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Reached a nice rolling boil, and the Saaz have gone in, smells lovely.

Had to dilute a bit as overshot pre-boil target quite a lot (1.041, wanted 1.038), so I have 31 litres in the boiler. This is supposed to be session-able, and there is nothing session-able about a 5.5% ABV beer.... lol Given how close this is to the rim, and how much foam (as predicted) it produced, I kinda had to use some anti-foam. I tried stirring the foam back in but it was having none of it and threatening to climb up and out. :eek:

Got a nice rinse/sparge going this time around too (probably the reason my efficiency overshot...) using an SS colander on the rim of the pan to sprinkle the sparge water in. Then gave it a good stir, dunk and swish, then recirculated the liquor a few times. Sparge SG went from 1.023 to 1.025 over the coarse of using this method....

Good mash too, got an SG of 1.043 from that. Was a bit worried at one point about my volumes, but managed to recover a lot from the grain after sparging.
 
23 litres into FV, at an OG of 1.047. I'm happy with that.


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I actually did try, it just kept coming back... lol

Wouldn't actually save me anything right now though, as already have a bottle in so I'm just using that. :wink: I don't always use it though, only on brews that seem to foam insanely! This one it was like a layer of mousse on the top that wouldn't go away.

Next on my idle git list, a recirculation pump so I can try to get clearer wort going into the boil....

Oh and good news on the cooling side. I've found that if I set the flow on my immersion chiller so that it's just about luke warm right at the start, it cools the wort much much much quicker... I had been trying to save water by setting it to boiling hot, but was taking nearly an hour to get to 20 degrees even....:headbang:
 
...............

Oh and good news on the cooling side. I've found that if I set the flow on my immersion chiller so that it's just about luke warm right at the start, it cools the wort much much much quicker... I had been trying to save water by setting it to boiling hot, but was taking nearly an hour to get to 20 degrees even....:headbang:

You've discovered that heat exchange is decided (amongst other things) 1. Temperature difference between the two fluids. 2, Speed at which the two fluids pass each other. 3. The turbulence of both fluids either side of the exchange surface. 1. Is why it cools quicker in winter than summer. 2. Is why it's much better to increase the flow from the tap and 3. Is why I occasionally stir the wort and also move the immersion cooler up and down during cooling.

The photo is a "Rolling Boil" with the foam stirred back in! :gulp:

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Bottling day for the bitter, now named Nanny Ogg's Not So Ordinary Bitter (an Ironic name to be sure...).

So, what can I say?

Well, nice colour but a tiny bit of haze (possibly left over from me using a syringe to try to make it look good):-

NannyOggsBottlingSample.jpg

Flavour, well at the moment it's a tad ordinary, nothing special at all, kinda weak tasting in fact. Time in the bottle will hopefully fix both the flavour and the slight haze (if that isn't left over from me trying to make it look good... lol). Mouth feel is a bit on the thin side to be honest.

OG, bang on 1.008, giving 4.2% ABV, 79.4% apparent attenuation.

So yeah, I can drink it (which is more than I could say for the commercial product), but I've brewed better. I am sure that it will improve with carbonation and conditioning.

Next brew will most likely be an attempt to clone Hobgoblin Gold (using an existing recipe). Looking forward to this one, we both rather like Hobgoblin Gold (it's a golden ale, with US and new world hops, what more could I ask for? My favourite things in one beer... lol).
 
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It seems that I now have to eat my words....

I popped a bottle of the bitter earlier and shared with my wife. It's still very early days (I only bottled it Monday...) for it, but it was delicious! Good mouth feel, lovely flavour. Guess I can't go around saying I don't like bitter any more... lol
 
Figure it might be helpful if I detail my current process, as I have changed it over time, so it's now different from the standard BIAB process. I welcome suggestions etc, but please know that I am quite happy with my process as is, that doesn't mean that I dislike new ideas though. :wink: My current process has been influenced a lot by having to brew in the family kitchen, fitting in around normal meal times etc. It's not the fastest way to do things for sure, but it works way better for me.

