Ok... So It's Done

[Siborg]

Well, it took me all afternoon, but my first partial is sitting in the fermenter in my broken down fridge. Ambient temp is 20 degrees and the brew is still on 25 degrees from when I pitched at about 7:00.

I took some pictures, not very good ones, but I took some. I was more worried about getting everything right. Maybe when I become more confident handling grains and brews, I'll post some better pictures and maybe a few vids for the fellow beginners out there to review.

I can't be bothered uploading pics and explaining all the details now (goin to bed), but expect the full story tomorrow with some pics. All went well without any major catastrophes... had a few funny moments like getting a hydro reading of 1.110!

Cheers for the advice from manticle and NickJD.

more tomorrow...

 

[chappo1970]

Woot! Well done Siborg :beer: .

Next one will be easier!

Cheer and beers

Chap Chap

 

[Bizier]

Good work. You won't look back now you have a taste for fresh grain.

 

[MVZOOM]

...it gets easier and far more relaxing. Well done.

 

[Tony]

great work!

You can put a pic of a nice hand made beer up to replace the dog soon

 

[rendo]

WELL DONE MATE!!

Looking forward to the pics and rundown of what you did.....

Especially what it tastes like (in a few weeks)

Well, it took me all afternoon, but my first partial is sitting in the fermenter in my broken down fridge. Ambient temp is 20 degrees and the brew is still on 25 degrees from when I pitched at about 7:00.

more tomorrow...

 

[Siborg]

Ok. So my pictures a few and sketchy and I missed out on a few important parts. But I took note of everything, so I can explain away. Here goes:

My Grain bill:
1kg Pilsner
500g Vienna
500g Munich
200g Aromatic

So I got all this crushed at the store by the shop attendant.

Got my 9L of water to about 72 degrees, allowing 1L of cold or hot water to adjust the initial mash temp. (turned flame off)
Added all the grains into the grain bag, checked temp: 68 degrees. Too hot, so I added about a litre of cold water and got it close enough to 65 degrees.
Mashed the shit out of the grains with my potato masher, then wacked the lid on and covered it with about a dozen towels and a super warm blanket:

Sat back and watched some south park for an hour and came back to check it. I'll never forget that smell when I took the lid off... beautiful! Checked temp: 61 degrees. Not too bad, had lost 4 degrees in 1 hour, or on average 1 degree every 15mins.

Grabbed the edges of the grain bag, tied it up and plonked it in an aqua bucket (I hear these are better than both green or blue).

While this was happening, I had a smaller pot bringing 1L of sparge water up to 75 degrees.

So I had nothing to string it up with, and I tried a couple of different things, with no success, so I just put on some rubber gloves that were too small for my hands and squeezed the sweet liquor out of the bag. Then added the 1L of sparge water and dunked and squeezed again. Poured all this back into the pot (bucket was cleaned by the way)

Took a gravity reading which was 1.040 at 64 degrees (had turned flame on already), which I put into some website and it told me that it was equal to 1.058... not too shabby for my first go.

Ok, so this is what I had, time to boil the f**k out of it. Yes, wort has "f**k" in it, just like potatoes!

I have a wok/rapid burner on my stove, so I cranked it too 11 and let it get to the boil... and it took ages

As it heated up, a think layer of hot break, which I refer to as "Crud", formed on the surface.

And after it started boiling, it vanished:

Ok so boiled for 15 mins to drive off DMS and other shite. Then started the timer T-60mins and added my 40g Tettnang Bittering hops

At T-20mins, added another 40g of Tettnang for flavour

And at flameout I added 10g of Tettnang for aroma (no picture, but you get the drift)

 

[Siborg]

Added 1.5Kg of LDME and stirred in till it was dissolved (with the help of my little bro)

Then I wanted to chill it to pitching temps, so I chucked it in the laundry sink and put three 2L Ice bottles, an Ice pack and a back of Ice that I'd had lying around from a party last year in the sink with a bit of cold water (the hole on the lid is covered, cause it will suck air in):

So I pulled it out when it was at about 32 degrees, as I would be added room temperature water to bring it up to volume. I poured the whole lot (minus a little crud at the bottom) into the sainitised fermenter and got around 5L

I topped it up to the 20L line and took a gravity reading. Can you imagine the shock I got when the hydrometer read 1.110!!! I thought this is gonna be one hell of a beer, if the yeast could handle the high gravity, or it would just be too sweet. Either way, I knew from what manticle posted that it should be around the 1.050 mark, so I thought something wasn't right. I sterilised my big spoon, gave it a stir and took another reading and got exactly 1.050. Lesson learnt: stir the bloody thing before taking a reading.

I had rehydrated my US05 safale, and put a little bit of wort in there and left it for a while to give the little suckers a kick start. It worked. I pitched the yeast at 25 degrees at 7:00 last night.

