My First Partial

[poggor]

Made my first partial today. I should probably clarify here: it's my second batch ever (the first was a kit and kilo attempt at coopers pale ale which is still in the fermenter).

Anyway, I was attempting a budvar/bohemian pilsner type lager.

Made a minimash of:

0.7kg pilsner malt
0.3kg caramel pislner

in about 2.5 litres of water and mashed at 64(ish!) for 45 min with a 77c mashout. i sparged? by squeezing the bag a frigg load

put the juice in my main boiling pot with

2.5kg of LDME

and boiled for 60 minutes

the total boil volume was about 18l at the end- i had to add 2 litres of water to make up the volume.

HOPS:

28g POR 60mins
10g Saaz at 5 minutes
15g Saaz at flame out
(and im going to dryhop a bit more saaz)

Cooled a little and then put the lot in the fermenter. It was still way too hot so i put the fermenter in an ice bath (my bathtub with 5 bags of ice and h20)

at 20c the SG was 1.054 which is pretty much exactly what i was aiming for.

pitched yeast at 18c (Saflager s23) and have stuck the lot in my shed where it is around 12c average.

i have probably made a ton of mistakes but im hoping it will work out.

any suggestions/comments/critiques?

My first partial! yay!

george

pics:

 

[malt_shovel]

Awesome work champ!

A small thing I picked up was regarding the "sparge". If you are sparging, this is rinsing the grains with water at or around your mash / mash-out temps, to help rinse some more sweet wort that would otherwise remain in the wet grain. This is typically done to increase the amount of sugars in the wort, but given the small amount of grain you have used, and that you hit your OG, it doesn't seem to be a big concern at the moment. Maybe if you are planning a big beer next (like 1.070+) and using more than 1kG of grain, this may be a good thing to consider, rather than just squeezing the grains.

Also be careful when you are having to let the wort sit for long periods to cool before pitching your yeasts. Make sure you have sanitsed as best as possible!

One last thing was that lager yeasts generally like to have a good amount of oxygen to promote growth before committing to the fermentation stage. Dry yeasts are set-up for pitching without aeration, so shouldn't be a problem here, but if you are moving to liquid yeasts soon (you are moving along quickly given this is only your second batch!), then keep in mind the lager yeasts need more oxygen and greater cell numbers to limit the chance of off flavours / diacetyl. As you pitched reasonably warm for lager yeast, this will produce a bit more diacetly than if pitched at your current ferment temp, so give it a raise towards the end of fermentation up to say 15 - 18oC for a couple of days to reduce diacetyl.

Let us know how it tastes when you are pouring.

Cheers
:icon_chickcheers:

 

[poggor]

thanks for your good advice malt shovel- all duly noted.


cheers


george