Big D,s Ag Adventure Has Started

[big d]

well aussie home brewer forum members i went down to the local freight company today and picked up my 4 x 25 kg bags of joe white pale malt.im finally ready to put down my first all grain brew tomorrow 31/1/04.
im going to do a one malt one hop brew first up.thanks to jovial monk for the suggestion.mainly because i havent got enough hop variety yet to do anything else.
the hop im going to use is usa chinook courtesy of my northern brewing mate in w.a batz.thanks mate i owe u one.
the yeast starter is up and running.wyeast american ale 2 1272
i plan on posting more pics of the brew day as it progresses providing all goes well and i dont do my block.
already found a few blocked outlets courtesy of the local wasp population.

 

[big d]

measure time

 

[Batz]

All the best big d , did my #3 AG today , my first brew was upset by the local wasps as well , mud nest in a stainless racking tube
They hated the boiling water thet got
I have as yet, not sampled any of the AGs , one in CC now , anyway have a great day bet you enjoy it , was boodly hot doing mine under the patio today ! B)

 

[Batz]

By the way you owe my nothing mate
And next to the scales..............very accurate cobber ....never have to shim the set I have , but if I did I would use stainless shims as well :lol: :lol:

 

[wedge]

yep AG #3 for me on Sunday. First One the SFPA is starting to get there. Tasting the sample during primary and secondary i was a bit tepidation, but now that it has been CC only 2 days is really coming along.

Did a Newcastle Brown AG, my yeast somehow got a infection, even more pissed off even though AG are so much cheaper.

Doing TDA Scottish Ale. Loos like it will go down a treat.

 

[big d]

cheers batz
i mucked around abit with the gap settings awhile back and didnt like those skinny feeler gauges so used some of these u-beaut shim packers that us fitter types use on pump/motor/gearbox etc line-ups.works a treat.
aaahhh what gap setting??? so many web sites so many differences of opinion.
im gonna batch sparge so what ive read is you can crush fairly fine.
my setting.... .048"
will see how it goes when i measure efficiency tomorrow.
and yep its bloody hot could do with some rain.

cheers
big d

 

[Batz]

big d ,
This is fairly straight forward and perhaps you have already thought of it , I only twigged on brew #2.
After the boil is over and you start the wort chiller up , if your boiler is still sitting on your gas ring , well there heaps of stored heat there , everything is hot azz!
I removed (with much care) my boiler from the gas ring today and found that I could reduce cooling time big mobs.
Will now make up a little pulley system to swing boiler away from all this hot cast iron.
Just a little thing I learnt , was staring my in the face
Cheers batz
:unsure: :blink:

 

[JasonY]

Good luck big d, no turning back now! Let us know how the brew turns out. B)

I will be interested as I am pretty cautios with chinook, damn powerful hop that one. The SFPA I did today only had 2g of them in :huh: I will definately try adding these at 10 mins in a future brew with none for bittering. I reckon that will give an interesting brew.

Anyway hope it goes well.

 

[Batz]

Yep Chinook ,guttzy azz for you first AG brew ,
Not my fault I warned you h34r: h34r: :unsure:

 

[big d]

great tip batz fortunately my set up at the moment allows easy removal of the burner.my frame work is still in the infancy stage.
jason y the jm posting of the one malt one hop called for ekg hops.75 grams at the 60 min 25 grams at the 15 min 8 grams at flame out plus 2-3 cones in the secondary.
well what im planning to do unless someone changes my mind tonight is to use chinook for the ekg but only in the 60 and 15 min sections.
100 grams gone in the boil only.
should turn out rather interesting i reckon.
postings to follow

cheers
big d

 

[GMK]

big d

What other hops do you have?
I might be able to recomend one that will go well with the Chinook.

 

[Batz]

Well go for it big d
I personally am going to drop back on my 60 min. additions , little to bitter for me with some brews ( I have been heavy handed with the hops) perhaps pay more attention on the flavour hops , I like them more eg 30 and 15 min additions
Dry hop in secondary , did this with great success while doing partials
Call it fine tuning ??

