First A/g Run This Morning

[punkin]

Well i dicked around yesterday and prepared everything i could think of.

I cleaned my bench off, ground the grain, made a float for my digital thermometer (bet i still can't read it for fog), got my tun in and set it up, rinsed the boiler and set the hot water keg up etc.

Sanitised my paddle and a couple of buckets.

Came inside and weighed out my hop pellets (man what an unusual smell hops have!) zip locked and fridged em.


This morning i'll do some more sanitising while the mash is sitting and while the boil is on, and plan things out in my head as far as the steps go. Only real drama is carting buckets of warm wort from the shed to the house to fill the fermenter, may fill the fermenter in the shed and trolley it into the house, just means a 45kg lift from ground to bench that way is all....

Oh ****, i better finish off the hose connections to my new, bigger wort chiller too :blink:

The recipe was made by me in brewmate after advise from a kiwi brewer mate and from crozdog, it's simple and hopefully to my taste.



Punkins Pale (American Pale Ale)

Original Gravity (OG): 1.052 (P): 12.9
Final Gravity (FG): 1.013 (P): 3.3
Alcohol (ABV): 5.11 %
Colour (SRM): 5.3 (EBC): 10.4
Bitterness (IBU): 30.6 (Average)

85% Pale Malt
10% Wheat Malt
5% Caramalt

0.8 g/L Pride of Ringwood (8.3% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)
1 g/L Centennial (9.7% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil)
0.5 g/L Centennial (9.7% Alpha) @ 1 Minutes (Boil)


Single step Infusion at 66C for 60 Minutes. Boil for 60 Minutes

Fermented at 20C with Safale US-05


Recipe Generated with BrewMate


Anyone see any glaring glitches or have any advice for a nervous kit and kilo man? :unsure:


I guess at least i'll find out about my base malt..

1) whether it is indeed a base malt or whether it is as i'm starting to suspect from the sugary taste a crystal malt
2) wether it has any diastic power

I wish someone who knew malt was round to that was willing to help me identify it, i would have put the brew day off till next week when i came back from being away.

 

[ekul]

Hi mate,
the only problem that i can maybe see, is that the aa% rating you have listed is the exact same AA% listed in brewmate. Because i know you got the POR from ellerslie, i know the AA% of the por is 10% (from memory), so this means you'll get a bit more bitterness extracted. The aa% is used to work out how much bitterness is in a hop, its generally written on the bag.
Other than that, good luck mate, i think you'll find AG to be a very tasty way to make a brew!

EDIT~ as for the crystal, if you break open a piece of the grain and it is crystalline inside, then its crystal.

 

[QldKev]

Thats a good pickup by ekul on the aa%.

Also 30IBU for a 5% beers is a bit light on for a Pale Ale. I would find another 10IBU. (maybe when you adjust the hop % it will help).

Myself I would throw in some dry hops, and mash at 65c.

QldKev

 

[chrisherberte]

"Today, 04:51 AM" -- That's dedication!

 

[ekul]

Starting a brewday @ 5 is great i reckon, you're done by 10 and still have the rest of the day for other things

 

[punkin]

Ok thanks guys. I guessed the grain temp at 10C and musn't have been too far off as i've just mashed in and hit 66.1C :icon_chickcheers:

I've got the analysis here and it lists the POR at 9.6% and the centennial at 8.3%, that has brewmate giving me 32ibu which is a little higher even though the centennial is a lower %?

The starter is going of it's nuts on the desk beside me and i'm off to do some sanitising. :icon_cheers:


I don't want to play around with too many variables like dry hopping ect on my first go round. i want to work out things like my efficiency, dead space, procedures etc and learn what changing things like hop and grain percentages does to my beer.

later on when i've settled on a house recipe i'll start learning new tricks.

 

[Yob]

"Today, 04:51 AM" -- That's dedication!

THIS should clarify a little for you :lol: :lol: .. the mans a machine :chug:

No offence intended

 

[petesbrew]

Nice work punkin. The early mash in makes sense.