So, I start preparation the night before, preparing my brewing water. I do this as I mix water filtered through my RO filter with a much smaller volume of our tap water (our tap water has VERY high alkalinity, TDS and GH. I have found that mixing some back in though adds back the salts I WANT for the brew, without ending up with a high mash pH again. Down the line I will probably phase this out, replacing it with adding the salts back myself, but for now it has been working fine.). It takes a LONG time to get 25 litres of RO filtered water... Doing it on the day I brew just slows me down.

The next day, I try to start at around 8 am. I fill my ACE with the strike water (from the water prepared the night before) in the diner area of the room (where my racks are, we don't eat in there. lol), after making sure the tap is closed, the bazooka is fitted, false bottom in place, back in.... The rest of the water goes into my 33 litre SS pan on the stove to sit and wait. Set my boiler to strike temp and turn it on. Time to weigh my grain. No big scales etc here, just kitchen scales, so I weigh a bit at a time in a large mixing bowl, tipping this into a clean bucket until I have all of my grist prepared.

Once at strike temperature, my co-brewer (my wife) joins me, I turn off the elements, and we dough in. She adds the grain to the BIAB bag in the boiler with a small scoop, I stir whilst she scoops the next lot. Zero dough balls ever, lovely and well stirred in mash. Once it's all in I give it a bit more of a stir (making sure to lift the grain off the bottom of the bag into the water column), check the temp with a thermometer (the boiler one lies...). If all is well (it usually is) on goes the lid, and I wrap the whole thing with airline blankets (this is in addition the insulation fitted to the boiler, in the form of an exercise mat and a layer of reflective bubble wrap stuff). I have found that by wrapping it like this I don't need to heat it back up at all over a 90 minute mash (the temp display on the boiler would have me reheating regularly, but a proper thermometer barely moves, which is why I make sure to turn off the elements). Time to start the mash timer (Beersmith 2 Android app), I stir the mash every 20 minutes, again making sure to get all of the grain off the bottom of the boiler. Whilst it's mashing, I weigh out my hops, and if I need to I label them with the time they go in (sometimes it's pretty obvious, when your bittering addition is huge and the only other addition is a small flavour one... lol). 20 minutes before the end of the mash, I turn the heat on under my 33 litre pan and heat the water in there to 76 degrees. Having done some reading, I wouldn't mind using those 17 minutes of mash out to experiment with recirculation/vorlauf, see if I can get clearer wort from the mash. I can mash in the diner end for the simple reason that there isn't really any steam produced. I fetch the packet of yeast out of the fridge, and put about 250 mls of boiled water into a small sanitised jug to cool.

End of mash, I do a mash out at 76 degrees. I turn up the temperature on my boiler, turn on both elements and stir, a lot, until it hits mash out temp. Off go the elements, back on go the blankets, rest for 10 minutes.

This is where it gets different... I don't lift and drain the bag. Instead, I run the wort off into the bucket I had the prepared water in, put a lid on and move it to the other end of the room. I then rinse the grain in the bag/sparge, with the water from that 33l pan, still in the boiler. SS colander goes on the rim over the bag, and my wife gently pours the "sparge" water through the colander (she seems to get a higher sparge SG than I do... lol). Once the pan is empty, I take over and give the bag of grain a good dunk and swish. At this point, the sparge liquor has been turned into a milky cloudy mess, so I keep passing the runnings back through the colander until they clear again (vorlauf?). Doing this last brew, I got an SG of 1.026 in the sparge runnings! I drain the boiler again, adding this to my bucket of wort. Grain bag gets rested on a rack over another bucket to drain more. False bottom is removed (I tried leaving it in for the boil, I ended up with MORE trub rather than less).

Now comes time to relocate my ACE to the other side of the room, right in front of the cooker....:headbang: I do this, as we have a massive, powerful, extractor hood there that sucks the steam right out of the room. Wort goes back into the boiler, and it gets set to max temp (110 degrees) for the boil, both elements on. As more wort drains from the bag I add this to the wort in the kettle. If I am a little under volume once the bag drain has slowed down to next to nothing (I tend to give it only a gentle squeeze, as a more vigorous one just puts tons of flour into my wort again...), I'll add a bit more RO filtered water. Once a rolling boil is reached, I switch off the 600 watt element, add my bittering hops and start my boil timer (Beersmith 2 Android app). The app beeps when I need to make any hop additions, protafloc, wort chiller or the like (they both go in at 10 mins, 1/4 protafloc tablet first, then the wort chiller, I turn the 600 watt element back on briefly to get the rolling boil back faster). I've gone back to 90 minute boils, as find they work best for me. Also in the last 10 minutes of the boil I fit a short length of cured silicone tubing to the boiler tap, and start repeatedly running boiling wort through it into a jug, sanitise the jug and the tubing, wort goes back into the top of the boiler.

Whilst the boil is going, I empty out my grain bag, rinse it well, and give it a soak in some percarbonate. I also clean any equipment that I can, wash out the bucket I used for the brewing water and wort and sanitise it with Starsan, as that baby is gonna be my FV. I sanitise the boiler lid too with some Starsan.

End of the boil, I turn the water supply to my immersion chiller on, once the wort has stopped producing steam (usually at or just under 80 degrees C) I put the boiler lid loosely on top. I try to get the wort down to about 19 degrees C as quickly as possible. Once it's there, out comes the IC, and the lid goes on properly whilst the wort settles down. Yeast goes into the cooled boiled water to rehydrate.

When the time comes, wort gets transferred SLOWLY (tap turned down, so just a thin stream splashes into the FV) into the FV. I make sure it splashes lots, usually producing a big layer of foam in the process. I tip the boiler to get the last dregs out. FV is taken back to the racking in the diner area, yeast is pitched, lid goes on. Blow off tube is fitted, bucket gets lifted onto top shelf of brewing rack. End of the blow of tube goes into a 2 litre water bottle with a bit of Starsan in the bottom.

Equipment gets washed and put away. lol

I am very happy with my efficiency (you'll call me a liar, or try to prove me wrong, if I tell you what the software says I get, so I'll just say it's over 80%.... lol). I'd love to get clearer wort into the boil though, hence I am looking into vorlaufing, and maybe getting a recirculation pump to use during the mash stage.

Most importantly of all, touch wood I've not produced bad beer yet. In fact since I started using these techniques it's actually improved! :beer6:

It takes time, and it makes my back and arms ache (who needs a gym? lol), so it wouldn't be everybody's idea of a good system for sure....:laugh2: It works for me though. YMMV. :thumb1:

So yeah, from my last brew on (Wen's Lunch), that's my typical brew day.:cheers9: No stress, no fuss.
 
I started out in the family kitchen with a one gallon Prestige pressure cooker to boil up the LME with the hops. Looking back, SWMBO must have had the patience of a Saint 'cos generally I brewed late evening when the kids were in bed, didn't have a kitchen fan so rain/hail/snow or shine the window was wide open and I used to simmer the pan (lid off of course) for an hour to get the flavour out of the hops.:wave:Happy Days for me!:thumb:For you, it's definitely time you got yourself a proper "Brewing Cave"! Go on! You deserve it!:gulp:
 
I discussed it with my wife, she started sending me links to gazebos! Then she shifted the discussion to how she could store things in a gazebo down the side of the house.... So yeah, the point I am making is I could somehow get a huge shed, but she'd only fill it with stuff. :headbang: Back when I was keeping dart frogs I was always having to move **** that she'd put on my racks, I switched to open top fish tanks to stop her from putting stuff on top of them....:laugh8:
 
Oh I know the feeling. Why is it that EVERY woman can find ANY bit of kit that her husband uses; but seems genetically programmed to either:
  • A) Leave it where she last used it. (This usually being somewhere where it will get rusty, blunt or the last place a man would look.) or,
  • B) Hides it within 3 metres of where it lives and tell you that she "Put it back." when you still can't find it.
Can't live without 'em? Do they ever let you try?:gulp:
 
We have a tool box (where I keep my PC related tools) and a tool bag (where we keep DIY type tools)... Does she put them back after using them? Does she heck... Every time I need to do something in my PC I have to play hunt the correct screw driver....