I checked it this morning at bout 8:00, temps were 18 ambient in my broken down fridge and the brew was on 23 degrees. I've since refrozen those bottles from the laundry sink and stuck them in the door of the fridge to keep it cool as its 36 degrees today in melb.

A nice layer of krausen is starting to form and if I listen closely, I can hear the brew fizzing away as the yeast does its thing

The glad wrap on top is air tight, and I stuck a pin prick in it to let the CO2 escape.

Well, that's *full* the story so far. Can't wait to taste this sucker

Special thanks again to manticle and NickJD for your useful posts, comments and advice.

 

[Tony]

Is that the hops in those bags hanging over the sides?

 

[bum]

Is that the hops in those bags hanging over the sides?

Yep, as per NickJD's excellent instructions.

 

[Nevalicious]

Well done Siborg!!! You're getting me thinking it doesn't look as hard as it sounds...

Might have to start getting some stuff together to try one of these/similar!

Cheers :icon_cheers:

 

[Tony]

the hops should not be tied up in a ball like that. They need to be free rolling in the liquid. IF in a bag..... its needs to be fairly course to let lots of liquid in and out and the hops need to be rolling freely in the liquid to release their oils and acids into the wort.

Id be suprised if you got much utilisation from the hops like that. It will be interesting to see if you find the beer a bit sweet and cloying when its done

just remember that if in a bag, the hops have to have enough room to roll around freely. Your wasting your hops otherwise.

cheers

 

[Ross]

the hops should not be tied up in a ball like that. They need to be free rolling in the liquid. IF in a bag..... its needs to be fairly course to let lots of liquid in and out and the hops need to be rolling freely in the liquid to release their oils and acids into the wort.

Id be suprised if you got much utilisation from the hops like that. It will be interesting to see if you find the beer a bit sweet and cloying when its done

just remember that if in a bag, the hops have to have enough room to roll around freely. Your wasting your hops otherwise.

cheers

Was just about to post the same thing after seeing the pics & then saw this post - So +1 h34r:

Cheers Ross

 

[Siborg]

interesting re the hops. I'll have to take that into consideration for next time. I did occasionally swirl the bags around the pot a few times during the boil. I was thinking as I unraveled and cleaned them afterwards that the hops were quite densely packed in those bags. I didn't allow enough for the swelling as they sucked in water as well. The last addition had a bit more room inside to move around.

I suppose if we never made mistakes, we'd never learn, hey.


Note to self and anyone trying this ^^^^

 

[Steve]

Chuck them in loose next time and put a big fine sieve over the top of your fermenter when pouring in the chilled wort to catch most of the sludge. Dont worry about getting some hop sludge into the fermenter either. It'll drop out.

Congrats on your first steps too by the way. My first partial was in a pot wrapped in blankets on the kitchen bench.....Im sure you're meant to add a 1kg tin of liquid malt 10-15 from the end of the boil though too. I used to.

Cheers
Steve

 

[Siborg]

Chuck them in loose next time and put a big fine sieve over the top of your fermenter when pouring in the chilled wort.

I think I may even do that instead of the bags.

 

[Nick JD]

If the bag is loose like this you get all the deliciousness.

If you are quick chilling then chucking them in loose is fine. I chill in the kettle overnight - so I can't leave them in.

 

[michael_or]

Just use your BIAB grain bag over again.

Empty out the grain and give it a wash while the wort is coming up to boil. Then put the bag back in place and add the hops.
When the boil is done, pull the bag out and chill. Thats probably as close to loose as you could get while still contained.

 

[Tony]

I think I may even do that instead of the bags.

Its the best way.

Another thing to consider is the gravity or the wort your boiling the hops in. Its best to boil them in a wort around the 1.030 to 1.050 mark...... you get best utilisation from the hops.

Lower and the pH may be too high and higher, the sugars disolved in solution decreast the goodies being drawn from the hops.

I know i get a runoff around 1.080 from the initial mash and if you boiled them in this it wouldnt be ideal. i notice you have plenty of space in the kettle.... which is great. You can adjust the gravity to ideal before boiling the hops

If you already did..... great

cheers :icon_cheers:

 

[manticle]

Hopefully the initial boil should have been around 1040 as I calculated that when I translated my recipe to a partial (hence the DME at the end, not the beginning.

Well done siborg - good effort. Re the hops - I chuck them in loose and they dissolve into green sludge. Don't be frightened of the sludge - most of it can be left behind when adding to the fermenter but even leaving it in is no trouble - most will drop out during ferment.If yours well still whole-ish when you unwrapped the bag, not much may have happened. How does the wort taste?

Anyway live and learn but good to see you having a crack and I hope it turns out a killer beer.