All In One Brewery...

[Zizzle]

POP! There goes my AG cherry!

Me too. Last night was brew number 11 for me and my first AG.

It was a half size batch of Ross's Schwartzbier using Pat's bag method on my stove top.

It didn't all go to plan. Like I forgot that my crappy hydrometer only goes to 1040. I didn't measure the initial volume. I think I may have zapped the mash too much stopping the conversion after about 35mins.

But it's bubbling away in the fermenter now, so I'm happy.

Thanks to Pat for all the instructions, and MHB for putting together what I guess was a fiddly half batch of grain.

Onward an upward now, better equipment next time.

 

[Fingerlickin_B]

Zizzle, you got your pots off eBay didn't you?

That is exactly the same as my 20 quart one (Varun brand)

Glad to see it worked for your half batch............as it will for my first AG coming soon h34r:

PZ.

 

[Zizzle]

Actually that pot is Pat's. I just borrowed it.

 

[mimerbryg]

Congratulations JS!

Both with your first AG, new system and the nice result.


Kind regards
Flemming

 

[James Squire]

Thanks for all the support everyone.

Congratulations to you too Zizzle! A few hiccups is nothing to worry about, Im sure the results will be fine. Just the experience of getting your head around AG is the important part!

Ausdb, yep, the plan was to have something thats totally portable and easily packed away. The framework was ironically inspired by the bathroom renovations I've been doing lately which are the exact reason why its taken me awhile to get started on my idea! Plenty of pipe lying around, thought I'd give it a go!

Wobbly, hopefully it'll wind up pretty close to the Golden Ale. I've been brewing a partial version of this recipe for a while now, so this was just upping the Ale malt a bit from that. It's a nice recipe, comes out beautiful in partials so hopefully even better without that extract 'sweetness'.

With the elements I used both together to initially bring to the boil, then once the hot break was acheived I turned the urn off and only used the immersion element. Seemed to work a treat that way! The brewframe only needs some minor changes... the curtain rod i used looked like it was under a lot of strain when winding the bucket out. I need to get a solid bar to use instead as I assume at some stage (probably the most inconvenient time possible) the curtain rod will give in. I'd also consider a better way of standing the frame up. At the moment the pipe is just slotted to sit on the Urn handles, this worked fantastically but perhaps at some stage in the future I might change it to look better...

Cheers again all,

Fingers crossed for a delicious brew,

JS

 

[PistolPatch]

Ah! James and Zizzle, you got there!

Bet you were wrapped to finally sink your teeth into it James. A few questions for you of course. How was your clarity? How on earth did you manage to do this in 4 hours (did this include cooling and pitching)? And, most importantly, when's the taste test? Your setup looks almost space age. You could put it in your house on display as a modern art sculpture between brew days! Good on you mate :beerbang:

I knew you might be in for a bit of fun Zizzle when I got your email at 5:45PM saying you had just mashed in. Must have been a long night! That recipe has a wide margin of error so don't worry about being unable to take a hydro reading or your thermometer difficulties - you're still going to get a good beer. Most of the mash work happens early on as well. What I'm trying to work out is how you didn't burn the house down with the bag sitting ON your stove - lol! Did you manage to cool and pitch on Sunday night? If so how long did cooling that much take? Can you get a final volume reading? If so we can probably backtrack a few figures once fermentation has finished. :super:

Good on you guys,
Pat

P.S. Efficiency on my last 2 lagers has been 72% as opposed to the 81% I was getting on the Schwartz.

 

[AndrewQLD]

Ah! James and Zizzle, you got there!


P.S. Efficiency on my last 2 lagers has been 72% as opposed to the 81% I was getting on the Schwartz.

Pat, your lower efficiency could be caused by a ph problem, did you test your mash PH in the Schwartz and in the lagers?
The darker beers are much more forgiving in the ph department because the darker grains will naturally lower the PH of the mash for you.

However the lighter beers don't have that buffer effect and the mash ph will be higher which can affect your efficiency to some degree.

Also the other cause could be the malt itself, I have noticed a 5 point decrease in eff when using Powells pilsner malt campared to powells Ale malt.

But hell 72% eff is still a good efficiency regardless of what malt you use or mash ph you have.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[James Squire]

Pat,

Clarity was pretty good, have to make some changes to my pickup tube though because I ended up with some break material through... otherwise it was pretty clear.

I havn't yet made my chiller so what I did yesterday was... Took two 10 Litre Jerry's rinsed with Iodophor and placed them in my esky, filled esky with 5Kg of ice and some cold water, filled Jerry's with hot wort, closed the lid and walked away. This process took no time at all as the preparation was done during the boil and the only time involved was running the wort into the Jerry's. The Jerry's are now ready to throw into the fermentor and pitch my starter tonight...

Disclaimer: I know this is not good practise but I am confident with my sanitation technique and the time it took to cool was a lot longer than neccessary for effective pasteurisation. I also turned the Jerry's a couple of times to make sure hot contact was made to all surfaces...

Will keep you all informed on the tasting, won't be long. Should be kegged in a fortnight.

Cheers,

JS

 

[PistolPatch]

Have just started playing with pH on my last 4 brews Andrew. On this last one I knocked the PH down to 5.9 in the full volume water which ended up being 5.3 in the mash. The grain I used was Export Pilsner (no idea who makes the malt - lol).

