My First Partial

[BRAD T]

Hi All,
I am about to have a go at my first partial, I am trying for a ESB/Strong Bitter. I am planning on the following,

1.2kg Marris Otter
300g Dark Crystal
1.7kg Light Extract
500g Amber Extract
500g Malto Dextrin
30g Northern Brewer Hops 8.0%AA boiled 60min.
15g Goldings 5.0%AA boiled 15min.
Safale S-04 Yeast

I am expecting an OG of around 1.055 to 1.057 and a FG of around 1.013

Any Comments would be appreciated.

Cheers
Brad

 

[warrenlw63]

Sounds and looks good Brad.

Only thing I would change is to chuck the malto dextrin. Does nothing but give the beer a cloyingly thick body. Either that or add 100g of CaraPils to your mash.

Good luck with it and enjoy. :super:

Warren -

 

[BRAD T]

Thanks for the advice Warren, I had the Malto Dextrin in to add more body, but will take your advice.

Cheers
Brad :beerbang:

 

[pint of lager]

What volume into the fermenter are you after?

That quantity of malted grain and malt extract will not give you og 1.055 for 23 litres into the fermneter.

As a rough guide for partial mashing, allow about 1/2 of your grain bill to end up in the fermenter as malt.

I agree with Warren, ditch the maltodextrin, it certainly plays a role in kits as a booster, but doesn't belong in a mini mash/extract brew.

 

[BRAD T]

I was planning on a batch size of 20ltrs. I did the calculations with Beer Tools recipe calculator, is this reliable?

Cheers

 

[Gough]

G'day Brad,

You may have already factored this into your recipe, but how much are you actually boiling? You may need to factor a higher gravity boil into your hop bill if you aren't boiling the full volume eg: If you are aimng for 20 litres are you boiling 23+ litres for 60 mins. to get to that final volume or are you boiling say, 15 litres, and topping up to 20 after the boil with water? If you are boiling less and topping up you might want to factor this into your hop bill. See www.howtobrew.com for an excellent explanation of all this.

Again, apologies if you have already factored this in. Just thought I'd raise as a potential issue if this is your first go. Your recipe looks nice, esp. without the maltodex. NB and Goldings go well together.

Good luck with the brew,

Shawn.

 

[PostModern]

In line with what Gough is saying about hop utilisation, I've found that I get pretty good utilisation if I don't add the extract until near the end of the boil. ie, most of the AA are extracted in a thin boil. YMMV

 

[pint of lager]

That recipe (excluding the malto dextrin) will give roughly 2.9 kg of extract, which will be about 1.050 into the fermenter for 20 litres. You will lose a bit to hops trub too, which I didn't factor in.

For your first partial mash, you are aiming at getting the procedure right. Make sure you write all quantities used down, that way, when you next formulate a recipe, you have your own yardstick to use.

 

[BRAD T]

Thanks for all the advice guys, it is really useful. I was going to do a boil of about 20 litres without the goldings and boil them in about 2 litres seperately then add this infusion to the wort and top up with spring water if needed. I am trying to achieve an OG of 1.056 or so and thought that I could top up if required. How does this sound.

:huh:

 

[Gough]

G'day Brad,

That method sounds OK. If you want to make it even simpler though and you can obviously boil 20 litres already, why not go the whole hog and boil, say, 23 litres for the full hour just adding your Goldings 15 minutes or less from the end? You should end up somewhere around the 20 litre mark depending on your boiloff rate (increase that volume if you are boiling outside). It seems easier all round if you have the boiler capacity. If not go with your plan - if it's your first go just have a stab and see how it turns out. I bet it'll be great

Good luck,

Shawn.

 

[BRAD T]

Shawn, thanks for that, I am have a s/s pot big enough to boil 30litres so I will do as you suggest and boil about 23ltrs

Cheers :beerbang:

 

[Kai]

What are you using for your mash tun and how big is it? Your pot is plenty big enough, so I would say mash as much grain as you possibly can and make up the difference with extract.

 

[BRAD T]

Kai,
I have a small esky, I guess about 12-15 ltr, I was going to use this for a Mash Tun. I was going to follow the instructions and calculations given by John Palmer in "How to Brew" for a multi rest mash adding boiling water. I was planning on 1/2 hour rests at 40/60/70 degrees C.
I could do a compromise by just mashing at say 68 deg. but I thought I should try the hard way. :super:

 

[BRAD T]

Well Guys,
I am just getting ready to start the mash for my first partial, I racked the cider to a cube yesterday to free up the fermie and I am quite excited to be doing something other than opening a few cans and bunging in some yeast. I will let you know how I go.

