DHendy's Brewdays

[dhendy91]

So after getting one successful brew day under my belt with AG#1 Fullers Discover clone which you can find the thread on here https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/return-to-the-darside-ag-1-kindoff.85183/


AG#2 Red Setter Irish Ale

On Sunday it was time to go for AG#2 which is the Irish Red from Greg Hughes Home brew beer. Which I am going to call Red Setter Irish Ale. Here is the recipe for those that don't have the book :

HOME BREW RECIPE:
Title: Irish Red Ale
Author: Graham Wheeler

Brew Method: All Grain
Style Name: Irish Red Ale
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 23 liters (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 28.5 liters
Boil Gravity: 1.044
Efficiency: 70% (brew house)

Hop Utilization Multiplier: 0.99

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.051
Final Gravity: 1.013
ABV (standard): 5.06%
IBU (tinseth): 25.19
SRM (morey): 10.89
Mash pH: 5.48

FERMENTABLES:
4.9 kg - United Kingdom - Best Pale Ale (89.9%)
200 g - United Kingdom - Crystal 60L (3.7%)
300 g - Flaked Barley (5.5%)
50 g - United Kingdom - Roasted Barley (0.9%)

HOPS:
50 g - Fuggles, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 4.8, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 25.19
33 g - Challenger, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 9.3, Use: Aroma for 0 min

MASH GUIDELINES:
1) Infusion, Temp: 65 C, Time: 60 min, Amount: 19.5 L
2) Sparge, Temp: 77 C, Amount: 13 L
Starting Mash Thickness: 3 L/kg

OTHER INGREDIENTS:
3 g - Irish Moss, Time: 10 min, Type: Fining, Use: Boil
3 g - Gypsum, Time: 60 min, Type: Water Agt, Use: Mash
20 ml - CRS/AMS (6.3% HCl, 8.6% H2SO4), Time: 60 min, Type: Water Agt, Use: Mash
1.5 g - Epsom Salt, Time: 60 min, Type: Water Agt, Use: Mash

YEAST:
Wyeast - Irish Ale 1084
Starter: No
Form: Liquid
Attenuation (avg): 73%
Flocculation: Medium
Optimum Temp: 16.67 - 22.22 C
Fermentation Temp: 20 C
Pitch Rate: 0.35 (M cells / ml / deg P)

PRIMING:
Method: co2
Amount: 0.87 bar
CO2 Level: 2.25 Volumes

TARGET WATER PROFILE:
Profile Name: Dublin (Dry Stout)
Ca2: 110
Mg2: 4
Na: 12
Cl: 19
SO4: 53
HCO3: 280
Water Notes:


This recipe has been published online at:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/945807/irish-red-ale

Generated by Brewer's Friend - https://www.brewersfriend.com/
Date: 2020-02-18 08:30 UTC 
Recipe Last Updated: 2020-02-16 14:30 UTC

Couple of new things for me with this Brewday. After reading a lot of Strange Steve's posts on Water treatment and also messing around with Brewn'water and the Brewers friend water treatment calculator I felt much more confident adjusting my water. Not to much to do but I wanted to get the sulphate to chloride ratio to the same as Dublin which is 1.9 and also reduce my mash pH to 5.5 for a more efficient mash even though in Dublin it seems quite high anyway.

The other new bit to me was the addition of liquid yeast I elected to use Wyeast 1084 Irish ale which I intend to harvest at the end of fermentation and use in a Dry stout somewhere down the line.

Suppose I should also mention I am also using hops from the 2014 harvest for this as I had them lying around unopened and I'm not one to waste stuff. So i upped each hop addition a bit from what I put in the recipe.

Anyway on the Brewday! It went much smoother than the first as I had a much better idea of how to set up everything up to make life easier for me. I did have a bit of a problem that the re circulation on the mash was filtering through incredibly slowly so I had to take the top plate off and give it a stir 10 minutes in which seemed to improve things slightly. Still got 70% mash efficiency so not to bad.

The other problem I have is that my Immersion Chiller takes ages to cool my wort down and I feel slightly guilty about the amount of water it uses so I may look for a better one soon, in the end I dumpded the wort in the FV at 26C and let if cool down in the fermenting fridge before aerating and pitching about 7 hours later.