There's a reason I have 2 rechargeable drills... Oh and 2 power drivers, in addition to the big hammer drill.... lol We usually end up with at least 2 of everything after she mislays the original, we replace it, then it turns up again somewhere utterly stupid... lol Don't even mention how she loses scissors!!! I used to have a pair in a tub on top of my PC, until she borrowed them (rather than using one of the many pairs around the house), now I couldn't tell you where they are... lol

Oddly though, she always claims that I had it last, even when it turns up in one of her "dumping" spots... lol I mean, who the fluff keeps a pair of pliers in the bathroom window?!?!?!? lol

Thing is though, sure I have to tolerate this, but she is VERY tolerant of my hobbies (although, the brewing she is rather fond of, as she drinks more of the beer I produce than I do... lmao).
 
Loved the write up. very informative.

When you are recirculating the sparge water back through the colander, is it going back through the grain in the bag? If so how does this clear the runnings?
 
Loved the write up. very informative.

When you are recirculating the sparge water back through the colander, is it going back through the grain in the bag? If so how does this clear the runnings?

Yes it is. I have the colander resting on the rim of the boiler, inside the BIAB bag over the grain, so the water runs onto the surface of the grain in multiple trickles. Over time the smaller particles get trapped by the larger particles lower in the grain bed, forming a filter bed something like (from the bottom up) Husk>larger grain bits>smaller grain bits>flour stopping the flour from making it back into the wort again. 3v mashing and the fancy machines basically do the same thing, hence I want to use some recirculation for the main mash too, as BIAB is rightly infamous for leaving you with cloudy wort. I already get slightly clearer wort though thanks to my lauter taking the form of draining the boiler rather than lifting the bag out of the wort, a bonus of the faffing around relocating the boiler I suppose. :wink:
 
Yes it is. I have the colander resting on the rim of the boiler, inside the BIAB bag over the grain, so the water runs onto the surface of the grain in multiple trickles. Over time the smaller particles get trapped by the larger particles lower in the grain bed, forming a filter bed something like (from the bottom up) Husk>larger grain bits>smaller grain bits>flour stopping the flour from making it back into the wort again. 3v mashing and the fancy machines basically do the same thing, hence I want to use some recirculation for the main mash too, as BIAB is rightly infamous for leaving you with cloudy wort. I already get slightly clearer wort though thanks to my lauter taking the form of draining the boiler rather than lifting the bag out of the wort, a bonus of the faffing around relocating the boiler I suppose. :wink:

Do you need a pump to get it back up to the top of the boiler from the tap, or are you collecting the sparged water back in a pot and then pouring back through the colander?
 
I use a jug, fill it, pour it in slowly through the colander. I would like to get a pump at some point though, reduce the load on my back a bit. lol For now though, my wife bought me a 5L jug for my birthday, which should help. If you test with a refractometer as you go, you can actually watch the SG creep up as you recirculate the sparge liquor, a bonus to the reduction in cloud. lol

I tried doing the same when transferring the boiled wort to the FV, running the first 6 litres or so into a jug and bag into the boiler, but I found that the trub in the bottom disturbs too easily no matter how slowly I poured, so now I just open the tap a little bit and let it run into the FV. I still get a fraction of the trub into my FV than I did when using pellet hops.
 
Nice one, think I'll try on my next brew and see what happens.

When putting the mash liqour back into the boiler, might it be worthwhile passing it through another bag to pick up any bits and pieces to clear even more?
 
You could try with a finer bag probably, like a filter, yeah. That wouldn't used the grain bed though, so would be the same as just filtering your wort.
 
........ I would like to get a pump at some point though, reduce the load on my back a bit. lol For now though, my wife bought me a 5L jug for my birthday, which should help. .........

I have two adjustable height office chairs in the garage and boy do they help my back! "UP" for bench work and "DOWN" for lautering etc.

With regard to the Birthday Present I thought "All heart some women! Could she not have bought him a pump?":gulp:
 

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