It Finally Happened

[muckey]

I finally made the move, and completed my first all grain today. Decided to go with Smurto's famous brew

Butters came over with some gear and mash in was around midday. Hit all temps beautifully and volumes were great, should come in at the intended 23 litres when cooled. The little fella is no chillin' in a cube as we speak. All cleaned up just after 6 tonight.
Going to try and pitch tomorrow but may have to wait until monday morning.
butters did a calc on the efficiency and got 73.9 so luvin the numbers. Pre boil grav came in at 1.038

Now the numbers side was great but I'm convinced there's something wrong with this home brew lark because we brewed a 23 litre batch but drank half a keg doing it.
Ahh well, it was butters beer so all good.

Unfortunately for those that may ask, there aren't any photos, too busy with beer ( I had a leaky glass all day).

Looking forward to the next 1 :beerbang:

 

[Screwtop]

I finally made the move, and completed my first all grain today. Decided to go with Smurto's famous brew

Butters came over with some gear and mash in was around midday. Hit all temps beautifully and volumes were great, should come in at the intended 23 litres when cooled. The little fella is no chillin' in a cube as we speak. All cleaned up just after 6 tonight.
Going to try and pitch tomorrow but may have to wait until monday morning.
butters did a calc on the efficiency and got 73.9 so luvin the numbers. Pre boil grav came in at 1.038

Now the numbers side was great but I'm convinced there's something wrong with this home brew lark because we brewed a 23 litre batch but drank half a keg doing it.
Ahh well, it was butters beer so all good.

Unfortunately for those that may ask, there aren't any photos, too busy with beer ( I had a leaky glass all day).

Looking forward to the next 1 :beerbang:

Welcome to the dark side Muckey, your turn will come when it comes to providing beer to kick a fellow brewer off on his first brew day :lol:

 

[Cocko]

Grats bud, I am sure it was no chore.. especially with butters at call, or at least his beer!!

You are possibly the only man who has gone with Smurtos as his first brew?? Hmm.. maybe do a poll!

Seriously, well done mate and you know it will drink well.

Is it really in a cube or.... ???

If I knew a song to sing for you I would sing it!! :icon_chickcheers:
:super:

 

[buttersd70]

Muckey put in a sterling effort. Came slighlty over projected efficiency, bg 1038 30L, OG (to be confirmed when cool) but the numbers say 1050@23L.

We weren't planning on drinking (much), but I happened to be brewing 50L of a Yorkie Mild in Muckeys fridge, and kegging it coincided with this brew

Personally I think he did well, considering that by the time the wort was at the boil, we'd gone through 10L of 3.8 between the 2 of us :lol:

12L of (my) beer drunk to make 23L....classic! I'll make up for this by sampling Muckeys beer....and I better have another, just to be sure. And scientific method requires multiple tests.....

edit: JhC, no wonder I have a headache.....just realised thats 11 pints each. :wacko:

 

[muckey]

Cheers Screwtop and Cocko

I have heard that you cant stop at 1

and butters, I was using scientific method. Takes a lot of empirical data to determine if the brew is good sometimes :icon_drunk:

 

[daemon]

You are possibly the only man who has gone with Smurtos as his first brew?? Hmm.. maybe do a poll!

It's a popular drop, my first AG (BIAB) brew was yesterday and it was a Smurto Ale too. Maybe I'm unique... just like everyone else!!

The hard bit now is waiting, it'll be a month before I can try it!

 

[muckey]

Yeah, gotta agree with Daemon - the waiting is the worst.
Hope your day was as easy as mine.

Mind you I can fill my time with delusions of grandeur and start thinking about the next brew.

No doubt a quiet suggestion 1 day when butters is over will result in an email with complete recipe and calc ( butters cant help himself when science is involved )

edit: spelling :wacko:

 

[bonj]

Top work Muckey! It's always great reading these threads.

And well done Daemon too. Resistance is futile! :lol:

 

[Back Yard Brewer]

Now the numbers side was great but I'm convinced there's something wrong with this home brew lark because we brewed a 23 litre batch but drank half a keg doing it.

