My Second Ag Turned Out Beautifully!

[jojai]

Just thought I'd thank everyone on here for pushing AG heavily, because it really is the best way to make beer.

I made up the recipe for my beer based on the craft brewer grain descriptions and just thinking "oh that sounds yummy". I bought the grain from beer belly and had a good talk to domonsura. But otherwise, my recipe was based on guessing. If you like very bitter dark, full strength lager, that is somehow also easy drinking (once you get into it), has great aroma and a nice creamy head, then I recommend my brew.

Sorry for the format, I don't have any brew software. Also my set up sucks, so it is likely that the beer might turn out heavier since my efficiency probably sucks.

20L batch and 90min boil

Mashed at 66C for 70min

Wheat Malt 1kg
Medium Crystal 1kg
Wey Pils malt 4kg
Vienna Malt 1kg

60g Green Bullet flowers @60mins
50g Saaz flowers @ 40 mins
50g Saaz flowers @ 15 mins
30g Green Bullet flowers dry hopped in secondary for 4 days
1/2 Whirfloc tab @ 10 mins

SafLager S-23 11.5g

100mL w/ 1 sachet of gelatine added to secondary 1 day prior to bottling.

Cheers,
Joseph

EDIT: I called it the "Special 7 Lager". After 7, I wouldn't feel so special though

 

[stowaway]

Good work.

Im doing my first AG week from saturday (if my damn pot arrives) and this give me confidence i wont stuff it up

Did u do traditional or BIAB?

 

[jojai]

uh traditional I guess, I don't use a bag. Cooler as a mash tun, sparge into kettle, add hops, cool it and ferment it.

All will work out well, just keep your hygiene up to standard. Take hydrometer readings throughout the process and document it all. The first AG I did I had pathetic efficiency because I didn't realise you could sparge more than once (I don't know if many people do, but I had to as a lot of sugar/starch was still left on the grain, which probably comes down to having a good water to grain ratio, 2L to a kg is normal I think), the beer turned out good though, I just boiled it down and had less beer than I hoped for to get the SG up. Anyway good luck and I'm sure that within a couple of months you'll have the best tasting beer you've ever brewed!

 

[Wrenny]

Good on you guys.

My first 3 AG's were infected, but the perseverance paid off. And you are dead right, the extra effort of AG is definately worth it.

jojai - 1kg of crystal is heaps. Lucky you've got an mountain of hops to cover it.

As far as recipes go, there are a heap on the forum here that are fantastic. Jayses skunk fart pale ale and dr smurtos golden ale are definately worth a shot. Then there are alts and munichs. I wanted to make everything at first, adding all kinds of crazy stuff (vanilla, chocolate, sage) - most were over the top. Eventually I realised that I'd be brewing for a long time, so plenty of time to try different things. I now brew one of these to recipe first and then tweak it to my liking.

Cheers,
Wrenny

 

[jojai]

wow, I've never had an infected brew, that would have probably put me off AG forever to be honest. Would have gone to the bottle shop...

I don't even know what crystal is, it's not naturally occurring is it? But yes, the hops do cover it, I assume crystal adds sweetness?

I did the Golden Ale first up and it was very tasty, not as good as this latest one but that's probably due to inexperience.

My next brew will be from a recipe. A Hoegaarden clone. That I wanted to add vanilla to, so I should ask you, is adding a vanilla bean a good addition?

 

[trevc]

Sounds like a pretty tasty brew. Looks like you're running Linucks too <_<
I've heard Beersmith runs in Wine, with some tweaking. I had it running in Darwine (Mac OS X), minus the HTML rendering bottom section.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

jojai - a water to grain ratio of 2L per kg of grain is actually on the low end of the scale, still fine, but lowish. If you want to, you can go up to 3L/kg without any drama at all. I mash nearly everything at 3-3.5L/kg which is at the high end of "normal" so there is a fair range for you to play in if you are finding that the lower amount is making your life hard.

TB

PS - well done, welcome to AG.

 

[Wrenny]

Yeah, crystal adds color, body and sweetness. I've seen some people say max 10% in a batch, others max 20%. Looks like you had 14%, so maybe I was too quick to say too much. I usually only use a couple of hundred grams. As long as the beer is balanced and tastes good.

Most of the different grains are just malted barley roasted a certain way for a certain time.

Another good one that adds color and a roasty favour more than a sweet flavour (for stouts etc) is Carafa. But they say only 5% of that.

With the vanilla, go easy at first. I think I used 3 beans in a 23l batch. It was far too strong. Could hardly taste the beer.

Cheers,
Wrenny

 

[jojai]

Trev - I am using Linux, Ubuntu Hardy. I got the demo of ProMash and it runs straight away with WINE. My next made up recipe will be created using ProMash.

Thirsty Boy - Considering my mash was crap the first time and decent the second, I can only hope that it will continue that it continues to do so without any water alteration.

Cheers