I am finally a member of the all grain club and it was nowhere near as hard as I thought it would be, nothing went wrong (Apart from adding too much hops but that was human error, my system worked very well) and I had plenty of time between steps to prepare the next step and visualise what I would be doing etc. I can't wait for the next one and have already penciled it in for next weekend.
I decided to make a pale ale and followed a basic recipe.
5kg pale ale malt
0.25kg crystal
fuggles (pellets) and saf04
The brewing started at around 7.30 yesterday morning, I put the water on to heat and got on with my first crush in anger, I had to put it through twice in the end but I have read that is common.
I heated the water to 70C and drained 14L into my esky and slowly stirred in the crushed malt, it did not give me any problems. The temp came dowm to 66C so on went the lid while I had a coffee.
I stirred it a few times during the hour mash while getting sparge water ready and preparing the fermenter. Plenty of time to get on with other things, I expected it to be far more labour intensive.
The next thing was recirculating the first runnings, the braid did it's job and I only needed 4 litres for it to run crystal clear so I drained into the kettle and added sparge water to the esky, stirred and had another coffee then recirculated a few more litres before making the kettle volume up to 30L and starting the boil.
It did not take long to get to the boil and I had a very big boilover, I think having the NASA going full throttle was a mistake so after turning it down to almost off it got down to a rolling boil without creeping over the top of the keg, I waited 15 minutes before adding any hops, I did not want an overly hoppy beer for my first go so I was going to add 30g-20g-10g at 60 30 and 5 minutes but somehow due to reasons known only to myself I added 70g 40g and 20g :unsure: anyway they are in there now so there is no point crying over it.
The rest of the process went as planned, no major dramas. I put the IC in and got it down to 24C with the aid of a pre-chiller submerged in ice and airated, pitched and it started bubbling within a few hours and is going strong today when I checked it after getting home from work, although it did stink of hops. :blink:
My OG was 1042 so I am guessing my efficiency was crap but I enjoyed myself and learned more from actually doing it than I have learned from all the reading and research I have done. I really enjoyed it and would say to anyone thinking of giving it a go to just go for it.
Here are some pics of the day.
Hotbreak
Boilover
First runnings
Immersion chiller
Siphoning to fermenter
Look at those hops stuck to the side of the kettle!!!
Things I have learned included (but are mot limited to ) I need a bigger funnel/hopper for my mill, I used an upturned 2L pop bottle with the bottom cut off, I needed one hand to hold/balance the bottle full of grain and the other hand to operate the drill, a third hand would of been handy to keep filling the hopper, 5Kg was something like 5 or 6 bottles full so it was a major PITA so something more permanent is required.
Another thing which I only realised when I calibarated my sight glass was it does not even register the first 18L in the HLT which is not a major problem if you want to dump any more than that as it drains all but a cup full, but if I require less water than 18L I would have to boil up more and drain it down using the crude measurements I drew up, does this make sense?
The biggest suprise of the day had to be the amount I ended up with in the fermenter, 19L off a boil that started with 30L. I lost about a Litre to the kettle trub so that makes I boiled off 10L in 75 minutes! I did lose about a Litre over the side in my boilover but still this is a big factor.
I just hope drinking this hoppy creation is half as much fun ans making it. How much hops is too much? :lol:
I decided to make a pale ale and followed a basic recipe.
5kg pale ale malt
0.25kg crystal
fuggles (pellets) and saf04
The brewing started at around 7.30 yesterday morning, I put the water on to heat and got on with my first crush in anger, I had to put it through twice in the end but I have read that is common.
I heated the water to 70C and drained 14L into my esky and slowly stirred in the crushed malt, it did not give me any problems. The temp came dowm to 66C so on went the lid while I had a coffee.
I stirred it a few times during the hour mash while getting sparge water ready and preparing the fermenter. Plenty of time to get on with other things, I expected it to be far more labour intensive.
The next thing was recirculating the first runnings, the braid did it's job and I only needed 4 litres for it to run crystal clear so I drained into the kettle and added sparge water to the esky, stirred and had another coffee then recirculated a few more litres before making the kettle volume up to 30L and starting the boil.
It did not take long to get to the boil and I had a very big boilover, I think having the NASA going full throttle was a mistake so after turning it down to almost off it got down to a rolling boil without creeping over the top of the keg, I waited 15 minutes before adding any hops, I did not want an overly hoppy beer for my first go so I was going to add 30g-20g-10g at 60 30 and 5 minutes but somehow due to reasons known only to myself I added 70g 40g and 20g :unsure: anyway they are in there now so there is no point crying over it.
The rest of the process went as planned, no major dramas. I put the IC in and got it down to 24C with the aid of a pre-chiller submerged in ice and airated, pitched and it started bubbling within a few hours and is going strong today when I checked it after getting home from work, although it did stink of hops. :blink:
My OG was 1042 so I am guessing my efficiency was crap but I enjoyed myself and learned more from actually doing it than I have learned from all the reading and research I have done. I really enjoyed it and would say to anyone thinking of giving it a go to just go for it.
Here are some pics of the day.
Hotbreak
Boilover
First runnings
Immersion chiller
Siphoning to fermenter
Look at those hops stuck to the side of the kettle!!!
Things I have learned included (but are mot limited to ) I need a bigger funnel/hopper for my mill, I used an upturned 2L pop bottle with the bottom cut off, I needed one hand to hold/balance the bottle full of grain and the other hand to operate the drill, a third hand would of been handy to keep filling the hopper, 5Kg was something like 5 or 6 bottles full so it was a major PITA so something more permanent is required.
Another thing which I only realised when I calibarated my sight glass was it does not even register the first 18L in the HLT which is not a major problem if you want to dump any more than that as it drains all but a cup full, but if I require less water than 18L I would have to boil up more and drain it down using the crude measurements I drew up, does this make sense?
The biggest suprise of the day had to be the amount I ended up with in the fermenter, 19L off a boil that started with 30L. I lost about a Litre to the kettle trub so that makes I boiled off 10L in 75 minutes! I did lose about a Litre over the side in my boilover but still this is a big factor.
I just hope drinking this hoppy creation is half as much fun ans making it. How much hops is too much? :lol: