Brewdays at Graceland

[ElvisIsBeer]

Howdy folks.

After, briefly, documenting the establishment of my Brewcave, I thought I'd show how the first AG brewday in the cave went. It wasn't perfect by any means, and nor would I expect it to be, but the old adage "if you fail to prepare, then you must prepare to fail" sprang to mind a few times.

I thought I had prepped. Sort of.

https://www.flickr.com/gp/156351662@N07/7s9Z8r

 

[ElvisIsBeer]

I was hoping to upload the pics so they'd be visible in the post - without necessitating a click from the good reader. Hopefully someone will enlighten me....

doughing in - https://www.flickr.com/gp/156351662@N07/5L8008

after an hour in the tun (under a set of heavy curtains) - https://www.flickr.com/gp/156351662@N07/4Q17X6

I didn't take readings to gauge temp loss during mashing - my impression was that it works well. The previous day I'd stuck in some hot, not boiling, water, and five hours later it was still very warm.

brupaks had no problem with a solid rolling boil for an hour - https://www.flickr.com/gp/156351662@N07/2HoC8a

I forgot to take pics of the chiller in action - when I say forgot.......this was around the time that I realised that I didn't have a second male to male connector "just lying around".......so the outlet was short and would result in water piffing all over the floor.

I shoved a brass connector on and literally just pushed the long hose into it - no mechanical connection at all. I then used half a roll of amalgamating rubber tape (awesome stuff). Not elegant, but it conveyed half a bucket of hot water (which I used for cleaning after) and then all the cooling water went by way of the drain..... I'll buy a proper connector before next brew day

and this is what I ended up with - https://www.flickr.com/gp/156351662@N07/948n2j It went in the brewfridge at about 10:30pm

I'd assumed that the inkbird would be very intuitive...........so hadn't bothered with reading the instructions. Took me 10 mins to suss out the variables. While faffing about with that (in freezing cold, and worrying that my brew was going to cool quickly), I panicked and pitched the yeast at 27 degrees. How did I know it was 27....? Cos the piggin inkbird told me. Can't believe I didn't take a temp test with my thermometer.

Anyway, the fridge came on......and I decided to panic some more and switched the inkbird off (and the fridge) and decided to let nature take the lead. When I checked in the morning the temp was about 21 degrees. I popped the inkbird on, and we're all good to go.

I checked yesterday and a lovely cushion of krausen has formed on the top. Fingers crossed.

My recipe? Well that went to pot. halfway through my daughter stuck her head in and asked for her digital scales back.

The grain bill as follows:
3.7 kg Maris Otter
0.3 kg German Vienna

Hops
A wildly estimated 25g of Atlas tipped in on the boil.
A complete wildcard shot in the dark 25g of centennial at the same point.

a bit more of both with about 15 mins to go.

I whacked in half a protafloc with 10 to go

I'm completely guessing with the hops - could be way out.

What am I aiming for? Beer, I guess. I was more wanting to get a hang of the process in the mancave, so not that fussy how it turns out, other than drinkable I hope. It came out as 1.041 or 1.042, which was just a little under what the calculator said it would be (1.046).

My son has said he wants to come over and do the next brewday with me, which sounds like fun.

Thanks for reading. I'll let you know how this pans out.

 

[ElvisIsBeer]

Couldn't resist checking today.

Down from 1.042 to 1.014 (3.68%) - 66% attenuation.

Will leave for another week. Lots of settled material on the bottom of the FV. Clear pale ale. Tasted sweet then bitter. Nice. Will leave 1 more wk.

Will rack before bottling.

 

[foxbat]

Sounds good. When I first read this I thought 50g of high alpha hops at the start would be a bit high on the bitterness.

 

[ElvisIsBeer]

Sounds good. When I first read this I thought 50g of high alpha hops at the start would be a bit high on the bitterness.

Me too. It just went a bit random in the heat of the moment. It might have been more or less. I just thought, I could take the scales in now and weigh what's left.....that'll sort it once and for all.

The sweetness wasn't overly pronounced either, but the bitterness was pretty great actually. I enjoyed the sample. It will need racking to help clarify, and I'll cold crash before I do that, I think. Overall, though, I'm quite chuffed. I'll aim to bottle up next weekend, probably.

 

[ElvisIsBeer]

Bottled 26 pts today

tasted brilliant - nice pale ale 3.8%

even slapdash muppets can make beer from scratch :thumb:

 

[ElvisIsBeer]

Planning my next brewday:

• 2kg - Golden Promise
• 1.5kg - Maris Otter
• 150g - Wheat Malt
• 150g - Brupaks Carafa Special 3

Gonna use Centenniel hops & a CML yeast - not sure what I've got in the cupboard

 

[Slid]

Planning my next brewday:

• 2kg - Golden Promise
• 1.5kg - Maris Otter
• 150g - Wheat Malt
• 150g - Brupaks Carafa Special 3

Gonna use Centenniel hops & a CML yeast - not sure what I've got in the cupboard

Sounds very interesting. Not unlike the Centenniel Brown recipe on P3 of the Complete and Brewed Recipes section.

 

[ElvisIsBeer]

Will be brewing later today. Spent last night giving everything a thorough clean. It's been sat in the garage since the last brew.