 

[big d]

gday ken
put in an order for cascade ekg and chinook the other day.
at the moment i only have chinook .
back of the fridge i have some old hersbrucker and cluster may be dodgy.
any thoughts appreciated
cheers
big d

 

[JasonY]

Holy [email protected] 75g at 60 mins that would give you something like 120+ IBU and enough grapefruit to make your eyes roll out of your skull :blink: I would consider scaling that back somewhat. The EKG that I have at the moment have an AA of 4.2% and the chinooks are 12.2%. I would drop the 60min hops back to 25g or something unless you are making one to those crazy yank beers.

I did read that hops have a narcoleptic effect so if you go for the 75 grams let us know if you pass out after a couple of pints!

In any event I will be interested how an all chinook brew comes out

 

[joecast]

I did read that hops have a narcoleptic effect so if you go for the 75 grams let us know if you pass out after a couple of pints!

hell, that may be what he's going for!! good luck with it

 

[Doc]

Good on'ya big d.
May the Brew Gods be good to you today.

Beers,
Doc

 

[Batz]

Well I suppose big d is up to his arm pits in mashed grain by now :lol:

So as it's finished I am sure he'll be on this site to brag to us all how well it went

Were all waiting big d

 

[big d]

the boils just started so time is short.
only a coupla minor hiccups will tell about it after ive finished.
thanks jason y im still in two minds about the hops bill mmmmmm

 

[Jovial_Monk]

Way to go BigD!

Wasps, eh? one time running out 20L boiling spargewater through my counterflow wort chiller to sanitise the chiller (no cooling water running, natch) all of a sudden a whole colony of earwigs came running out of the chiller outlet, closely followed by the first of the water. Laugh?

Moving kettles. FFS be careful! boiling wort is hotter than boiling water, and the sugar makes it stick to your skin. there is one other aspect to moving your kettle post boil. If using pellets, straight after turning the flame out, use a big spoon to whirlpool the wort. Put the lid on and leave for 30-60 minutes. the pellet hop debris is then packed down nice and tight on the bottom of the kettle and you can move the kettle w/o disturbing it. You can then run off nice clear wort

Re beers too bitter, you need to allow for the higher utilisation of pellets over whole hops. If taking a recipe from one of the Graham Wheeler books, he uses whole hops. Use two thirds of the quantity he recommends and you will have the right level of bitterness. If making up a recipe from scratch remember that the higher the gravity of the wort the more hops you need to get the same bitterness and vv. Wheeler's recipe for RIS showed 70IBU and the quantity of hops as 170g:-I calculated the utilisation I would get with a 1130 wort and used 350g! Search the web or books for data on hop utilisation, or download one of the beer recipators (Beersmith, Promash or Strangebrew) and use them to work out hop utilisation & quantities

Jovial Monk

 

[big d]

finally finished the first ag brew.great fun had a ball.
anyway mash went well so thought i would take the mash temp.no worries with temp.ill just grab a pic and in doing so in went the temp gauge.quick scrounge into hot grain mash and out it came.
forgot about the dead space in the mash tun so did a late batch sparge of a few litres and let it sit for awhile then out she came.
boil went well.thought i had a volcano eruption going with the immersion heater and gas burner .it settled down after the hot break.

i chickened out with the 75 grams of chinook at the 60 min so only put in 25 grams and another 25 at the 15 min.
i dont think i will dry hop in the secondary with the remaining chinook.but then again???
the wort chiller went well considering the 30 degree tap water.
finished the cooling off by going through an ice slurry pre chiller.man do i need more ice it was just about all gone by the time the wort hit 33 deg.
jeez was there some cold break gunk on the bottom.
sucked up some of it but nevermind.
thought i was not going to reach the 20 litre mark but just hit over 21 litres and with the 1 litre starter made just shy of 22 litres so am pretty happy.

i batch sparged the mash and reckon it went pretty well.
a quick calculation and it appears i hit 81% efficiency.

so considering it was my first ag im pretty happy how it went.
things i will do differently next time are...
allow for dead space
maybe raise the mash in strike temp by about 2 degrees
check for wasp nests before i start
get more ice for the pre chiller.
maybe sort out some sort of trub filter as the whirl pool affect did not seem to work.
and lastly have a beer or two after ive finished.

cheers
big d