Ade's Brauheld Pro Brewdays

[AdeDunn]

AG: #1 Elvis Juice Clone attempt (DIYDog)

AKA: Things go wrong when you brew during Pokemon Go Fest....

Yup, it was, and I did, and they did.... Combining new equipment with been a teeny tiny bit distracted, what could go wrong right?

Wellll, first off, I forgot to take off the bazooka filter that I'd attached just for storage (I'm using a hop spider anyway...), so 5 minutes into the mash this clogged up and had to lift out the grain basket, drain nearly all the liquid, and remove offending bazooka...

You know what? I made other mistakes, it happens. I got 17 litres into the FV (target was 14 litres), and OG well I hit 1.064 (target 1.059). Volume will just be because we tipped the boiler, OG well estimated efficiency I went for 70% brewhouse, I obvious beat that, even though I only stirred at mid point, and again just before the end, mash out didn't happen as overshot thanks to having power set too high so lifted the basket rather than risk astringency.

Oh, recipe, Brewdog Elvis Juice scaled for 14 litre batch and using extracts at bottling rather than zest. Straight from DIYdog, so no need to repeat here.

I should have taken more photos, sorry, too flustered to be honest.



So, yeah, this happened.... Like I said, distracted. lol


Bringing the wort to the boil, didn't have to faff with setting to 98 etc, 100 degrees C gave a good rolling boil.

Then I had a faff assembly my Fermentasaurus, what a faff! To top it off, the coat for it didn't fit right, and the stand poked through it.... If I had used this when I bought it, I think I would have had something to say about it.



It straight up doesn't fit the stand properly.

Oh, and I took a pic just as I finished cleaning up after, to show the lighting in use.



Hop spider was a snap to clean, I just whacked it a few times over a compost bin, then used the hose on it over a big bucket, then tipped this into the compost bin also.

For those wondering, I used Fermentis US-05 yeast, first time ever, and just sprinkled it onto the wort. Really too tired for faff. lol Chines food should arrive at the front door very soon for a very late dinner.

 

[foxy]

What the well dressed fermentasaurus are wearing.

 

[AdeDunn]

A better fit too... lol

By the by, didn't get any scorching at all, and the brewer cleaned really nicely with just some PBW. 4 gallons of water, some PBW, set to 60 degrees C for 20 minutes, ran the pump for a while (including through my plate chiller for a while). Drained into a bucket giving the bottom a rub with a loofa dish sponge (mentioned elsewhere how we've been reducing our plastics use) once the level was low enough, filled with water giving the sides a good rinse, pumped again.

Plate chiller, I back flushed it with the hose before I cleaned it with the boiler, got any solid matter out nicely. Cooling peformance wise, it was pretty nice, but flat refused to go below 22 degrees C, that's within the range for US-05 happily though. Started to see slow airlock activity last night, still slow this morning.

Pros for the Brauheld:-

Easy to use:-
Nice control panel
No scorch system
Nice rolling boil
Easy to set recipes up

Cons:-
Can't figure out how to get the hop alarm timer to work (instructions say long press time, but this does nada)
Had to put metal plug into overflow whilst mashing, the overflow is so short and low it just overflows the entire time otherwise if you run the valve wide open.
Bazooka is useless, it will just clog up with fine grain particles during mash if you use it, within about 5 minutes of the start of mashing.
Need grain with a coarser grind due to the larger hole size on the grain bucket than on a BIAB bag.

Pros for the Fermentasaurus:-

It looks pretty.
Nice airlock.

Cons:-

Fricking nightmare to assemble.
With the stand it's taller than a normal FV of a similar volume (had a laugh when I asked my wife to fill the airlock because of this as she's only 5'9 1/2" tall.... I have the FV on a shelf, I can reach though been a bit on the taller side. lol).

I'm sure it will grow on me, but to be honest it's too big for how I brew these days, could do with a much smaller FV as I only aim for 14 litres into FV (even if I got 17L this time a good litre of that is probably trub...). Also, putting it together, cleaning it and sanitising it, on the same day as brewing, and playing Pokemon Go.... Yeah, bad idea. Especially as I was using new equipment... Then just to make things worst, a neighbour came outside with a young baby, who was crying.... I'm wired to react to babies crying with nausea and anxiety (maybe I was a woman in a previous life? lol) which kinda made things fun for a while... Had it with my own kids too, fun times... lol This was right when the bazooka I had accidentally left in (I'd already read that it clogged horribly and planned not to use it....) clogged completely.

Other cock ups, well when that clog happened, I turned the pump on whilst the recirc arm was pointing over the work top briefly (sploosh, told you, babies crying mess my head up. lol). Oh yeah, and never thought when ordering hops and planning the brew, I decided that as the Mosaic I had in the freezer was still in date I'd just use that.... Yeah, bad idea... Leaf hops, no bazooka, hop spider, plate chiller.... Hop spiders really aren't designed for leaf hops, I know this, you know this, leaf hops know this..... Luckily only 1 escaped and got into the plate chiller, and came right out when I back washed it with the hose.... lol Thankfully the rest of the Mosaic should be used up when I dry hop this bad boy.

My next planned brew, well, either a pale ale, or IPA, with the old Citra, Mosaic & Galaxy combination (magnum for bittering as those are all too expensive for bittering... lol). 2020 will be the year of pales for me. I'd have a go at getting bitters right, but I don't actually like them, so seems kinda pointless... Unless I brewed a new world hopped bitter maybe. lol

 

[AdeDunn]

Taken at 4:57pm



Taken at 10:11pm

Yeast looks to be doing ok. A pro of the FV I guess. lol

 

[AdeDunn]

Well, I can now add bad measuring of volumes to the list of cockups, as I now know that I had only 9.6 litres into FV...... Just a long line of screw ups. Possibly inaccurate graduations inside the boiler for a start, etc etc etc.... I now plan to transfer this batch to demijohns whilst it's still early days, as to be honest I don't even give 2 hoots about it any more after so many screw ups. End of the day, I need to get another brew on, and PROPERLY measure boil off etc on the Klarstein, and without cockups like using leaf hops in a hop spider, or accounting for the absorption losses from using whole hops either....

I think I will leave off dry hopping this batch too, as it's just wasting good hops, I'll maybe just chuck some Mosaic in there to use it up.

 

[AdeDunn]

AG#2 PatterPale

So, decided to keep trying to get my brewing mojo back, and slap another brew on, this time just a quick recipe I threw together myself:-

Target OG: 1.045 Target Bitterness: 44 IBUs Target Colour: 15 EBC Est ABV: 5.1%

Grist:-

60 minute mash.

3000g Hookhead Ale (Minch Malt) 5.9 EBC
200g Caramalt (Crisp) 30 EBC
200g Extra Light Crystal Malt (Crisp) 110 EBC

Boil:-

60 minute boil.

@ 60 2g Magnum 12.5% AA
@ 30 5g Citra 13% AA
5g Simcoe 13% AA

@10 1/2 Protafloc
10g Citra 13%
10g Simcoe 13%
10g Galaxy 15.6%

@ Flameout 30g Citra 13% (30 minute hopsteep @71 degrees, accidental)
30g Calgaxy 15.6% (see hopsteep)

Cooled to 18 degrees C (you read that right), after a flap where I had to backflush the plate chiller (I need to get a bigger crush of grain....), then dismantle the pump to unblock it as well.... Copious quantities of sanitiser were involved.... Then bunged in an entire pouch of Omega Hornindal I still had in the fridge. If it doesn't take, I'll chuck a pack of US-05 in there though. I couldn't be arsed doing a starter to check if the yeast was still good to be honest.

Actual OG, well yeah, I missed target for once, hit 1.043. Volume, well I would have been OVER target, but lost about 3 litres messing around with the pump and chiller, 2.5 litres measured that I wasted deliberately to trub. Volume into FV estimated at 13 litres (no markings on the FV... My old buckets got repurposed for use in the back garden.). It'll do me if I'm honest, a nice light pale ale, so long as it tastes decent.

Also, I checked the markings on the boiler, they're out by roughly 1cm too low down. Glad I have a good 5 litre jug really.



That was actually 25 litres measured.



Draining.



Had to lower the spider as boil of reduced the liquid level.


Chillin




Time to drain the hop spider.


Wort sample.

 

[AdeDunn]

My 5 litre jug, with 5 litres of water in it.

 

[AdeDunn]

Nothing happening in the PatterPale FV this morning still (my experiences with Kveik, it should be by now) so pitched a pack of US-05 in there. Better to use a different yeast than risk infected beer.

As to the Elvis Juice Clone (AKA Screwy Squirrel), fermentation has slowed right down, but can still see activity in there. The coat+gel packs are doing a decent job of temp control it seems.

 

[ChrisT685]

Really good write ups

I'm waiting for my Fermentasaurus Gen 2 to arrive having done a first larger scale AG batch in a standard bucket FV.

With your Fermentasaurus, do you keep the butterfly valve open from the start to begin collecting trub etc or do you do it at a certain point in fermentation?

Cheers !

 

[kelper]

@AdeDunn

Did you run the pump during the boil? Is there anything in the instructions about this? Some are saying the pump is only rated to 80 degrees C. Not much use having the anti-scorch feature if it's not used for the boil.

 

[foxy]

Why run a pump during boil? The scorching of the sugars occurs during mash, not boil.

 

[AdeDunn]

The pump is rated for boil temps and works fine. As to why run it during boil, to sanitise it and the pipework ready for transfer/cooling, even if only in the last 15 minutes of the boil, same as I run the boiling wort through my plate chiller for 15 minutes before flame out, but with the cold water disconnected. I believe an older version of the unit had a different model of pump that was rated lower that would jam up if ran at boil temps (the one with the controller built into the bottom of the boiler) though.

Regarding the butterfly valve on the FS, I keep it open from the start, dumped trub pretty quickly after transfer as doesn't take long for that garbage to settle out, leaving tons of room for yeast. It's gen 1 though, so I still have a ring of yeast stuck around the bottom that stubbornly refuses to drop into the bottle. lol

 

[kelper]

Why run a pump during boil? The scorching of the sugars occurs during mash, not boil.

Did you mean starches? The mash doesn't produce the sugars, it liberates the starches. Or am I wrong?

 

[AdeDunn]

Did you mean starches? The mash doesn't produce the sugars, it liberates the starches. Or am I wrong?

Mashing converts starches to sugars bud. The Starch Conversion/Saccharification Rest - How to Brew.

 

[kelper]

So what does the boil achieve?

 

[foxy]

So what does the boil achieve?

 

[AdeDunn]

Quite a few things. Hop oil isomerisation (bitterness), wort sterilisation, volume reduction, protein reduction, in the days of poorly modified malts reducing the sulfur compounds that could form DMS, extracting flavour/aroma from hops....

 

[samale]

Why run a pump during boil? The scorching of the sugars occurs during mash, not boil.

Is that true, everyday is a school day. I always getting scorching when I brew with rye malt. It's easily cleaned of when fresh.

 

[AdeDunn]

Drew a sample to check the SG of the PatterPale today, SG is at 1.009 (4.7% ABV). Obviously my wife and I tasted the sample.... Flat, but absolutely delicious! Lovely balance between bitterness and sweetness from the malt, and incredibly fruity. Just what I was hoping for. Cloudy as all heck, but honestly, won't bother me if it stays cloudy so long as it continues to taste good.

Not drawn a sample from the AIPA yet, not as easy to do from the saurus, plus it needs dry hopping first.

 

[AdeDunn]

Drew a sample from the AIPA:-



SG of 1.011, which is the predicted FG of the beer, but that was with the target OG which I overshot thanks to lower volume into FV (tweaked boil off since). Again, we tasted the sample. More bitterness than the pale, again fruity. Hasn't had it's dry hop yet though, and will be getting a bit of pink grapefruit extract added at bottling. It has that minty/herbal flavour typical of whole hop mosaic present too.