Slightly disconcerted that I obviously hadn't done a 100% bang up job on the cleaning of the mash tun (old picnic cooler). A couple of slight dots of mould here and there. Worse than that, I pulled apart the copper pipework "filter" and after a lot of poking about found a few old grains in there. Given everything a really good scrub and poke, and left it in sanitiser overnight.

The plan is broadly as in the previous post, but I can't rule out a deviation here or there. I'll provide a report with pics, hopefully, later.

What am I going to do differently this time?

• Well, more focus on timing and organisation. The first one was weird in that it was long periods of waiting with sudden flurries of not well thought through panic. I aim to do what I can to smarten up a bit.
  
• The clean down will be thorough.
• Make some vague attempt to measure stuff.

 

[ElvisIsBeer]

Sounds good. When I first read this I thought 50g of high alpha hops at the start would be a bit high on the bitterness.

Had one last night - here's what it looked like. Tasted pretty good. It was bitter, but not massively. It's almost 100% clear, there is a little bit of chill condensation on the glass.

 

[ElvisIsBeer]

I need to stick to a recipe....AND.....learn about hopping.

Enjoyable day.............but I chucked in some dark malts.........so a lot darker than I wanted. WHY????????

And lost track of the hops I was using. WHY?

End product..........15L of mid to dark brown something............and VERY bitter.

Daft get!

 

[ElvisIsBeer]

What am I going to do differently this time?

• Well, more focus on timing and organisation. The first one was weird in that it was long periods of waiting with sudden flurries of not well thought through panic. I aim to do what I can to smarten up a bit.
  
• The clean down will be thorough.
• Make some vague attempt to measure stuff.

Was very calm, well structured day. CHECK
Clean down was thorough. CHECK
Measurements? EPIC FAIL

 

[ElvisIsBeer]

I need to stick to a recipe....AND.....learn about hopping.

Enjoyable day.............but I chucked in some dark malts.........so a lot darker than I wanted. WHY????????

And lost track of the hops I was using. WHY?

End product..........15L of mid to dark brown something............and VERY bitter.

Daft get!

And yet.................the great Gods of Alehalla have intervened.

Crisp, dark red - yes, on the bitter side - but sampling while bottling indicated all is good. :thumb:

 

[ElvisIsBeer]

Sat 2 June. The missus is going to York for the day, and the bairn is doing revision for A levels.
:thumb: Conditions are Perfect. :thumb:

Grain Bill
3.8kg Pilsner
1 kg Rye
0.2 kg Carafa Special 1
CML Lille Saison yeast
Still thinking about the hops - if the CML EKG arrive in time, I might use them. Otherwise I'll select from the freezer. Probably one hop variety only.

Recipe considered after taking on board the wise words and advice (and recipes) from the excellent people who posted on my other thread, documenting my previous lash ups.

Dropping people off at station so no go until around 10am, so looking to be all done and dusted in time for the England match at 5:15pm. Spent an hour last night cleansing and sanitising.

I love this beer lark.

 

[Clint]

Sounds like you have it sorted....the question is will it turn into a stout by 5 pm?

 

[Ajhutch]

I miss the days when Elvis’s recipes included amounts like ‘some’ and ‘a handful’. All this weighing stuff out, I feel like he’s forgotten his roots.

 

[ElvisIsBeer]

wiseguys

Well, it's in the boiler now. The sparge felt like something remotely proper and grown up. I used a bag in the tun, which made a world of difference. I sparged using a jug, pouring over a steamer pan sitting inside a colander. The effect was a slow drizzle which I could easily shift up and down the tun for even coverage. It seemed to work pretty well. Not having, clearly, done a proper sparge before I was a bit nervous of the viability of the runnings, thinking it would be tap water - but I took a couple of tests along the way and it was still productive.

My CML hops didn't arrive, but that's my fault. I'm hopping with 20g of chinook at boil. 20g of chinook at 30 mins, and 20g of galena at the end (pretty much what I had in the freezer).

I've no idea what it is, but I'm thoroughly enjoying myself.

 

[Stephenj]

wiseguys

Well, it's in the boiler now. The sparge felt like something remotely proper and grown up. I used a bag in the tun, which made a world of difference. I sparged using a jug, pouring over a steamer pan sitting inside a colander. The effect was a slow drizzle which I could easily shift up and down the tun for even coverage. It seemed to work pretty well. Not having, clearly, done a proper sparge before I was a bit nervous of the viability of the runnings, thinking it would be tap water - but I took a couple of tests along the way and it was still productive.

My CML hops didn't arrive, but that's my fault. I'm hopping with 20g of chinook at boil. 20g of chinook at 30 mins, and 20g of galena at the end (pretty much what I had in the freezer).

I've no idea what it is, but I'm thoroughly enjoying myself.

Love your style, hoping to do something similar tomorrow. Know I've got stuff in freezer so went to hbs this morning and got some pale and carapils and I'll brew some sort of pale ale tomorrow to use up what's there. Its like a homebrew version of ready steady cook, although if ainsley Harriet pops in with percy pepper he's getting a slap :no:

 

[Clint]

Do you account for the AAU of your hops to dictate your final ibu?

 

[foxbat]

Do you account for the AAU of your hops to dictate your final ibu?

What do you think... :p