AG #1 The Amber Lager (aka the rise of the tiny shiny)

I've been making wine for a few months now and really fancied doing some beer/lager. Only problem was I really didn't have the equipment or appetite to make the 40 pints that most kits provide. So I turned to all grain. I struggled to find anything helpful at first, just lots of people saying what's the point putting all the effort in just to make a gallon. Finally I came across http://brooklynbrewshop.com/ which gave me some hope that a gallon batch wasn't too mad.

I downloaded Brewmate which made everything so much easier. Then decided I wanted to make a lager as I've got a wine cooler with space for a demijohn or two. I ordered some lager malt and some saflager s-23, but I didn't want it too plain so I bought some crystal malt too. As for hops I went for saaz.

My recipe for 4.5 litres was as follows:

Grain
909g Lager malt
101g Crystal malt (60)

Hops
Saaz 10g 60mins
Saaz 15g 30mins
Saaz 10g 15mins

So on to the pictures:



These are my tiny shinies. A 4 ish litre stockpot i've had for ages and a cheap 5 litre stockpot for the boil. I'd like to get a larger one in the future.



Here is the grain..tell me if I'm boring you!!! I bought a pair of digital scales but they decided not to work before I started brewing...so out came the oldies!



I used the smaller pot as a mash tun. After mixing the grain with 3 litres of water i popped it in a freezer bag and stuffed a load of towels and sheets in. I've not got the specifics but it did keep a lot of heat in for the 1 hour mash.



Next I "sparged". Ok so what I did to sparging is what Lambrini is to Moet. I used a sieve more hot water and lots of prodding around. I was trying to repeated soak the grains. I'd like to get a better and bigger sieve but not sure my sparging will ever be anything to be proud of.


Then there was the boil. This went fine. I did freak out with the hopping process as I made the mistake of tasting it and then whisked the bittering hops out 15 mins before the end as I thought I'd over bittered. I didn't realise then that the fermentation process breaks down quite a lot of the bittering oils. To make up for this I needed to do a hop tea to add prior to bottling.



To cool the wort I put it in the sink filled with cold water and stuck some freezer blocks in it (wrapped in sterilised sandwich bags).


After the chill the wort went in a PTE demijohn and in went the yeast.

The fermentation took a couple of days to get going and lasted about 10 days. I had planned to lager the lager (ok I know I can't call it a lager if it hasn't been!!) but I was desperate to drink some. So I bottled on about day 14 after batch priming with 30g of sugar. I got 13 bottles. I racked the beer at the end of fermentation so lost a bit there.

After lots of premature samples I now have a fab beer with a head.



I had no idea how potent the crystal malt would be, so it's darker than I initially expected. The taste is great is a clean clear beer but with a nice toffee taste. The saaz balances this off well and leaves you with a really nice hoppy flavour.

This site has been really helpful at every step of the way, I hope I can get some more folks doing mini all grains.

excellent stuff there !! yep you've done all the right things just smaller , try not to squash the grains next time as you can release tannis , and you prob should of used around 20/40g of crystal for that amount but no worries . I love sazz :thumb:

pittsy said:

excellent stuff there !! yep you've done all the right things just smaller , try not to squash the grains next time as you can release tannis , and you prob should of used around 20/40g of crystal for that amount but no worries . I love sazz :thumb:

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Thanks for the advice. I thought there was something about not squashing grain. Maybe with a bigger sieve and another stockpot allowing me to reflush the first wort more easily. Aah well I've got 900g of crystal left...I'll be sticking it in everything

:drink:

Great post, mini mini mash :

Rwilts said:

Great post, mini mini mash :

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Thanks

:drink:

Brilliant, and really inspirational. That's what I'm starting to love about brewing -- there's a million ways to do it.

I will try this :thumb:

Thanks!

Ian

iancraig said:

Brilliant, and really inspirational. That's what I'm starting to love about brewing -- there's a million ways to do it.

