Brew UK Forum | Grain
Another first AG brew !!
Good evening to you all from a very happy chap!
I listened to the advice from some of you following my ginger beer brew up and took the AG plunge! I knocked up my own mash tun, bought an Electrim boiler, followed by a wort chiller and sparging arm (latter two eBay specials!)
I have done the beerkits and was getting rather bored as there seemed to be hardly any skill needed other than sterilising my fermenter!. AG seemed like a nice challenge to get my brain into gear and so on Tuesday it was my first brewday - following a visit to Salisbury on Monday to get a hop strainer and water treatment (which i didnt have much of a clue about) - Big thanks to Greg for sorting me out the various bits, great advice and a nice reassurance for doing my AG brew! - Can't thank you enough!
I used Beersmith and ran Dave Lines recipe for London Pride through it - I tweaked it a little as the IBU's showed over 50 - so i knocked them down to 40 (should have been 35 bar my schoolboy error!) Not sure about IBU's but style guide recommended 25-40 IBU for this sort of bitter) added a little bit extra (300g of crushed pale malt) just to give it a little more strength.
3.80 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 87.16 %
0.25 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 30L (30.0 SRM) Grain 5.73 %
25.00 gm Fuggles [4.50 %] (105 min) Hops 12.3 IBU
45.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (105 min) Hops 24.5 IBU
10.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (Dry Hop 3 days) Hops -
15.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (15 min) Hops 3.7 IBU
0.31 kg Dememera Sugar
Batch Size: 23.00 L
Boil Size: 21.70 L Asst
Boil Time: 105 min Equipment: Brew Pot (5 Gallon) - actually Electrim boiler!
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 (think i achieved this!)
Ingredients
Amount Item Type % or IBU
3.80 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 87.16 %
0.25 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 30L (30.0 SRM) Grain 5.73 %
, East Kent [5.00 %] (Dry Hop 3 days) Hops -
15.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (15 min) Hops 3.7 IBU
0.31 kg Dememera Sugar (2.0 SRM) Sugar 7.11 %
Beer Profile (including temp adjust for Hydrometer)
Est Original Gravity: 1.045 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.047 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.012 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG (This is my wishful thinking!!!!)
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.29 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 4.82 %
Bitterness: 40.5 IBU
Est Color: 5.7
Started the day well (always good when the missus is out!)
Preheated the mash tun and got the 4.36kg of grain into 11L of mash water which dropped nicely to 66C when stirred in - covered and checked after an hour dropped to 64c so was chuffed with my homemade tun (however some some of the water i preheated had leaked into the void between the inner and outer skin of the coolbox) Luckily this did not make any difference to the finished product! as the water level remained the same as the mash level and did not leak from the coolbox at all - phew!) Left this for 20 mins and added water for a 10 min mashout - thought not a bad idea! Fly sparged at 76c with 11.90L water. Looking at my figures and SG I think i hit very slightly over the 75% efficiency - well pleased for first attempt!
Got my wort into the boiler and had a 21.70L preboil level - Got a nice rolling boil and added my hops
25.00 gm Fuggles
45.00 gm Goldings
Aimed my boil for 90 mins and then to add 15g Goldings & steep for 15 mins after turning off the boiler - just after I turned off the boiler on 90 mins i added the 15g olding and went indoors - Bugger! there was the Irish Moss still on the table! Boiler back onto a rolling boil and added the Irish Moss for the extra 15 mins (so the steeping Goldings got boiled for 15 mins too). hence my 105 mins boil time!
Used my Wort chiller - what a beast! very impressed getting from boiling to 22c in around 25 - 30 mins. Checked my SG - now 1.061 - topped up to 23L target and hit 1.047 (target 1.045) Talk about beginners luck!!
Pitched my ale yeast starter which my local homebrew shop recommended - She is bubbling a good one through the airlock! lovely cover over the ale (will experiment with different yeast's as i progress)
Been in fermenter sice Tues teatime - I just had to sample a small spoonful tonight (quality control i told the missus!) My god it tastes incredible - I can see why you guys are so passionate about AG - If this is what its like now, I cant wait for the finished product - does Greg sell fermentation bin padlocks?
Can anyone tell me is it worth racking off the beer after 4 days - I have never done this with the kits and have always had good results - opinions welcome!
Also another question i have is some recipes in Dave Lines books call for Barley Syrup - I believe this is near impossible to get - any workaround or substitution for this?
IBU's - higher number - is beer more bitter or hoppy? prefer nothing too bitter but nice and hoppy flavoured - any hints or tips advice welcome!
Eventually look to make own recipes but for now im well happy and cant wait for my next brewday!!
Conditioning - Theakston Old Peculier
Conditioning - Christmas 2010 (Strong Xmas ale)
Maturing - Peach wine kit
Drinking - Summer Lightning, Summer Wit
Responses
Posted 1 year ago by Moderator
No major probs and getting a higher percentage than aiming for - Nicely done matey! You may find because you re-boiled the late hops they may leave less taste, but im sure no one will notice as its only an extra 15 mins.
I never really secondary ferment my beer, done it a few times. If you do rack it to a secondary fermenter thats where a lot of people wang their hops in (for dry hopping). It also means the beer isnt sitting on a pile of spent yeast and rubbish so it will probably clear better.
IBUs - higher number is more bitter. If you want a hoppy beer then try slapping a fair amount in the last 5 mins - this will give off aroma. Alternitivly steeping (like in your recipe) will give off aroma and dry hopping will also give off a great aroma. Or why not do all of them! For hop taste the general is in the last 15mins of a boil.
So a sample would be:-
(Bittering Hops) Whole length of boil, say 90mins (where most of the ibus come from)
(Flavour Hops) 15 mins from end
(Aroma Hops) 5 mins from end
(Aroma Hops) End of boil (sometimes called flameout or steeping)
(Aroma Hops) Dry hopping
These are only guide lines and you will find that many people put hops in at many times (even in the mash tun!) One of the examples you can get for beersmith is an uber hopped beer with 15+ hop additions from start to finish! (http://www.beersmith.com/Recipes2/recipe_342.htm)
The Sharps Citrus Golden Ale recipe on here is a really hoppy nice summer beer (which could be further enhanced by some dry hopping of the stryian or cascade) and the ibus are only around the 20 mark. Saying that there is nothing stopping you upping the amount of bittering hops (the hops in there for the whole boil) to get more of a bite to the beer.
Why not have a play around with beersmith and post some recipes up. As long as you stay in guidelines for the beer your trying to make all will be good.
I have never done a mash out so it would be great if you can take me through the stages.
Ta,
Nath
Conditionin' - LEB Pale
Conditionin' - Thwaits Nutty Black
Plannin' - A user upper!
Posted 1 year ago by Member
Nice one Mr H... and some good stuff from nath there too!
Well done with your first AG ... and welcome to the obsession!
(with grateful thanks to the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and slightly adapted)
Posted 1 year ago by Admin
Good work and great post.
No we don't sell ferment bin pad locks but we all "sample" our beer frequently. No matter how many brews you do its always exciting tasting them as you go along, especially when you create the recipe yourself.
Sounds like you had a very good brew day. The leak on the mash tun is a bit of a concern as I'm pretty sure that can damage the lining which will give you problems if it keeps happening.
I never used to secondary fermentation until more recently when I switched to Cornie kegs and was finding a lot of crap of transferring to the kegs. If you rack off after 4 days then leave to another 10, I find that the beer is pretty much clear and all the yeast is settled nicely in the bottom.
Now what to brew next?
Fermenting:
Conditioning:Pale with Styrians
Drinking:Cascade Pale Ale, Summer Lightning
Posted 1 year ago by Member
Hi Guys,
Cheers for your advice and encouragement! Will rack off on Sat evening when I get home from work and thanks to Nath's advice I will drop some lovely hops into the racked beer (have some Fuggles and Goldings at the mo) but will probably use the Goldings for dry hopping. I was always worried about trying this with my kits as I wondered if it would carry a risk of any infection into the brew when dry hopping - probably an irrational fear!
Thanks for the IBU advice - So what would the IBU's be of a really really bitter ale be? A normal (say summer lightning) and a low bitter taste be (just so i have some idea) any answers would be helpful to give me a guide.
Cheers Greg - I have stripped my mash tun down and i cant find any cracks, holes or otherwise. The thread is knackered on my tap and i suspect it was not tightening sufficiently and allowed some leakage from behind the rubber seal into the void - will get this sorted and put some foil into the void area to improve heat retention whilst i am at it!
As regards my mash out - I was really not sure about this as i had not read about it anywhere, but beersmith threw it up when i ran the recipe through it so i thought i would try it. Basically at 10 mins from the end of the 90 minute mash i added about 4.20L of water at around 70c and left this for 10 mins. Apparently the idea is to aid wort run off from the mash - thought i'd try this as it might help - If you are batch sparging I cant really see any point in doing a mash out. Correct me if i'm wrong - found the following info if it is any good to you.
""Before the sweet wort is drained from the mash and the grain is rinsed (sparged) of the residual sugars, many brewers perform a mashout. Mashout is the term for raising the temperature of the mash to 170°F prior to lautering. This step stops all of the enzyme action (preserving your fermentable sugar profile) and makes the grainbed and wort more fluid. For most mashes with a ratio of 1.5-2 quarts of water per pound of grain, the mashout is not needed. The grainbed will be loose enough to flow well. For a thicker mash, or a mash composed of more than 25% of wheat or oats, a mashout may be needed to prevent a Set Mash/Stuck Sparge. This is when the grain bed plugs up and no liquid will flow through it. A mashout helps prevent this by making the sugars more fluid; like the difference between warm and cold honey. The mashout step can be done using external heat or by adding hot water according to the multi-rest infusion calculations. ( A lot of homebrewers tend to skip the mashout step for most mashes with no consequences)""
That was spooky as i was checking out the Sharps citrus ale recipe and then i saw Nath's post saying to check it out - clearly a man of great taste!!
Regards
Howard (Mr H)
Conditioning - Theakston Old Peculier
Conditioning - Christmas 2010 (Strong Xmas ale)
Maturing - Peach wine kit
Drinking - Summer Lightning, Summer Wit
Posted 1 year ago by Moderator
Cool, remember that I havve never dry hopped and from help on this forum (from greg and tony I think) its best to put the hops in a sanitised muslim sack to keep em away from when you suck the finished product into a keg. You will have less chance of an infection with dry hopping at this stage as the sugary wort will have been turning into alcohol and thats what will help guard against the nasties.
Refrence the IBU business.... I have been reading more into this IBU side of things and there are things to look out for. In beersmith there is a box called bitterness ratio, depending on amount of malt and ibu of hops in the beer it will give you a ratio of the sweetness/biterness of the beer you are brewing.
It seems that the best thing to do is look here http://www.bjcp.org/stylecenter.php and download the style guidelines to look for a range for a particular style.
and
Look up here for more advice on balancing beers in beersmith - http://www.beersmith.com/blog/2009/09/26/balancing-your-beer-with-the-bitterness-ratio/
An example I have seen from other homebrewers for a beer around 4.5% a bittnerness ratio of the below will give you the following:-
0.25 - malty
0.5 - balanced
0.75 - bitter
0.75+ more bitter
I have seen this in my last 2 brews. 1 had ibus of 61 with a ratio of 1.36 and the other had ibus of 46 with a ratio of 0.75. Even though the ibus are only 15 apart the bitterness ratio is very different because of the amount of malt used in the beers. So there is more malt in the 2nd beer which balances out the bitterness of the hops which should make the beer have a bit less "bite" or seem smoother. Time will tell though!
I stick with what greg told me when I first started:- A standard nice pale ale to drink whenever - 5%, around 30-35 ibus and a lot of late hop additions. A bit like summer lightning!
Hope this sort of helps, probably wont but at least I have had a rant!
Ta,
Nath
Conditionin' - LEB Pale
Conditionin' - Thwaits Nutty Black
Plannin' - A user upper!
Posted 1 year ago by Member
Evening - Just watched the 2nd half of the USA game - God i need a beer!. Thinking of racking off the brew shortly - just checked with hydro and brew is now down to 1.012 (1.013 with temp adjust) Still fermenting well with no sign of stopping yet! Taste is amazing - had a sneaky sip! still cloudy but im sure after racking / fining and dry hopping the brew will polish up nicely. Still chuckling at Tony's welcome to the obsession comment!
Cheers for your help Nath regarding IBU's and dry hopping - very helpful info and gives me more of an understanding - No rant noticed - lol!
cheers
Howard
Conditioning - Theakston Old Peculier
Conditioning - Christmas 2010 (Strong Xmas ale)
Maturing - Peach wine kit
Drinking - Summer Lightning, Summer Wit
Posted 1 year ago by Member
Sun Morning - still fermenting well - will leave until this slows down - god im so keen to move this on an get it bottled and kegged (and in my beer glass!)
Conditioning - Theakston Old Peculier
Conditioning - Christmas 2010 (Strong Xmas ale)
Maturing - Peach wine kit
Drinking - Summer Lightning, Summer Wit
Posted 1 year ago by Admin
The waiting is the worst bit about brewing. I'd get another one (or two) brewed ASAP if I were you.
Fermenting:
Conditioning:Pale with Styrians
Drinking:Cascade Pale Ale, Summer Lightning
Posted 1 year ago by Moderator
+1 to greg there a rolling stock is the only way to go. You could even attempt the ..... DOUBLE BREWDAY!
Conditionin' - LEB Pale
Conditionin' - Thwaits Nutty Black
Plannin' - A user upper!
Posted 1 year ago by Member
Lol - double brewday - Nice one, that unfortunately would mean paying my missus to stay out all day! She already thinks she might lose her garage to my brewing - lol!
Just a quick Question - Do you add finings or not to help clear your ale? Must admit I checked the gravity earlier in a trial jar and it looked really good - pretty clear, (racked off into 2nd fermenter and dry hopped for 2 days) been in 2nd fermenter since Monday and gravity now 1.006 (down from SG 1.047 - so soon to bottle and keg!
Fixed mash 'coolbox' - took apart and insulated inside with heat reflective foil and put new tap on - old one had knackered thread so i was under the illusion it was nice and tight against the rubber washer when in fact it wasn't - no leaks now!
Cheers H
Conditioning - Theakston Old Peculier
Conditioning - Christmas 2010 (Strong Xmas ale)
Maturing - Peach wine kit
Drinking - Summer Lightning, Summer Wit
Posted 1 year ago by Admin
Personally I never use any finnings other than Irish Moss/Protofloc in the boil. Always end with crystal clear beer although sometimes it takes a while, especially if I've used any wheat in the grist.
I prefer to keep my beer as natural as possible although technically the finnings drop out anyway.
Fermenting:
Conditioning:Pale with Styrians
Drinking:Cascade Pale Ale, Summer Lightning
Posted 1 year ago by Moderator
1006! nice one, and in the first post you wished for a final reading of 1010!
Conditionin' - LEB Pale
Conditionin' - Thwaits Nutty Black
Plannin' - A user upper!
Posted 1 year ago by Member
All kegged and bottled. After 3 days checked for co2 build up in keg and all looking good. Brew is already crystal clear and tastes incredible and at 5.2% I can't go wrong! Happy days!
Conditioning - Theakston Old Peculier
Conditioning - Christmas 2010 (Strong Xmas ale)
Maturing - Peach wine kit
Drinking - Summer Lightning, Summer Wit
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