Cheers
Brad :super:

 

[BRAD T]

Well I have my first partial put to bed, after the boil( started with 23ltr finished about 19.5ltr) I chilled the wort in the pot in a bath full of ice and water, didn't take too long to come down, kept stirring so that it would cool quicker and probably helped with aeration. I rehydrated the yeast and gave it a little feed to make it happy and pitched it in at 25deg., the OG(taken just before pitching) was 1056 and with adjustment for temp. I guess it is really 1057, pretty close to what I was aiming at, I suppose I had a fairly successful mash and sparge for my first time(3 rest mash then batch sparge). I had a wee taste of the wort before pitching, it tasted pretty good, quite sweet, maybe not as bitter as I was expecting, but full of flavour. Can't wait till this one is ready to drink.

Cheers :beerbang:

 

[barfridge]

Sounds good brad, congrats

Dont stress about not tasting the hops too much, the excess sweetness does a good job of masking them.

 

[jgriffin]

I chilled the wort in the pot in a bath full of ice and water, didn't take too long to come down, kept stirring so that it would cool quicker and probably helped with aeration.

[post="56840"][/post]​

You should try to minimise splashing while the wort is still hot - say above 40C or so. Otherwise you risk hot side aeration aka cardboard taste.

 

[BRAD T]

Hi All,
Well all seems good with my first partial, airlock has been bubbling away quite nicely since saturday, now I would like some more advice. The OG was 1057 and have maintained a temp of 20deg - 22deg, I took the SG this morning as the airlock activity had slowed down a bit and the reading I got was 1012, that S-04 yeast sure works fast. My question is, should I rack to secondary now? It is also very cloudy, I didn't use any finings in the boil, should I think about gelatine addition when I rack.

All help is appreciated.

Cheers
Brad :unsure:

 

[pint of lager]

That is probably close to the terminal gravity.

My suggestion is to leave it at your current temperature in the primary for another week, then rack into secondary (with no headspace) and cold condition if you can for a week or two, then bottle. If it is still cloudy when you are ready to bottle, 24 hours prior to bottling, add some fining.

Your choice, you could rack now if you want as it appears to be close to terminal gravity.

If you cannot cold condition, just put the secondary somewhere as cool as you can organise in your house.

The cloudiness is probably just yeast still happily working away.

 

[Trough Lolly]

FWIW I agree with PoL,

I did a similar brew the weekend before and I actually bottled at 1012 after about 8 days in primary (I had no room or fermenters left for cold conditioning!!). S-04 is a quick brewing English Ale yeast, that's ideal for the recipe that you used.

I used Weyermann Carapils in my brew (200g) and it does a great job in lieu of maltodextrins. I chatted via email to John Palmer about this stuff and he confirmed that the dextrinous nature of Carapils, as well as its protein content does add to the body and head of the beer - it is possible that the haze may at least be partially contributable due to the presence of this grain in the recipe, but then again, you apparently did a protein rest, according to your original mash schedule. Regardless, some cold conditioning or extended time in primary should help the beer to brighten.

Earlier in the thread you mentioned hop bittering outside the main wort - You said:

I was going to do a boil of about 20 litres without the goldings and boil them in about 2 litres seperately then add this infusion to the wort and top up with spring water if needed.

Did you end up boiling the hops in a decanted portion of the wort off the main boil? If so, you might want to consider adding the hops to the main boil instead of a portion of the boil, to improve the bittering efficiency of your hops. The volume of the boil has a direct relationship between bittering efficiencies for a given amount of hops. When I do small volume boils, I actually hold back on tossing in all the malt extract until the last few minutes of the boil, so I get good bittering efficiencies during the main small boil. In my English bitter, for example I held back on 2kg of malt extract so I bittered the wort first and then tossed in the 2kg of malt extract in the last few minutes of boil - I still got good hot break from the mashed grains, etc, but didn't have to worry about a high gravity boil reducing the bittering capacity of the hops. I also do this when I toss in a kit to the main boil - mash the grains, boil, bitter the small boil and then toss in the kit in the last few minutes to finish off and ensure that I don't lose the existing bitterness and hop flavours present in the kit concentrate...

Cheers,
TL