My First Ag

[Jazzafish]

Well yesterday was my first AG brew... and it went fairly well :beer:
I kinda put the recipe together myself without any style in mind, but I'm sure someone has done something like it before. Can anyone say what style it may turn out to be?

4Kg of JW Ale
500gm JW Crystal
200gm JW Wheat

I mashed at 64*C for one hour, at a ratio of 2.5 Litres per KG of grain. However my strike water was out so I had to add some boiling water, which was on stand by! I think I will start the mash differently next time. As I have a hand held element, I'll heat the strike water in the mash tun before I add the grain, rather than the HLT. Took a bit too long to transfer.

I was happy with the sparge, took it slow. The runnings were a dark/golden colour at first, but became clear at the end. I had to use more sparge water than I expected, picked a line in the keg I wanted to fill it up to. Lucky i had extra just in case.

The boil went very well, all to plan with hops and no boil overs...
14gm POR at 60min
14gm Cascade at 30mins
Half a tablet of Irish Moss at 20mins
14gm Cascade at 10mins

My immersion chiller had its first run too, cooled the wort to 26*C in around 20 mins! A worthy investment.

I emptied the wort into my fermenter willy wonka style... by waterfall. Found it aerates the wort well. Supprisingly I hit my target of 22L and popped it into my fermentation fridge and pitched the yeast starter I cultured from a Coopers Pale Ale. Pre yeast/post boil sg was 1040.

At this moment I looked at my watch... :blink: I start work in 30mins! I filled my bath with water, napisan and all the bits and pieces I hadn't cleaned to soak... I clean what I can during the boil... Rushed off to work!

I had a look this afternoon and the wort is starting to bubble away quite well with a strong krausen! :super:

Looking good thus far!

 

[T.D.]

Congrats Jazza!

If you reckon it was fun brewing your first AG, wait till you have a taste!!

To me it looks like something in the style of an American Amber Ale - I would guess the colour would be something around 25-30 EBC, and you used Cascade for the late additions.

Well done mate, I'm sure this is the first of many. You know how they say that the only two guarantees in life are death and taxes? Well, I think there's a third - once you move to AG brewing you will NEVER go back!

:beer:

 

[Jazzafish]

Thanks T.D,

I do believe you are right, I will never go back to a kit and kilo. May do the odd partial when time gets away from me...

The brew is showing good signs at the moment, and I got around to cleaning all the soaking tools! It is a golden colour so I guess it is like an American Golden Ale?

But to be honest, I will only see it as my beer!

Cheers,
Jarrad

 

[T.D.]

My colour estimate might be a bit high - I have never brewed a beer with 500g of crystal other than a brown ale (which doesn't count because it had a fair chunk of dark munich and chocolate malt in it too). I also use JW Dark Crystal, which is almost double the EBC of regular crystal. Maybe 20-25 EBC would be a better estimate for your beer, Golden Ale sounds good to me!


Its good to hear you have finally taken the plunge into AG brewing after hearing how much you were keen to do so on the Country Brewer forum (I am Timmo on that forum by the way...). Thing is, true partial mashes will probably take just as long to brew as a full mash beer (if anything, maybe 20mins less). I'm not trying to talk you out of brewing partials in the future, but from my experience whenever I have had the thought to brew a partial mash (which is rare), I very quickly conclude that I might as well just do a full AG batch and be done with it!

:beerbang:

 

[Ross]

well done Jazzafish - no looking back now. UJnfortunately once you go allgrain, there seems to be so many more toys you want to buy....

 

[T.D.]

UJnfortunately once you go allgrain, there seems to be so many more toys you want to buy....

[post="82664"][/post]​

Ain't that the truth! :excl:

 

[Jazzafish]

once you go allgrain, there seems to be so many more toys you want to buy....

Yeah... have my eyes on a grain mill!