I will try this :thumb:

Thanks!
Ian

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Thanks I'll look forward to seeing your brew....no pressure

:drink:

Brilliant, just what i've been looking for. I don't have a cool bag though but do have a hot plate warmer on my electric hob, I might test just some water in a pan, see if it can maintain a mash temp for an hour :)

Before reading this i was doing a Neo, endlessly searching for something unkown to raise my hopes about my future in home brewing. I now realise that mini-brews were it. I can look forward to lots of different beers as opposed to having to force down 40 pints of one type of beer over a few months before starting the next :) This also covers me if s screw up a batch lol

Not only is this a great way to experiement as you 'only' produce a gallon but also saves space and will definately increase learning speed in the hobby as you can get through lots of brews in a quater of the time of the standard 23l brews.

Thanks for the post :)

coldlager said:

Brilliant, just what i've been looking for. I don't have a cool bag though but do have a hot plate warmer on my electric hob, I might test just some water in a pan, see if it can maintain a mash temp for an hour :)

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Yeah like most of the steps once you understand the reason for the process you can adapt. There wouldn't be any problem with keeping the mash on the hob as long as you could keep the temp right. I guess the oven would be ok too if your dish was suitable. You can soon tell if you've not got it right cos when your boil is over the OG reading would be lower than expected, meaning you hadn't extracted much sugar from the grain.

:drink:

Cool. I'll do a dry run then with some water or something, see how it goes.

What's also cool once i have the small fermenters for these smaller brews is that i'll be able to brew cider and wine without needing any new fermenters. I wish i'd read this before putting my first 23L kit together and buying a tonne of bottles lol

coldlager said:

Cool. I'll do a dry run then with some water or something, see how it goes.

What's also cool once i have the small fermenters for these smaller brews is that i'll be able to brew cider and wine without needing any new fermenters. I wish i'd read this before putting my first 23L kit together and buying a tonne of bottles lol

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Aaah this home brew business gets you like that. I spent hours looking on the net at possible beer bottles etc....till I realised I could just use ones I'd bought full! Sure none of it'll go to waste

:drink:

Sorry for another question but how much yeast did you use exactly? 5-10 grams?

coldlager said:

Sorry for another question but how much yeast did you use exactly? 5-10 grams?

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I use about a third of a packet 3.5g ish. This is just to cut down on cost rather than anything else. I store the rest in a tupperware tub in the fridge.

:drink:

Great post and pics A, well done on your 1st brew :clap: nice and easy isn't it
As a 'general' rule of thumb for coloured malts (and a lot of adjuncts) go up to a max 5% of your grain bill, until you know what you want by experiment :thumb:

WoW, mini mash or what...nice one. :thumb:

BB :hat:

Vossy1 said:

Great post and pics A, well done on your 1st brew :clap: nice and easy isn't it
As a 'general' rule of thumb for coloured malts (and a lot of adjuncts) go up to a max 5% of your grain bill, until you know what you want by experiment :thumb:

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Many thanks I'll keep that in mind. At first I couldn't understand the tiny quantities of darker malts people were adding.....now I understand :)

:drink:

Fantastic and inspirational post! I have a 15L pot that I'm going to use for mini and maxi BIAB - it will fit in the oven to keep the mash temperature.

For the cooling, wouldn't it be better to put the freezer blocks in the sink water and to keep a lid on the pot? I'd be worried about infection - or diluting the wort with water.

rpt said:

Fantastic and inspirational post! I have a 15L pot that I'm going to use for mini and maxi BIAB - it will fit in the oven to keep the mash temperature.

For the cooling, wouldn't it be better to put the freezer blocks in the sink water and to keep a lid on the pot? I'd be worried about infection - or diluting the wort with water.

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Thanks, look forward to seeing how your turns out :)

When I did my second AG I put the blocks in the sink and added icecubes to the wort, obviously I'd accounted for the dilution in this one. It worked pretty well. It's all a bit of trial and error.

:drink:

Once I've bottled the current kit, I've got another kit to put on, then an extract kit and then I can start the BIAB. Have most of the bits but it will be a while before I get to do it.

rpt said:

Once I've bottled the current kit, I've got another kit to put on, then an extract kit and then I can start the BIAB. Have most of the bits but it will be a while before I get to do it.

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I like your forward planning Don't think you'll be running out of beer in 2013 :)

:drink: