My Little Brew Day

[crozdog]

Hi All,
(especially those I met on the recent AHB crawl in Sydney).

Instead of heading out to Linz's place for the big brew day i did a little brew day at my place & did my first AG

Stuster & my mate Dave came over & helped out (Thanks for the loan of the chiller Stu). Stuart's 3 & 1/2 year old son was a top assistant brewer, even if he did get mauled by the cat & fell of the trampoline... h34r:

I ended up doing a modified ND Pale Ale. It was modified as Gerard didn't have any pale malt so we used pilsner, Northern brewer instead of POR & US56 instead of east coast ale yeast.

Here are the notes from the day

8:30 grain temp 15, added approx 11 litres @ 85 for strike of 69 degrees to start mash (about 2.4L/kg)
8:49 temp = 70
9:02 temp = 70.5
9:10 temp = 69
9:30 temp = 67 Drained first runnings. gravity = 1078 @ 19 degrees
9:45 added 12L @ 67. mash temp = 58
10:02 Drained first sparge. Gravity = 1024. Added 12-13l@ 73 = mash temp of 60
10:12 drained 2nd sparge. gravity= 1008
10:20 on burner. gravity = 1030 @16 degrees (left sample in freezer for too long)
10:50 boil started
11:10 1st hops 15g northern brewer pellets
11:40 2nd hops - 35g Hallertau pellets
12:00 3rd hops - 20g Hallertau pellets & half an Irish moss tablet
12:10 flame out. cooled with immersion chiller to 32 degrees then siphoned to fermenter.
Almost 4L break & residue left in kettle!
Cooled to 20 in fridge & pitched rehydrated US56
OG = 1040 @ 20.5L

Volume & gravity lower than expected, but then I didn't know how much we'd boil off / leave in tun/kettle.

My thoughts:
1. Didnt add enough water at start ie the 1st runnings were quite a high SG & were probably super saturated with sugars. Additional water would have allowed more sugars to be extracted
2. Didnt wait for mash temp to stabilise before measuring
3. Initial mash temp too high
4. Estimated 12% boil off / hour actual was about 27% /hour according to beersmith!
5. Didnt use enough sparge water to compensate for boil off rate (probably needed closer to 40L)
6. Sparge water too cold
Efficiency according to http://byo.com/mrwizard/1145.html = 46%, according to beersmith, efficiency = 59.1%
7. I didn't test the water pH, so dunno if that affected things.
8. The cooling of the mash was most likely due to the large volume of air above the mash (it is a 75L esky which I was using for a single batch as a trial for my 1st AG, i intend to use it for bigger batches once I get the techniques sorted)


Questions
1. How can I reduce the amount left in the kettle? Whirlpool?
2. Which efficiency calc is right?
3. How can I increase the efficiency? (note the tun is designed for bigger batches, but for this effort only a single batch was attempted) Would bigger batches have an impact?
4. How critical is pH to an effective mash?
5. Any suggestions as to how to improve things?
6. Any suggestions for what to attempt next?

All in all I'm stoked! The brew is bubbling away nicely @ a constant 19 degrees. It was too easy. I can't wait to taste it. Any feedback & suggestions most welcome.

Thanks to all on here for posting their accumulated knowledge & willingness to assist others.

Cheers :beer:

Crozdog

 

[Duff]

You're off and running Crozdog. I did Gerard's receipe 6 times straight and just worked on a general technique and procedure. I only hit 1.038 so you did better than me first off I would do the receipe again a couple of times to work yourself into a little of a routine.

A couple of things:

- Keep your liqour/grist ratio between 2.5 - 3L/kg.
- Your grain bed after adding the sparge water was too cool, by reading that it looks like you batch sparge. Beersmith should tell you what your water temp should be before adding to the tun. I fly sparge and have my sparge water around 85C so the grain bed is in the mid 70's C.
- Check your crush and make sure it's not too coarse.

Just start with a few small steps and you'll see things improve quickly.

Cheers.

 

[Stuster]

Top day, crozdog and Toby's got the scratches to prove it.

I agree with Duff, the efficiency is fine for a first go. I got 63%.

I'll have a go at some of the questions.

1. Probably a good idea, though I still lose a few litres to this as well. Now you know how much you lose there you can factor that into your planning.
2. Running the figures through Promash gave 58%, so I'd go with these more accurate numbers over the rough calc on the byo site.
3. One way to improve this is the temp. of the mash bed, which is too low, as you know. As Duff says, use Beersmith to calculate this. Very roughly, it will probably be 5-10 degrees above the temp you want the bed to be, so in the low 80s probably. Trial and error with your system will give you the exact figures. You are keeping good records which will help with this. One sparge is probably easier as well.
6. It depends on what you want to drink. :chug: Just keep it simple.

Glad you enjoyed it and are ready for more. :super:

 

[Ross]

Well done Crozdog - hope it turns out to be a ripper :beer:

cheers Ross