Gax's Brewdays

[Gax]

Got a cheeky brew on yesterday while I was cleaning our new house before we moved in next week. I know a lot of people are looking forward to the Kentucky common brewday but I want to make sure that one is very well documented, and I don't have the fermenter I need yet.
It's just a little pale ale smash with what I had laying around and some voss kveik.
--------------------------------------
002-A "Contractual Minimum" Pale Ale
Maris Otter -1.3k Mash at 67 for 90 minutes
30 minute boil
14g East Kent Goldings at 30
7g East Kent Goldings at 15

Cooled down with my ice stick and then pitched a packet of voss.

I left it on a heating pad to keep it from dropping below 20c while it ferments. Gonna check on it tomorrow when I stop by the new house again.

The big change here is this is going into a mini ball lock keg instead of being bottled - oooo fancy-
I'll post piccies when I got check it tomorrow.
Cheers all.

 

[Gax]

Update. I've got my keg setup now! And here's how the beer is doing. I've not really had the time to take a reading or otherwise test with the moving, but I think it's lookin good.
The keg setup is the kegland flow control disconnect into the nukatap mini setup. The gas disconnect will go into the kegland mini regulator with a soda stream bottle. Very fun.

Cheers.

 

[Gax]

I've had a couple brew days I forgot to mention. Lol.
The last of my smash series has been on for about a week, which is a barke Vienna malt and hallertau mittlefruh smash, using kveik voss. It's coming along very nicely. I tried a new method of mashing that lost me more wort than I would have liked, because it wasn't really the most optimal execution of a DIY lautering tun ever, but this is my clearest go yet, so I'm excited.

 

[MashBag]

What a good idea to have beer ready when you move in

 

[Gax]

It was the best one yet. I actually have something to bring to homebrew club next time! Lol. This Vienna one is looking gorgeous as well.
Next brewday I'll do a proper post. It's a weird one. Lol.

 

[Gax]

Nervous about today. It's my first like, compound beer. Ive had a good few successes with smash beers and I'm feeling confident, but slightly nervous. Lol

 

[MashBag]

It will be fine.

 

[Gax]

It will be fine.

Big post coming soon. Overall im pretty happy with out it came out, though there are some things I'm less so about. -.- I wish I had money to buy stuff to make some custom equipment! New job soon though so maybe a month or so out from being able to buy brew stuff.

 

[Gax]

Oki doki. So this is an American amber recipe I made with some input of the lads at my local brew club and some research on commercial examples of the style.

https://share.brewfather.app/xVcUOFdVXgSM69

Just wanna remind people I work in very small batches. Lol.

The brewday went pretty well. Attached are a few pictures. Overall I've learned that the little cool box I got for my ultimately failed attempt at a lautering tun just isn't gonna cut it. As you can see I began to panic at the end of the mash and ended up dropping it into my grain bag and doing... something? I dunno. I was panicking because the temp wasn't doing what I wanted it to and everything went out the window. I'll probably revert to the way I was handling my mash before with the sous vide stick.

Really like centennial hops. First time using them to brew. Smelt really good.

I think there's gonna be some comments about the use of kveik in this brew, but I don't really care. It's working really nicely for me at the minute. I'm letting this one go naturally with no temp control and hoping that results in less fruity notes than in my last beer I made using Voss, that I kept at like 35 degrees.
Then at the end after cooling and begining to transfer to the fv I got upset with my racking cane and stomped - right onto my cats tail, resulting in me knocking over about a liter and a half of precious wort.

So. Yeah. I'm excited to try it, but im overall just quite frustrated and annoyed at myself.

Cheers all!

 

[MashBag]

There is nothing wrong with a good sous vide stick.
Because the grain get on the way of any flow, consider sloshing it about every few mins or setup a simple pump for circulation.


Kveik.

 

[Gax]

There is nothing wrong with a good sous vide stick.
Because the grain get on the way of any flow, consider sloshing it about every few mins or setup a simple pump for circulation.


Kveik.

Yeah man, I've got a mesh wrap for the circulator and i slosh the mash up with a spoon every so often. - Not a fan of the kveik? lol.

 

[MashBag]

I think for 10litres that is a cracking setup.
How would you want to improve it?




Kviek.

 

[Gax]

I think for 10litres that is a cracking setup.
How would you want to improve it?




Kviek.

AHH. I see. My.phone thinks it's spelled "kveik" and not "kviek" and keeps autocorrecting. I shall correct the correcting machine.

The cooler is too large in all the dimensions important to what I'm doing, and I can't really find one that does what I want it to. It's too wide, so the grain spreads way too far our for effective lautering. It never quite settles. It's also not temperature stable enough because there is too much headroom above the liquid. I've used this 3 times now and see temp swings in the 7-9 degree range.

Ideally I'd have a much thinner vessel with the tap going through the bottom. I've got a design in my head using a pot, insulation board, foam tape, and aluminium tape (for the shiny).