First Ag Down :)

[agro]

Just put my first AG to bed

The day started well, woke up to find the HLT at temp and ready to go. Mashed in before breakfast and covered the mash tun with a blanket as there was a cool breeze.

* Hit the mash temp right on. I was a little surprised, guess I got lucky.
* The mash only lost 1 degree C over the 75 minutes - looks like the blanket did the job.

* Batch sparge to desired volume. (or at least... what I thought was desired volume).

Crozdog was coming around to trial his new HP burner, so waited for the boil. Unfortunately there were some problems with crozdogs burner so I resorted to the three ring burner, which after some adjustments performed better then I expected.

60 Minute boil. One water top up so I obviously need to account for a higher evaporation rate.

Tested my immersion coil before using it. Glad I did as it was leaking something horrid - fixed and working now

Final volume was 2 litres less than I expected, with the SG marginally higher than I was aiming at. Still within style and the bittering should be OK. I need to re-scale my boiler dip-stick (steel ruler), obviously some errors in the scale.

The brew is now resting in the fridge cool. Way too much hop waste in the fermenter so I need to work on that problem - other than that I think this was a very successful first AG.

From what I can work out - 65% efficiency. Not a bad starting point

Total time - 6 hours.

Some pics as requested:

The HLT

Strike Temp

Yum.. Barley Porridge

Additional Insulation

Lautering - loitering as well

Batch Sparge

The Brewers Assistant

Chilling Out

Far less eventful than I had anticipated. Some connection issues with hoses as I couldn't find the fittings I had bought, nothing major. The biggest issue with the brew is the amount of trub in the fermenter. I'll need to look into ways to resolve this - I usually pour into the fermenter through a Sieve (?spelling?)

I really enjoyed it. It was good to meet Crozdog and his asistants as well

Cheers
Agro.

 

[Duff]

Well done Agro, now all you will think about is how to do things better. It never stops.....

Cheers.

 

[Jye]

Nice one Agro :beerbang: But what did you brew ????

 

[agro]

A simple APA. Basically an all grain version of am extract brew I have made a couple of times. A little different, but very nice.

Recipe: Fat Bastards Pale Ale 2
Brewer: Jason Ball
Asst Brewer:
Style: American Pale Ale
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 18.00 L
Boil Size: 20.60 L
Estimated OG: 1.050 SG
Estimated Color: 15.5 EBC
Estimated IBU: 38.2 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
4.00 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (5.7 EBC) Grain 87.0 %
0.50 kg Wheat Malt, Bel (3.5 EBC) Grain 10.9 %
0.10 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (236.4 EBC) Grain 2.2 %
32.00 gm Hallertauer [5.30%] (60 min) Hops 22.9 IBU
20.00 gm Amarillo Gold [9.50%] (10 min) Hops 9.3 IBU
20.00 gm Cascade [6.00%] (10 min) Hops 5.9 IBU
1 Pkgs California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) [StartYeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 4.60 kg
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temp Step Time
Mash In Add 13.80 L of water at 71.1 C 65.6 C 75 min



Of course I forgot to do the yeast starter during the week as I was a little busy with other problems. So I will be using a Safale SO-4 dry yeast once the wort has chilled to pitching temp.

I'll post some piccies if anybody is interested.

Cheers
Agro.

 

[Hopeye]

Good one Agro.

Was it a good day had by all ???

Do post some piccies.

 

[Pumpy]

Well don Agro looks a nice recipe the ol' Safeale 04 I have been giving that yeast a bit of a workout recently.

Pumpy

 

[Mr Bond]

ONYA :excl:

 

[browndog]

Well done Agro, and what a cute little brewing assistant you have there, and no need to share the spoils too!

cheers

Browndog

 

[Pumpy]

Nice chiller Agro bitta copper in that .

You can get 10 micron nylon filter bags .!!!!

If I was you I would pour it into a glass carboy, stick it in the fridge overnight to get down to 14C, and you will find the trub drops out nicely. then siphon off into fermenter airate and add the safeale 04 at the 14C

Pumpy

 

[Trent]

Well done Agro, welcome to the dark side!
I think that you will find that whirlpooling the wort should probably pile all the hop debris in the centre of the kettle, and you can fairly dafely take most of the wort from the side of the kettle. I usually factor in a 3L loos to trub, but I am sure that this could be less if you wanted to really push it. Check out Zwickels set up in another thread, he really gets the most out of his kettle (cant remember what htread it is, sorry, been drinking, but maybe someone else will be able to pount you to it)
All the best
Trent

 

[mje1980]

Well, you're gone now!, no lookin back, you've the affliction upon ya!

 

[Tony]

yep, no going back now.

Soon people will say, your joking, all this gear to make a bit of home brew :blink:

Its like a chain reaction, it just keeps going and going and going and going and going........................................ !

Everything you see.......MMMM can that clothes line be used to make AG beer somehow???

now that i have said that someone will post a pic of a clothes line making AG home brew, you watch

cheers and great stuff.

you had a beter day that my first atempt. My disaster would have put most off AG for good.

 

[agro]

I just racked my first AG to secondary... Damn that's a clear beer!

I have *never* had a beer that clean going into secondary, which is why I almost always go to secondary. It must be the finings, but I have *never* seen the S0-4 clump like that. Almost looked like chewed minties in the wort.

Smells ok, tastes great - so the beer is OK. I wish I kegged as I can't wait to try this one

Agro.

 

[Jye]

How did it taste going into secondary? are you going to dry hop... a mixed ounce of cascade and amarillo never hurts