Scottsrx's first AG - 3 in 2 days

[Scottsrx]

Hi Guys,

Thought I'd post up my first AG experience which happened this weekend. On Saturday myself and two mates dove head first into AG brewing with 2 beers to get through which we BIAB'd side by side.

One was an IPA with the following recipe used (I just made this up). Not looking for a huge bitterness so waited for 30mins for our first hop addition. It should still come in at 52 according to Brewmate.

Grain Bill
----------------
3.139 kg Maris Otter Malt (76%)
0.578 kg Pale Ale Malt (14%)
0.413 kg Wheat Malt (10%)

Hop Bill
----------------
41.3 g Pride of Ringwood Pellet (8.3% Alpha) @ 30 Minutes (Boil) (2.2 g/L)
20.7 g Galaxy Pellet (13.4% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil) (1.1 g/L)
20.7 g Pride of Ringwood Pellet (8.3% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil) (1.1 g/L)

US-05

Our second was a wheat beer with the following recipe which I think a mate took from Lez the Weizguy's Schneider Weisse-Style


Grain Bill
----------------
3.770 kg Wheat Malt (61.5%)
1.000 kg Pilsner (16.31%)
1.000 kg Vienna (16.31%)
0.360 kg Caramunich I (5.87%)

Hop Bill
----------------
30.0 g Hallertau Tradition Pellet (5.7% Alpha) @ 30 Minutes (Boil) (1.3 g/L)
10.0 g Hallertau Tradition Pellet (5.7% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (0.4 g/L)

Safbrew WB-06

Both of these went very well for the whole process. We had a bit of trouble getting the small 2 ring burner to boil but we staggered the brews which helped. Gravity ended up bang on where we wanted them but it took some time cooling. Efficiency was down as the smaller pot only holds 25l so we sparged for that brew and added some water to the fermenter to bring the volume up.

These are fermenting at a mates place so no idea what the gravity is looking like today.

Some pics from the day

 

[Scottsrx]

Then today I got up early and put down an American Pale Ale from a recipe kit I got for christmas. This was just a test run to see if I can do it all myself and it went better than expected. I've got it in the fermenter and just waiting for it to cool before I pitch.

It's a pretty stock standard recipe with not much excitement. My brother did this exact recipe about a month ago and he's done a few tastes and mention the hops aroma and flavour is fairly non existent but it's still beer so thats good.

All in all it was a fantastic learning experience for me as this is the first time I've mashed and boiled. I learnt a hell of a lot as we went along and may still end up with drinkable beer at the end of it.


Grain Bill
----------------
5.000 kg American 2-Row (95.24%)
0.250 kg Pale Malt (4.76%)

Hop Bill
----------------
25.0 g Cascade Pellet (7.8% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (1.1 g/L)
15.0 g Amarillo Pellet (8.6% Alpha) @ 30 Minutes (Boil) (0.7 g/L)
20.0 g Amarillo Pellet (8.6% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)

Some pics from today

 

[jyo]

Nice work! I was wondering how the wooden stool would go! Funny as.

After you taste them, you will be utterly addicted, mate.

Just one bit of advice- maybe reconsider using the concrete slab under your burner. Some people have had issues with concrete getting hot and exploding. If you are going to brew on concrete, get an old BBQ plate to sit the burner on- it helps disperse the heat evenly.

 

[Scottsrx]

Nice work! I was wondering how the wooden stool would go! Funny as.

After you taste them, you will be utterly addicted, mate.

Just one bit of advice- maybe reconsider using the concrete slab under your burner. Some people have had issues with concrete getting hot and exploding. If you are going to brew on concrete, get an old BBQ plate to sit the burner on- it helps disperse the heat evenly.

Hey jyo, thanks for your reply. I'm already addicted to the whole process. We had a great time yesterday with three mates brewing and 4 other guys standing around coming up with ideas for wind shielding etc. It helped that we brewed at a blokes house who has his tool making workshop out the back so the boys were rolling aluminium all day. They loved it as much as we did. They had the Gopro going so we may even have some good footage for Youtube

Yeah the stool was hilarious. It's actually a coffee table that one of the guys made at school. The third to last pic shows the plate we ended up putting on there which did a great job. Cheers for the concrete tips, I did wonder about that. What is the ideal base then if brewing outside? Not that I'll always brew outside, it's just my shed hasn't got a concrete floor yet so it's too dusty.

I can't wait for the next brew

 

[DU99]

some guys use old car rim..few topic's on the subject

 

[Mr B]

Car rims go well. Here's one I made up



Recently upgraded with a kingkooker burner - but it was fine for 23l batches with the three ring and standard reg

 

[Scottsrx]

Thanks guys, I've got some old rims laying around so will look at setting one of these up.

The Ale is fermenting nicely at around 18 deg. Getting a lot of peary aromas from it. I dry hopped with 30gms of Cascade (not in the recipe) as my brother is tasting his identical brew and it's low on hoppiness and at the moment I'm enjoying beers somewhere between an APA and an IPA.

It's stil bubbling away slowly, I plan to rack it into a second fermenter in a day or too to try and get rid of some of the sediment before bottling, although there's not a lot of sediment, and to pull out the dry hopped Cascade.

Thanks,
Scott.