On these last 2 brews, I've also been a little bit more fussy on my syphoning so maybe dropped an extra litre there. Like you say, I'm not worried about the efficiency and it's certainly higher than what I was gettting from my esky. Can't wait to taste your recipe. :chug:

I was wondering where all that speed came from James. I was hoping you had an amazing secret you were about to tell us - lol. Will look forward to hearing your impressions in a fortnight. Cool!

 

[halfinch]

Howdy Pat,

Just wondering if you could tell me the rough dimensions of the bag you use ???? This method looks great for a beginning all grainer!!!!


Thanks Halfinch.......

 

[PistolPatch]

Hi there Halfinch,

As for the dimensions of the bag, you're best to make one that matches your kettle. If you look at post #72 of this thread, you'll see some pics of my bag. It basically acts the same as a garbage bin liner does for your bin. I'm not too adept at sewing so had a neighbour do it.

The material is 100% Swiss Voile Ivory from Spotlight. I also bought nylon thread to sew it up with and drawstring (Gutterman Poly Thread) from there. Cost of under $15 with a lot of material left over.

I'm working on some easy instructions for this method which might even be ready tomorrow. When done, I'll put a link in this thread so keep your eye out.

Cheers
Pat

Cheers

 

[halfinch]

Thanks Pat ,
Boiler will be 50 litre keg (already made ready to go, (without green ring Tas Chris) just waitng on burner!!) . But might try a few partials in the mean time. Will definitely be reading your instructions..

Top stuff Pat ..


Halfinch.

 

[Fingerlickin_B]

I bought a hop sock from Ross...should do the trick me reckons :super:

PZ.

 

[PistolPatch]

No worries Halfinch. The 3 ring burners are nice and cheap $35. Another good addition is the adjustable gas regulator hose. Some of the fixed regulator hoses, like on your bbq, don't allow much gas flow.

Hey there Fingerlickin! I did a test run using the hop sock very early in the peice and even with 1.5kg of grain, it was no good. The grain was far too tight. I had several conversations with Ross to see if he could come up with a mash sock that would be suitable for everyone but due to the large range of kettles shapes and sizes, neither of us could come up with a suitable one. It was Ross who actually suggested we make up liners using the material above. I don't know much about partials but am sure the hop sock would be great for these. For full volume brewing in a bag though, you'll have to get your sewing kit out!

 

[Fingerlickin_B]

Duzzamadda...I'll be keeping it to 11.5L batches

Kits remaining for swill :beerbang:

PZ.

 

[Fingerlickin_B]

Oops, just read what you said properly...but I'll still give to sock a go first off

PZ.

 

[jimmysuperlative]

Have just started playing with pH on my last 4 brews Andrew. On this last one I knocked the PH down to 5.9 in the full volume water which ended up being 5.3 in the mash.

So PP, if my local water has a pH of 8 ...and I want to bring that down to about 6, what would you suggest I do/use to achieve that drop if I'm using the A.I.O. "grain sock" method (33L) ?

...citric acid? how much?

 

[PistolPatch]

LOL Finger!

Jimmy, I'm totally inexperienced in pH. It's one of my current learning projects so any advice I can offer should be taken with a grain of salt...

My local water is 6.6 from memory and one level teasppon of citric acid in 42 litres knocked it back to 5.9 which lead to 5.3 in the mash which is pretty close to what we're chasing. You get citric acid from the cooking section of the supermarket - thanks to Ross's wife for that info!

I'm pretty sure you'll be totally buggered without using some pH paper. Ross sells this now on Craftbrewer but buy the big lot as the first time you try, you'll probably take at least ten tests. After this, you will need only 3, even less per brew so one roll will last you forever. A small lot will last no time.

The other thing I've learned from other brewers is it's very easy to over-correct so take your time and make your acid additions small until you get things worked out. This could be another good thing about full volume brewing - easier to adjust pH levels???

All the best Jimmy.

 

[Adamt]

pH = -log(concentration of Hydrogen Ions)

pH = 8 => C(H+) = 3.35*10^-4 gmol/L
pH = 6 => C(H+) = 0.0025 gmol/L

So we need (0.0025 - 3.35*10^-4)*33 = 0.0707gmol H+ to change pH

Now! I reckon citric acid salt is Calcium Citrate, formula Ca3(C5H4O5COOH)2, molecular weight = 498.46g/gmol.

2 mol of H+ released per 1 mol of Calcium Citrate in solution => need 0.0354 gmol of Calcium Citrate

=> 17.6g of Calcium Citrate ("Citric Acid" salt)... theoretically...

Damn I shouldnt have had that coffee.

 

[jimmysuperlative]

pH = -log(concentration of Hydrogen Ions)

pH = 8 => C(H+) = 3.35*10^-4 gmol/L
pH = 6 => C(H+) = 0.0025 gmol/L

So we need (0.0025 - 3.35*10^-4)*33 = 0.0707gmol H+ to change pH

Now! I reckon citric acid salt is Calcium Citrate, formula Ca3(C5H4O5COOH)2, molecular weight = 498.46g/gmol.

2 mol of H+ released per 1 mol of Calcium Citrate in solution => need 0.0354 gmol of Calcium Citrate

=> 17.6g of Calcium Citrate ("Citric Acid" salt)... theoretically...

Damn I shouldnt have had that coffee.

17.6g of Calcium Citrate ("Citric Acid" salt)... Sounds spot on Adamt :lol:
Thanks for the calculations ...I can't believe I actually understood most of it? :blink:

And thanks PP, I hadn't really considered pH as an issue ...but from what I've read it's fairly important when attempting lighter beers. Good to know