First AG, Tips for improving?

[braziliain]

I reckon my heat belt would get at least half way across two. Maybe go in between them in an s shape if this makes sense.
What did you use to keep the temp up? Or was room temp ok anyway?

My landing seems to sit very consistently at 19C. So I have them there with 2 turbo ciders.

I'm fitting out a workshop at the moment and I'm saving a little under bench space for a fridge :)

 

[j4c]

I got this thermometer from amazon. One of my best buys for brewing.
I use it for getting my strike water up to temp (it has a high temp alarm)
Mash temp
Use the alarm at 97c for the boil so i get there b4 boil over and i use the low temp alarm when I'm cooling the wort. it Saves watching the brew during brew day.
On amazon its £36 but if u look at the bottom the blue or green ones are about £22

:)
I discovered it from that mash hacks bloke on youtube. He does a review
Cheers
Jack


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[braziliain]

I got this thermometer from amazon. One of my best buys for brewing.
I use it for getting my strike water up to temp (it has a high temp alarm)
Mash temp
Use the alarm at 97c for the boil so i get there b4 boil over and i use the low temp alarm when I'm cooling the wort. it Saves watching the brew during brew day.
On amazon its £36 but if u look at the bottom the blue or green ones are about £22

:)
I discovered it from that mash hacks bloke on youtube. He does a review
Cheers
Jack


Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

That looks great. A low temp alarm would be really useful for monitoring the mash too. My rubbish version of that had a high temp alarm which I used for strike temp before it broke!

Does it cope with the probe being submerged?

Any idea what the model of yours is so I can look it up? Christmas is coming... :)

 

[j4c]

It has a metal probe on a braided wire so can go under water or in oven etc.

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[j4c]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01MZXFEAT/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

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[j4c]

[ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OUdLeG-jyfA[/ame]

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[braziliain]

It has a metal probe on a braided wire so can go under water or in oven etc.

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My old one had a metal probe and braided cable too, but there was a little bit of plastic tube (that's a bad description) where the cable meets the probe and i think water went down it, killing the probe. That one of yours looks to have a good rubber seal and also I see the probes are replaceable.

Top tip, thanks!

 

[Simonh82]

Great info thanks!

That could go some way to explaining why it appears to have stopped fermenting already. Perhaps a low alcohol clone!

The instructions on the simple AG thread suggested mashing between 65-70C. After I added the grains it was naturally at 68.5 so I just left it seeing as it was in the suggested range.

Is it better to target the lower end then? 65C?

I finish work for Christmas on the 16th and I'm going to brew again, learning from this one hopefully.

It depends on what you are looking for in your beer. Mashing at 65°C will give you a more fermentable wort which will give you more alcohol for a given amount of grain. It will also be a drier beer with a thinner body. I usually mash at 65°C for most of my bitters and pale ales and think it works well. A lot of people mash at 66-67°C which strikes a nice balance.

A higher mash temp 68-69°C will give you a lower alcohol beer with more body. People often say that it will produce a sweeter beer but this isn't really the case. The dextrin sugars that are produced at this temperature are not really sweet at all so don't lead to the sweetness in the beer.

Using a low attenuating yeast can leave some sweetness as different yeasts have varying abilities to ferment maltotriose, one of the more complex sugars created during the mash.

Getting the beer you want involves balancing the fermentability of your wort against the attenuation of your yeast. I read a while ago that Fuller's mash their beers at 64°C to get a very fermentable wort. This is despite the fact that many people think of them as being quite sweet full bodied beers. This is because the fullers yeast strain is a low attenuater and leaves behind some sugars that other yeasts would easily polish off.

 

[braziliain]

Just took an SG reading 1 week in and its already down at 1.010. 5.5% according to the calculator.

It tastes far better than my recent cerveza kit did at this stage.

I'm thinking of dry hopping it on Tuesday for 5 days. 7g per 3.5L FV.
Planning on using a hop sock with a sanitised marble in it to sit in on top of the trub.

So far so good... :)

 

[braziliain]

Dry hopped this brew tonight with 10g EKG (5g in each FV)

I put the pellets in hop socks and weighed them down with marbles.

Checked the SG while I was at it and its still at 1.010 so looks like that's my FG. Bottling at the weekend hopefully :thumb:

Tucking into one of my Wilko Cervezas now. After 1 month in the cold it's a lot better. The harsh bitter twang has mellowed a lot. Love this hobby

 

[braziliain]

I just bottled this and ended up with 17 x 330ml bottles which is only 1 less than I was hoping for so pretty pleased.

