Coopers APA - Galaxy Hop Partial Mash

[HisDudeness]

Today was my first attempt at using grains in a mini mash following the how to guide from Clibit heres how it went....

Batch Size 20L
Boil Volume 13L

Mini Mash
1.5kg Maris Otter
0.3kg CaraHell
0.25kg DME

Coopers Pale Ale 1.7kg

Galaxy Hop pellets 5g @ 60min
Galaxy Hop pellets 5g @ 30min

Estimated OG 1.049
IBU 40
SRM 7.4

Grain bill weighed up

 

[HisDudeness]

Mashing the grains

 

[HisDudeness]

Mash temps at start and end

 

[HisDudeness]

Sparging the grains

 

[HisDudeness]

Boiling the wort and weighing out galaxy hop pellets

 

[HisDudeness]

Adding the kit can and cooling with frozen bottles

 

[Covrich]

Looks good, you cooling down now?

 

[HisDudeness]

Finished OG came out at 1.048 which was nearly bang on the 1.049 target so really pleased with that result

Used Mangrove Jack M44 west coast yeast

Hopefully by tomorrow it will be bubbling away

 

[HisDudeness]

Looks good, you cooling down now?

Thanks, no its all done now and sitting happy in the FV

 

[MyQul]

:thumb:
I love seeing brewday piccies - Home brew porn!

 

[clibit]

Great pictures, thanks for posting!

No late hops? Within the last 15 minutes of the boil? I tend to hop my beers at 60, 15 and then 5 or 0 minutes. 10g hops in 20 litres is a very small amount, you have got the bitterness from them. There will be some flavour/aroma but I think you need more. You could make a hop tea and/or dry hop, so not too late. You're on for a lovely ale!

 

[HisDudeness]

Missed that part of the recipe off, yes I am planning on dry hopping it with 25g of the same galaxy pellets

Is that a decent amount to start with? I was aiming for something similar to an Old Golden Hen in terms of hoppiness

 

[clibit]

Yes I reckon that will do it. Many home brewers add loads of dry hops, but you would get a much more full-on hoppiness doing that than anything Greene King will produce. 25g will add a good amount of aroma without being mental.

 

[HisDudeness]

Great thanks, I do like well hopped beer but wanted to start with something a bit more subtle while I get used to the process

 

[HisDudeness]

So I have been reading a bit more about the mashing process and have got myself a bit worried about tannins in the beer, when I did the mash out the temp went up to about 79 before I turned off the heat and I sparged the mash with water straight from kettle which I didn't check the temperature of. I have read lots of stuff saying don't go over 77 or it will taste astringent, do you think I will have an issue with this? I had a little sip of the wort from the OG and it tasted pretty awful but I presumed that would change a lot through fermentation

 

[clibit]

No, don't worry. 79 is about right for the mashout, just slightly high. It's best if you boil a kettle to sparge the grains to top it up to the brim with cold, I think, but you aren't going to extract much in the way of tannins by pouring a kettle of boiling water through the grains. Tannin problems mainly come from mashing at too high a temperature - when the grains sit in water above 70C for an hour or so.

 

[HisDudeness]

Good stuff hopefully it will be all good, too much internet reading induced a bit of beer paranoia I think!

 

[HisDudeness]

Was a bit slow to really get going, I think the yeast I got sent was a bit past it's best :hmm: but it's chugging away like a train now with a nice thick krausen starting to form :clap: smelling good too!

 

[Spapro]

Can't beat that feeling of 'its off and running, all is well'.

I am brewing tonight - a coopers mini-mash (with coopers lager kit), Pale Malt, Carapils Malt, Cascade Hops at 70, 15 and 5 mins then dry hopping with centennial I think.

Good luck with yours, nice pics by the way !

 

[HisDudeness]

Well that was rapid! Not much activity in the airlock today so took a quick SG reading and down to 1.008 already! Quite impressed with the Mangrove Jack yeast, high attenuation and super quick ferment, think I might save some from the trub.

So chucked in some more pellets for the dry hop (decided to be slightly more adventurous and went with 35g in the end) and sealed it back up in the brew fridge.

Had a little taster from the sample and seems quite promising, nice and light with some orangey fruitiness in there, with all the yeast still in suspension it actually reminded me a bit of a wheat beer like blue moon or something. So fingers crossed its looking good so far :-P