AG#8 Peculiar christmas

[Rolfster]

Getting the mash on now for an overnighter.
Aiming for 30L
6KG Maris otter
500g of wheat malt
300g of amber
250g of crystal
100g of chocolate

Hops are going to be fuggle, NKG and Styrian.
Not sure of the hop schedual yet!

 

[Rolfster]

I have got my sparge on.
I am batch sparging. Got 16L of first runnings. Its looking nice and dark!

 

[Jeff Brewjubbly]

Sounds good Rolf - any pics? :)

 

[Rolfster]

Not yet, my other half has hidden the camera somewhere!

Forgot the first wort hops... got them in now!
33g of EKG (not NKG as mentioned above!) and 22g of fuggle.

 

[Rolfster]

It was in the little uns nappy bag...



A kitchen in chaos!

That is the first runnings heating up and the second runnings coming out of the mash tun.

 

[Rolfster]

Coffee time. Anyone spot a problem......

 

[Rolfster]

Its boiling.



Giving it a long boil today, going to stop it at 12 (75minute boil)

 

[Rolfster]

Right. My hop schedual is EKG 33g in the wort as it heated up.
Fuggle 22g in the wort as it heated up.
EKG 24 g last 10 minutes of boil.
Styrian for a little dry hopping. I think...

 

[Rolfster]

The irish moss rehydrating

The 10 minute hop addition (thats 5 minutes late cos of photos!)


And the chiller in. Its homemade don't yah know....



Its all going quite well today.....

 

[Rolfster]

Slightly scary looking sample


Looks like a temperature corrected OG of 1.060



Must have got less wort than expected....

 

[Rolfster]

Yeasties doing their thing.


Experiment in wort oxygenisation.....



And the thought I had just after I did this was 'odear what about infection...'

 

[Rolfster]

Anyone know what this is at the bottom of the trial jar?
Is it hot/cold break material?

 

[Rolfster]

Also, while I was messing about with that photo, the FV almost overflowed.

I have made too much beer! Its all in one FV, with the yeast pitch. There is very little space between the wort and the lid. I have put it inside a plastic tub, and left the lid loose.

I guess I am going to have to decant some out into a different fermenter once the yeast get going. Anyone got any tips?

R

 

[Rolfster]

Its bubbling. Just wondering if I should fit a blow off tube....

 

[Rolfster]

So this turned into a bit of a epic!

i filled the FV too much, thought it might be ok and added a blow off tube into a DJ.
Woke up in the morning and there was foam everywhere. I had it in a tub so it was contained.
I then cleaned and fill the DJ with the beer and it was all fine.

Its dropped to a gravity of 1.011 making it 6.4%ish and is tasting very good.
Hoping to bottle half and keg half, if I have enough bottles after my bottling fest over the coming week. :

 

[clibit]

One question. NKG. North Kent Goldings?

 

[Rolfster]

Got it wrong
I should have put EKG - east kent goldings!

 

[clibit]

Shame, thought there was a hop I didn't know about. :lol:

 

[Rolfster]

So I bottled half of this and kegged the other half.
Which is about 30 pints of each.

Gonna drink the keg for chrimbo and leave the bottles to age for a little while.

 

[PD]

well done to you looked like a decent brew day.
Try and adjust your volumes so you end up with a good acceptable amount in your fv for the start of fermentarion depending on its size. Even if you have to adjust your brew length to say 19 or 20 litres. Far better to end up with some head space available for an active ferment without it going everywhere.
Of course you can always get a bigger fermentation vessel.... :grin: if you can fit it in the brew fridge etc,