The big surprise is that it tasted so nice already, that I drank a quarter pint of it at the end as it wasn't enough for another bottle :)

The dry hop with the EKG has given it a cracking aroma. I honestly can't believe that I've made this. Hopefully I was careful enough bottling and it will only get better.

Thanks to everyone that helped out with tips and advice!

 

[Ale]

It depends on what you are looking for in your beer. Mashing at 65°C will give you a more fermentable wort which will give you more alcohol for a given amount of grain. It will also be a drier beer with a thinner body. I usually mash at 65°C for most of my bitters and pale ales and think it works well. A lot of people mash at 66-67°C which strikes a nice balance.

A higher mash temp 68-69°C will give you a lower alcohol beer with more body. People often say that it will produce a sweeter beer but this isn't really the case. The dextrin sugars that are produced at this temperature are not really sweet at all so don't lead to the sweetness in the beer.

Using a low attenuating yeast can leave some sweetness as different yeasts have varying abilities to ferment maltotriose, one of the more complex sugars created during the mash.

Getting the beer you want involves balancing the fermentability of your wort against the attenuation of your yeast. I read a while ago that Fuller's mash their beers at 64°C to get a very fermentable wort. This is despite the fact that many people think of them as being quite sweet full bodied beers. This is because the fullers yeast strain is a low attenuater and leaves behind some sugars that other yeasts would easily polish off.

I wish I'd known this. Just done my first AG and mashed at 70C. As its my forst attempt Im not oo worried, I want to try variations to see how they affect the final results, so this one higher mash temp and next one with be at 65C

 

[braziliain]

I wish I'd known this. Just done my first AG and mashed at 70C. As its my forst attempt Im not oo worried, I want to try variations to see how they affect the final results, so this one higher mash temp and next one with be at 65C

Don't worry about it. I mashed at 68.5 as I didn't know better and my brew fermented all the way down to 1.010. You'll likely still end up with a decent beer. I'm really happy with mine so far.

 

[braziliain]

I've just opened my first bottle.

Quite frankly, if I hadn't seen myself do it, I would not have believed that I made this... It's fantastic.

First whiff and I was getting fresh pineapples. My mouth was watering. It's very well carbonated and this fizz lasts well. Its tastes tremendous, so light and refreshing. Its still a little cloudy actually but I didn't use any clarifying products.

I gave SWMBO a sip and she said 'yeah, I could drink an awful lot of this'.

Can't wait for my next brew day next weekend.

 

[SwissBrew]

Great post! Just done my first AG and taken some advice from your post here. Must dry hop :) really excited to taste mine in a few weeks now.

 

[braziliain]

Great post! Just done my first AG and taken some advice from your post here. Must dry hop :) really excited to taste mine in a few weeks now.

I'm excited for you to taste it too! I think it was worth the 6 hours in the kitchen. I enjoyed it anyway :)

From your signature it looks like you brewed an APA. Which hop?

 

[BarleyFever]

I've just opened my first bottle.

Quite frankly, if I hadn't seen myself do it, I would not have believed that I made this... It's fantastic.

First whiff and I was getting fresh pineapples. My mouth was watering. It's very well carbonated and this fizz lasts well. Its tastes tremendous, so light and refreshing. Its still a little cloudy actually but I didn't use any clarifying products.

I gave SWMBO a sip and she said 'yeah, I could drink an awful lot of this'.

Can't wait for my next brew day next weekend.

My first AG efforts were cloudy too. Still tasted good and that's what it's all about in my book. Cloudy beer is not bad beer. Tasty beer is good beer.

 

[SwissBrew]

I'm excited for you to taste it too! I think it was worth the 6 hours in the kitchen. I enjoyed it anyway :)

From your signature it looks like you brewed an APA. Which hop?

Well I didnt know it was an APA someone onhere said so in my thread :lol: just used Citra and Crystal as I fancy them from a brew I had here when i stumbled across 2 Scottish blokes and their Swiss micro brewery on our industrial estate.

 

[Gerryjo]

Well I didnt know it was an APA someone onhere said so in my thread [emoji38] just used Citra and Crystal as I fancy them from a brew I had here when i stumbled across 2 Scottish blokes and their Swiss micro brewery on our industrial estate.

I brewed 2 AG before Christmas one of which was the second runnings and the first is still cloudy whereas the second is crystal clear.

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