Brewelder’s 1st Brewday

[Brewelder]

Well, here goes. This is my very first brewday thread so go easy on my.

I’ve posted a couple of threads on here recently and the latest one was asking for advice on an All in One system. However, I’ve decided toi run with my current set up which is basically a mash kettle and a “Heath Robinson” re-circ system complete with a home made “Malt Pipe”. Anyway, enough waffle about my equipment.

The brew is a NEIPA all grain kit from KegThat, a Crisp Malting NEIPA kit to be exact and consists of the following:
4.9kg of Clear Choice Ale Malt.
0.94kg of Malted Wheat.
0.94kg of Naked Oats.

Hops are:
1.3gms of UK Cascade Added in the middle.
0.8gms of Calypso added in the middle.
4.5gms of Calypso added at Flame Out.
3.2gms of Jarrylo added at Flame out,
8gms of UK Cascade also at Flame out.

Dry hops are:

100gms each of Calypso & Jarrylo.

Yeast is: Mangrove Jacks US West Coast Yeast pitched at 21 degrees.

So far so good as I’ve heated the Sparge water and kept it to one side all wrapped up with insulation as i don’t have a separate boiler for my sparge water. Heated my strike water up to 73 (ish) degrees as per instructions and then added all the grains bit by bit and stirring all the time, not a single dough ball in site. Currently the mash is 35 minutes in.

See some photo’s below:

 

[Brewelder]

Day 2, but still not 24 hrs in yet as i didn’t actually start my brew day till around 1:00 yesterday, so that was mistake number 1 as i didn’t finish up till after 8:00 last night then by the time i had a quick clean down it was late.

Anyway, all went pretty well and there were no real surprises. The brew went well, the equipment worked well and i learned a lot along the way.

A few lessons learned:

1. 6kg of grains gets very heavy when steeped in water and i had my boiler set-up elevated to start with which made raising the grain basket quite tricky. Next time i need a pulley system in place before i start.

2. Although the grains fit into my home made malt pipe, i think i would struggle with a larger grain bill so need to keep an eye on that for future brews.

3. After mashing and sparging i then raised the grain basket to let it drain, this seemed to take forever and not being the most patient of people i dumped the basket inot an old bucket so i could get on with the boil. After the boil i noticed that at least 3 more litres had drained from the basket.

4. The bazooka filter on the boiler tap clogged when i started transferring the boiled wort into the FV. I wrapped my arm in cling film, sprayed with starsan and basically had to delve in to clear the filter Every few minutes as the more i cleared the more it clogged.

Apart from the above which i consider to be teething troubles i was well chuffed with how it all turned out.

I ended up with only 21 litres in the Fermzilla, but that should be enough to fill the keg after fermentation.

OG turned out to be 1.061 as opposed to 1.062 as per instruction so i was well pleased with that. I don’t know what that does to my efficiency yet as i haven’t checked.

Also i changed the yeast to Verdant and as at an hour ago there’s already activity as can be seen below.

 

[nibber]

Looking good,i have never used Calypso or Jarrylo hops before,where did you buy them from?
Sorry i assume Keg That Doh!

 

[Brewelder]

Looking good,i have never used Calypso or Jarrylo hops before,where did you buy them from?

That’s a bit of a long winded story mate. I bought the kit from KegThat but they messed up the hops by sending 4gms of each as opposed to 4gms per litr (100gms) anyway i tried calling them and sent 2 emails but no response so wanting to get a brew on while off work over the Christmas i decided to buy them anyway and off all places i ended up on Amazon.

Ironically the Calypso came from KegThat and the Jarrylo from CML, both via Amazon.

 

[Brewelder]

Haven’t taken any photo’s but there’s a lovely Krause developing right now, temp is a constant 20.5 degrees and i forgot to mention yesterday that i used spring water for the mash and sparge, so no tap water involved and no water treatment added.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Water salts do boost your beer, especially hoppy beers.
But brew appears to be going well.

 

[eyuptm]

Water salts do boost your beer, especially hoppy beers.
But brew appears to be going well.

So what treatment would you more experienced brewers treat, say, Ashbeck water for an IPA style? I've just dipped a toe into testing my tap water, and it's horribly hard- 252ppm Alkalinity and 150ppm Calcium...

 

[RoomWithABrew]

So what treatment would you more experienced brewers treat, say, Ashbeck water for an IPA style? I've just dipped a toe into testing my tap water, and it's horribly hard- 252ppm Alkalinity and 150ppm Calcium...

anymore info from your testing?

Something to start reading
https://learningtohomebrew.com/the-best-water-profile-for-ipa-beer/
Best to not hijack @Brewelder thread for this and start your own after some reading.

 

[Brewelder]

Water salts do boost your beer, especially hoppy beers.
But brew appears to be going well.

Well I’ve just gone for spring water as I’m new to all this and didn’t want to get too ahead of myself. But, for future reference, how would i treat bottled (spring_ water and what with? Quantities etc?

 

[Brewelder]

Anyway, it’s day 3, just got back in from work and found this:

A nice healthy Krause, the Verdant is feeding away quite nicely so up to now I’m well pleased with myself.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

It looks great, Verdant is lively stuff.

 

[gyurmaember]

So what treatment would you more experienced brewers treat, say, Ashbeck water for an IPA style? I've just dipped a toe into testing my tap water, and it's horribly hard- 252ppm Alkalinity and 150ppm Calcium...

Just cut it to around 100 ppn with spotless, abd you'll be amazed.
And add campden.

 

[Brewelder]

It looks great, Verdant is lively stuff.

It’s my 1st time using it but so far I’m impressed. A made up a little starter with some of the “cooled” wort and added the yeast for around 30 minutes and it seemed to work OK.

 

[Brewelder]

Just cut it to around 100 ppn with spotless, abd you'll be amazed.
And add campden.

Dunno what Spotless or ABD are, but i do have Campden tablets

 

[gyurmaember]

Spotless water,
abd is a a word created by my chubby fingers.

 

[Brewelder]

Spotless water,
abd is a a word created by my chubby fingers.

What will the Campden tablet do and when to add

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Camden tablet gets rid of chlorine in tap water.
@Brewelder You used spring water so no need for it.
But if adding it you put it in before salts and grains.

Whole thread on violence of verdant ferment on US forum, so watch it! Edited I mean watch out.

 

[gyurmaember]

What will the Campden tablet do and when to add

It'll get rid of chlorine, i usually add a night before the brewday.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

It works in minutes

 

[Brewelder]

It looks great, Verdant is lively stuff.

Yeah it was mate, got to work immediately then just kept going, but i have a question for the more learned amongst us on here.

Fermentation is done and today i intend to dry hop with 100g each of Calypso and Jarrylo, but my question is this: I will dry hop for 3 days then close transfer to the corny keg and then i plan to start my next brew which is a Neck Oil clone kit from KegThat. However, although it is supplied with yeast and i can’t remember what strain right now, i would like to try this with the Verdant yeast that i plan to collect from the collection jar on my current brew.

1. Is this doable?
2. How do i extract the yeast from all the other trub that’s bound to be in there as well?