brew day.
Took spent grain and hops to a mates farm and fed to his chooks just waiting for a call to tell me that they are all dead - such would be my luck.
If it comes out Ill be surprised.
RM
PS I can only surmise that the fact that the HBS where I got my grain from gave me duff gen when telling me to run the grains through their mill twice. Wont make that mistake again.
Next project Grain Mill.
Im still hooked.
