BreadMurderer
Well-Known Member
So you lot should by now know that I've had two dodgy attempts at AG brewing here in Oz, the ones back home have been fine which made it all the more puzzling. I haven't used an urn before or brewed in a bag but I thought it would be a sinch, which it is but after a fair bit of head scratching and asking you fine people we narrowed it down to the possibility of mashing too high. Now to eliminate this possibility my latest brew I used my digital thermostat from the fridge on the urn so it would turn off/on when needed, hitting the temperature almost exactly.
Brew day came around and I was feeling good about this, this time I'm gonna get some beer! Everything seemed to be going well but the urn was being a pain in the ass, constantly turning on and off as if it was detecting an over boil. Eventually I got the mash temperatures I wanted (did a 3 step mash, not done before) but this took longer than expected. So when it came to the boil things hit rock bottom, the urn wouldn't do anything. You've got to be joking me?! How many more things need to get in my way to make beer here? Seriously.
A quick check on the t'internetz and I had to go all 'sparkie' on it's ass, removing the fuse (most likely dead, i.e. the cause of the issue) and bypassing it using electrical tape. A wee bit scared to turn it on thinking it would be the last thing I do on this earth, it kicked into life! I was a very happy chappy. What I didn't expect is how mental the boil would be, really this thing goes nuts I lost a few litres of wort because of the MEGA boil it produces.
Anyway happy days, I have a few litres short of wort than expected which is fine by me to be honest and this meant it excelled the expected O.G.
I went away camping for the weekend and came back Monday evening to discover a massive amount of krausen on top of the wort. YES! I was very excited about this. Took a gravity test and it was just over the expected gravity from the original recipe. Oh. Hellz. Yeah.
Today I bottled the beer and this wasn't without bloody hiccups either. Seriously WTF? The end of the bottler came off (as I was watching the footie, multitasking eh?) and my beer started pissing all over the floor. I lost at least a litre or two. Sticky floor. Bugger.
The good news is it smells great, looks great and will hopefully taste great in the next week or so. I only collected 20 x 500ml bottles but I'm chuffed I got anything. Notes have been taken and I'll adjust the wort loss in the next brew.
Now here is the beer I'm attempting to clone > Dark Island. This is my most favourite beer of all time.
I only boiled for 60mins instead of 90mins as the boil was so mental. I also used Mangrove Jacks M07 British Ale Yeast, interested to see how it turns out. Hopefully you lot can taste some at this months meetup.
Here is the recipe I followed:
[SIZE=10pt]Dark Island
Dry Stout
Recipe Specs
-------------------------------
Batch Size (L): 20.0
Total Grain (kg): 5.300
Total Hops (g): 50.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.056
Final Gravity (FG): 1.014
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 5.50
Colour (SRM): 28.8 (EBC): 56.7
Bitterness (IBU): 51.3 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency ( ): 70
Boil Time (Minutes): 90
Grain Bill
-----------------------------------
4.500 kg Pale Malt (84.91 )
0.400 kg Chocolate (7.55 )
0.250 kg Crystal 120 (4.72 )
0.150 kg Torrified Wheat (2.83 )
Hop Bill
-------------------------------------
44.0 g Challenger Pellet (7.9 Alpha) @ 90 Minutes (Boil) (2.2 g L) 6.0 g Challenger Pellet (7.9 Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (0.3 g L) Misc Bill
-----------------------------------------------
Multi step Infusion at 45C for 30 Minutes, 65C for 50 Minutes, 70C for 10 Minutes.
Fermented at 20C with Mangrove Jacks M07 British Ale Yeast [/SIZE]
Brew day came around and I was feeling good about this, this time I'm gonna get some beer! Everything seemed to be going well but the urn was being a pain in the ass, constantly turning on and off as if it was detecting an over boil. Eventually I got the mash temperatures I wanted (did a 3 step mash, not done before) but this took longer than expected. So when it came to the boil things hit rock bottom, the urn wouldn't do anything. You've got to be joking me?! How many more things need to get in my way to make beer here? Seriously.
A quick check on the t'internetz and I had to go all 'sparkie' on it's ass, removing the fuse (most likely dead, i.e. the cause of the issue) and bypassing it using electrical tape. A wee bit scared to turn it on thinking it would be the last thing I do on this earth, it kicked into life! I was a very happy chappy. What I didn't expect is how mental the boil would be, really this thing goes nuts I lost a few litres of wort because of the MEGA boil it produces.
Anyway happy days, I have a few litres short of wort than expected which is fine by me to be honest and this meant it excelled the expected O.G.
I went away camping for the weekend and came back Monday evening to discover a massive amount of krausen on top of the wort. YES! I was very excited about this. Took a gravity test and it was just over the expected gravity from the original recipe. Oh. Hellz. Yeah.
Today I bottled the beer and this wasn't without bloody hiccups either. Seriously WTF? The end of the bottler came off (as I was watching the footie, multitasking eh?) and my beer started pissing all over the floor. I lost at least a litre or two. Sticky floor. Bugger.
The good news is it smells great, looks great and will hopefully taste great in the next week or so. I only collected 20 x 500ml bottles but I'm chuffed I got anything. Notes have been taken and I'll adjust the wort loss in the next brew.
Now here is the beer I'm attempting to clone > Dark Island. This is my most favourite beer of all time.
I only boiled for 60mins instead of 90mins as the boil was so mental. I also used Mangrove Jacks M07 British Ale Yeast, interested to see how it turns out. Hopefully you lot can taste some at this months meetup.
Here is the recipe I followed:
[SIZE=10pt]Dark Island
Dry Stout
Recipe Specs
-------------------------------
Batch Size (L): 20.0
Total Grain (kg): 5.300
Total Hops (g): 50.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.056
Final Gravity (FG): 1.014
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 5.50
Colour (SRM): 28.8 (EBC): 56.7
Bitterness (IBU): 51.3 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency ( ): 70
Boil Time (Minutes): 90
Grain Bill
-----------------------------------
4.500 kg Pale Malt (84.91 )
0.400 kg Chocolate (7.55 )
0.250 kg Crystal 120 (4.72 )
0.150 kg Torrified Wheat (2.83 )
Hop Bill
-------------------------------------
44.0 g Challenger Pellet (7.9 Alpha) @ 90 Minutes (Boil) (2.2 g L) 6.0 g Challenger Pellet (7.9 Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (0.3 g L) Misc Bill
-----------------------------------------------
Multi step Infusion at 45C for 30 Minutes, 65C for 50 Minutes, 70C for 10 Minutes.
Fermented at 20C with Mangrove Jacks M07 British Ale Yeast [/SIZE]