 

[Pennywise]

Personally I reckon 30IBU is gonna be ok for this beer. There's not a lot of caramel malts in there & Caramalt being one of the lighter in color malts, I think it'll be spot on. Definatly go for dry hopping though, it's a big character of these beers in most cases. Hope it goes well for ya Punkin

 

[schooey]

Looks great to me too... Punkin stated in the other thread he liked to drink cans when he bought beer, so I'm guessing he has a liking for the blue, green or yellow cans; either way, this a good transitional beer and a good step up from kits. On the rare occasion somebody new to homebrew asks me for some recipe advice, that's the kind or recipe I'd give them. It's not going to scare the pants off them from what they are used to. Let them get a taste of that and they'll soon start the natural hop addict progression of upping the IBU and dry hopping and running randalls all by themselves..

 

[QldKev]

what he doesn't have a hop straw yet :wub:


mmm, I think I just invented something cool

QldKev

 

[stephenkentucky]

Congratulations Punkin you must be pleased as punch, I still remember my first AG, the kitchen was left as sticky as a bill posters bucket, but I had a grin from ear to ear that would light up a dark night.....and you know what I still get that feeling twenty years later, I hope I can come down to Tamvegas for a brew day some time. Till then enjoy your day.

 

[punkin]

Thanks a lot guys for all your advice, i've been having a ball. :icon_drunk:

I've hit my predicted marks at all the steps so far, just measured a temp correct 1073 of my first running and i'm waiting for the full wort to cool.

I've tossed the 60min hops in and keeping an eye on the boil...



wwwweeeeeeeeeeeee




Thanks for the kind words. Got so excited to be doing this this morning i forgot about a doctors appointment. :unsure:


Bah, he'd only tell me to drink less beer anyway

 

[Pennywise]

what he doesn't have a hop straw yet :wub:


mmm, I think I just invented something cool

QldKev

I like it!

 

[punkin]

I thought i'd had a fail. I took a sample as it was coming to the boil and cooled it to 20C. It came out at 1051 instead of 1052, so i figured my efficiency was only 69%.

Then i realised that the sample should be taken after the boil as the sugars will be concentrated by evaporation... :wacko:


It's runnning on the wort chiller atm, will report back shortly.

Have you ever had a newb so excited? :icon_cheers:

 

[crozdog]

Good stuff! sounds like it's going sweet as.

How good does your shed smell at the moment? :kooi:

 

[punkin]

Thanks Croz, i owe a lot to you :icon_chickcheers:

I can't believe the scent of hops. It's amazing.

Well 11;30 am and it's all put to bed, wrapped up and hosed down. That's from a 7:30 start, so 4 hours this morning and half an hour weighing and milling yesterday for a double keg batch. 44 litres in the fermenter just as the machine predicted.
Still got 1051, dunno what's going on there...

Not too bad i spose, but hardly the 20mins my kits take me

I guess when i start doing quadruple batches for no more time than a double the numbers will get a lot closer together.

First project too is a counterflow chiller after seeing a vid the other day where a guy just ran straight from his tun with it.

That'll save me twenty minutes of stirring in a double batch in winter and god knows how long for a big one in summer.

Sipping my third beer for lunch and it's not only wife legal, it's compulsory cause i'm brewing :icon_cheers:


I'mHappyAsWhatsiPunkin

 

[mattyra]

Glad that brew day went fairly well for you.

I will be starting my first All grain batch as soon as I get my brew kettle sorted (I am building it out of an old keg).

Are there any things that you would do better or any tips that you would like to pass on to help my brew day out a bit.

I have a fair idea on the procedures but since I have never done it I might be missing something.

 

[Pennywise]

Sipping my third beer for lunch and it's not only wife legal, it's compulsory cause i'm brewing :icon_cheers:

Onya Punkin, just a heads up though, it's an un-written law of sorts to not have a beer till' first hop addition is done . Things can get a bit messy (especially if I'm brewing) if you hook in to early :lol:

Let us know how she goes

 

[bignath]

Have you ever had a newb so excited? :icon_cheers:

Yep, the newb's are always stoked to be doing what you've just done this morning. Well done on a great brewday punkin!

Sounds like you hit most (if not all of your targets), you're resulting beer is gonna be the best you've ever put in your gob.

By the way, it's not just the newb's who get excited about a brewday.

Even the more experienced AG'ers still love reading about other peoples experiences, particularly on their maiden runs...
Please post results of the finished beer and your opinions as to how it turned out.

Cheers mate,

Nath