MMM that is a trap especially if you have a number of hop additions to do. I now start my brewing early in the morning. I feel it is to early to have a beer.

Yes I know its never to early but it works for me.

BYB

 

[bonj]

I believe the answer to that is to increase your batch size B)

 

[muckey]

I believe the answer to that is to increase your batch size B)

assume your talking brew size, not keg size

 

[bonj]

assume your talking brew size, not keg size

:lol: Yes.

If you drink x amount of beer while brewing, and your current brew length is 2x, then you need to brew at least 3x to get where you wanted to be after the brew. Then, depending on how often you brew, you may wish to increase further, or round up to the nearest keg capacity.

I personally don't drink while brewing (any more). I make far too many mistakes and end up burning myself or similar. :lol:

 

[muckey]

So Daemon, you didn't tell us how your brewday went...........

 

[peas_and_corn]

It's great to see another go AG. Yesterday I had a bloke come over to see the AG process, and he said he would like to go AG sometime as a result

 

[bonj]

I don't know if anyone watches the current Jamie Oliver show. I tape it for SWMBO, but this is just the thing he's going for with cooking (teach a number of people and they pass it on to another bunch, and so on), but we're making it work with brewing because we have the passion.

 

[daemon]

So Daemon, you didn't tell us how your brewday went...........

It went well, only one mistake that I can tell so far As I was checking the mash temps the thermometer I had fell in There was some frantic digging with a spoon and tongs before I managed to recover it. There was of course already liquid in it (it's one of the pen style ones from Craftbrewer) by the time I could dig it out and it cutout a few seconds later. After I got it apart I removed the battery and let it dry out as much as possible. After the brewing (thankfully it happened right at the end of the mash) was finished I put the battery back in and it was working again, didn't expect that to be honest!

I posted a few quick pics here: [post="374111"]BIAB Thread[/post]

According to the figures I punched into Brew Smith, I managed around the 75% efficiency, which I was quite happy with. Going by the basic tastes I'm very happy, even though it was very sweet it was hard to stop sampling the hydrometer contents

I have enough ingredients to make another 12L batch so I plan to do that again this week, then I think either an APA or heffe are on the cards for xmas time.

 

[muckey]

Just an update.

brew number 2 is in the cube.

Butters turned up at mashout and helped me sample brew #1 - which turned out was just about perfick!

looks like I improved the efficiency slightly on the second mash - not bad for a lazy brewer. Unfortunately the process efficiency dropped considerable - I think that's butter's fault - everything seemed to take 3 times longer after he arrived :chug:

 

[buttersd70]

Just an update.

brew number 2 is in the cube.

Butters turned up at mashout and helped me sample brew #1 - which turned out was just about perfick!

looks like I improved the efficiency slightly on the second mash - not bad for a lazy brewer. Unfortunately the process efficiency dropped considerable - I think that's butter's fault - everything seemed to take 3 times longer after he arrived :chug:

Not my fault you can't tell the time without FatCats help....I'm sure the extra 45 minutes on the boil before adding the first addition were all down to you fannying about and flapping your gums like a fishwife. :lol:

 

[muckey]

Not my fault you can't tell the time without FatCats help....I'm sure the extra 45 minutes on the boil before adding the first addition were all down to you fannying about and flapping your gums like a fishwife. :lol:

Damn, my memory must be going. I though it was all to do with you repeating "have you got that keg on yet........."

 

[daemon]

Good to hear that batch #1 turned out as expected, I'll be able to sample my first batch in another two weeks time (will be on antibiotics from having my wisdom teeth removed tomorrow ). For a while there I thought I had an infection as the taste was absolutely horrid at one stage. Thankfully I didn't turf it and after a week in a secondary with some dry hops it's rapidly improving (in bottles now for a week as well).

Since I had the grains already crushed for another batch, I've already made it up as well and it's ready to bottle tonight. Didn't quite hit the same efficiency with this one and it may be because I used a different thermometer that I wasn't sure of the calibration. The usual brewing story, had everything out and ready, water heating and my thermometer was nowhere to be seen. My "assistant" (aka my 21 month old son) had relocated it to the spare bedroom and I found it a few days later