My measurements were as follows:
Pre Boil: 28L at 1.042 5.6pH for 70% mash efficiency.
Post Boil: 25L at 1.049 for 73% Kettle Efficiency
FV: 23.5L at 1.050 for 70% Brew House Efficiency

So slightly over volume and 1 point under gravity! Happy with that
Now all tucked up fermenting at 20C with the Ispindel monitoring it. You can see the fermentation and recipe at the following link

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/945807/irish-red-ale

 

[Neil Whittaker]

Oh nice read and i really liked that you included both Mash thickness and information about your water treatment.
I'll have to read some of "Strange Steve's" post.

Which area is your brewing water from?

 

[Neil Whittaker]

Which area is your brewing water from?

Jest read your other brew day thread - Bracknell.
ISpindel - I've looked into building one, jealous.

 

[dhendy91]

Oh nice read and i really liked that you included both Mash thickness and information about your water treatment.
I'll have to read some of "Strange Steve's" post.

Which area is your brewing water from?

Thanks, that whole thing is from brewers friend though. As the software is much smarter than me. Also my mash thickness was actually 4l kg so that bit is wrong. I will update my equipment profile on brewers friend, although in future I think I might aim for around 4.25l/kg as the mash was a little thick due to the deadspace below the maltpipe with the brewdevil.

My water is South East Water (Crowthorne Water Report), to be honest it's very similar to Dublins water in hardness so I would have been fine just to add 1/2 a campden tablet and be done with it but I wanted to get everything as close as possible to the real thing

 

[dhendy91]

Jest read your other brew day thread - Bracknell.
ISpindel - I've looked into building one, jealous.

Ha wish I could say I built the Ispindel they pop up every now and again pre-built on ebay for around £30-£40 which isn't much more than the cost of parts i'm led to believe. When they turn up I just calibrate them and away I go. Easiest my favourite bit of Kit right now as means I don't have to open the fermenter except to dry hop

 

[Neil Whittaker]

Yeah seen that one on Ebay for £35, i priced the parts up and it's easy the same if not more.
The wife will give me a hard time if I throw more money at gear, I need to make some beer first. :-)

 

[foxbat]

Are you stirring while chilling? It's boring standing there for ages but if you stir continuously then chilling time is drastically reduced.

 

[dhendy91]

Are you stirring while chilling? It's boring standing there for ages but if you stir continuously then chilling time is drastically reduced.

I'm not as I had it in my head that I didn't want to disturb anything that had settled to the bottom of the kettle to try and avoid it all going to the fermenter. I do run the re-circ pump on the Brew devil while chilling though.

I will try running the pump and stiring next time

 

[dhendy91]

Thought I would give a little update.

AG#1 Fullers Discover Clone

Wow well after 3 failed attempts at AG 5 years ago I finally did it. Beautifully clear after finnings with nice head retention, although it has come about a bit darker than I wanted perhaps because of the 90 minute mash but if I brewed it again I would look to adjust this . Starts with a nice crisp lager bite and finishes with the nice Maris otter malty/biscuity taste, i don't really get much of the Golding dry hop but it was never meant to be too hoppy so that's fine. Unfortunately fullers no longer brew it so I can't compare, however it is exactly as I remember it a perfect bridge beer between ale and larger.



AG#2 Red Setter Irish Ale
First time using liquid yeast and this thing fermented rather quickly, so happy with that! Really it was done after 4 days according to the Ispindel but I left it the full 7 just to allow any clearing up that needed to be done by the yeast. Turned the temp controller right down to 2 c for the cold crash and will keg once it clears later this week. If the trial jar is anything to go by it is more of dark amber beer than red, but certainly has that maltyness you want in a red ale! Excited to see how it turns out

Also had time over the weekend to mess around and name the brewery and make a logo which i'm pretty chuffed with. I know it's a tad overkill but I had fun so that's all that matters.

 

[dhendy91]

Time for more updates

AG#2 Red Setter Irish Ale

Kegged this on Friday and added some finings burst carbonated at 40 psi for 16 hours and wow did this turn in to a nice pint beautiful caramel and malt profile with a slight hit if the hop bitterness on the end . Still not 100% clear but since my last update it has gone a beautiful copper red. Really chuffed with this one and got the best compliment from a friend who was over at the weekend who said "don't take this the wrong way, but wow this is actually really good beer



AG#3 Baskerville Hangover Black IPA

So yesterday it was time to brew again in order to bulid up a stock of beers! I choose a black IPA as when it is done correctly it's a style I love! Again the recipe was from Greg Hughes with no tweaks made. No photos i'm afraid on this one. Will do better next time.

HOME BREW RECIPE:
Title: Black IPA
Brew Method: All Grain
Style Name: Specialty IPA: Black IPA
Boil Time: 70 min
Batch Size: 20 liters (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 25 liters
Boil Gravity: 1.044
Efficiency: 70% (brew house)
Hop Utilization Multiplier: 0.99
STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.054
Final Gravity: 1.012
ABV (standard): 5.53%
IBU (tinseth): 60.23
SRM (morey): 31.15
Mash pH: 5.4

FERMENTABLES:
4.58 kg - Maris Otter Pale (92.2%)
181.44 g - Carafa Special Type III (3.7%)
208.66 g - Chocolate (4.2%)

HOPS:
25 g - Columbus, Type: Pellet, AA: 13, Use: Boil for 70 min, IBU: 44.4
30 g - Citra, Type: Pellet, AA: 11, Use: Boil for 10 min, IBU: 15.83
45 g - Columbus, Type: Pellet, AA: 13, Use: Aroma for 0 min
45 g - Citra, Type: Pellet, AA: 11, Use: Aroma for 0 min
45 g - Citra, Type: Pellet, AA: 11, Use: Dry Hop for 4 days

MASH GUIDELINES:
1) Strike, Temp: 65 C, Time: 60 min, Amount: 20.87 L
2) Sparge, Temp: 76 C, Time: 15 min, Amount: 12.05 L
Starting Mash Thickness: 4.2 L/kg

OTHER INGREDIENTS:
3 g - Irish Moss, Time: 10 min, Type: Fining, Use: Boil
1 g - Gypsum, Time: 60 min, Type: Water Agt, Use: Sparge
39 ml - CRS/AMS (6.3% HCl, 8.6% H2SO4), Time: 60 min, Type: Water Agt, Use: Mash
2 g - Table Salt, Time: 60 min, Type: Water Agt, Use: Mash
3 g - Baking Soda, Time: 60 min, Type: Water Agt, Use: Sparge

YEAST:
Fermentis / Safale - English Ale Yeast S-04
Starter: No
Form: Dry
Attenuation (avg): 75%
Flocculation: High
Optimum Temp: 12.22 - 25 C
Fermentation Temp: 18 C
Pitch Rate: 0.35 (M cells / ml / deg P)

PRIMING:
Method: co2
Amount: 0.87 bar
CO2 Level: 2.25 Volumes

TARGET WATER PROFILE:
Profile Name: Balanced Profile II
Ca2: 150
Mg2: 10
Na: 80
Cl: 150
SO4: 160
HCO3: 220
Water Notes:
This recipe has been published online at:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/940427/black-ipa
Generated by Brewer's Friend - https://www.brewersfriend.com/
Date: 2020-03-02 20:47 UTC
Recipe Last Updated: 2020-03-01 11:52 UTC

Considering I was feeling slightly worse for ware after inviting friends round to sample AG#1 and AG#2 the night before the brew day went pretty smoothly on slight hiccup was that with the additions I have listed my mash pH came out at 4.6 initially before I corrected with some bicarbonate of Soda to bring it back up to 5.3 . Also had a really slow sparge but the Carafa 3 and chocolate malt were a very fine crush so could be because of that?

Made my first starter from this and re-pitched the S-04 I harvested from AG#1 like many things in home brewing it seemed complicate at first but it was actually really simple

I ended up over volume and 2 points under gravity but I think I just need to lower my boil off rate as it seems a bit high right now.

Final update is I made these labels for anything I brew. All I will need to do is adjust the base colour and relevent details, I really love that the QR code takes you straight to the recipe too.