First All grain brew in Brew Devil & Fermzilla

[Paul1084]

Hi,

looking for some advice on a first All grain brew:

so I am new to all grain brewing, and have recently invested in a new 30L Brew Devil, along with a 27l Fermzilla with pressure kit, and spunding valve. I also have a fermentation chamber (old fridge) with an added heat source, and inkbird temperature control.

For my first brew, I decided to purchase a recipe kit from BrewUK for a "Mosaic IPA" it had good reviews, I like hoppy IPA's, and this recipe seemed simple without too many Hop additions for a first brew... However the supplied instructions are not quite as I was expecting....

First question:
They provide standard & Braumeister instructions... I was assuming the Braumeister instructions are the ones I want to follow, as this should be similar equipment to the brew Devil.... The standard instructions specify a 90min mash with 2.5l water per kg of malt (approx. 13.5l water) which sounds about right to me, then sparge to bring it up to 26l... however the Braumeister instructions say to mash with 23l of water for 60mins, Remove the mash pipe then top up to 27l... this is more of a full volume mash without sparge??, which I wasn't expecting... which instructions should I follow? I have not put the recipe into any software, and hadn't really planned to, as I wanted to keep things as simple as possible to start with

Second question(s):
I plan to ferment under pressure, I'm not going to add CO2 as I don't currently have a co2 tank, I planned to just let it naturally come up to pressure by setting the spunding valve

1. Should I start off with an airlock to give the vessel a chance to purge out any oxygen before I swap for spunding valve and allow it to build up some pressure? if so, how long do you think it will take to natually purge?
2. what pressure should I set the spunding valve at?
3. the instructions suggest fermenting at 18 degrees c... should I stick to that, or go for a higher temp?

Any advice would be much appreciated

 

[Paul1084]

Full recipe attached

 

[Davy6Mac]

Hi Paul1084, I've done 15 AG brews on my 30Ltr Brewdevil. Sadly I will only be able to answer parts of your first question, as I don't ferment under pressure.
Firstly have you read any books on home brew, a good starting point is the Greg Hughes book " Home Brew Beer" it covers all the basics of AG brewing and is a good source of info as is this forum.
To answer to your first question looking at the recipe I would go with the braumeister instructions, don't forget though the braumeister is a slightly different set up. So firstly you need to calculate water for mashing the grains as you rightly said 2.5L per kilo, but you need to add an amount of water to allow for the dead space underneath the malt pipe filter which on mine is 7.85L.
After the mash cycle is complete then you need to do what is called a "mash out" which the recipe states is 77deg for ten mins, then lift up the malt pipe and let the liquid drain from the grains into the wort, once the liquid has drained remove the malt pipe and then top up the wort to the required amount, but not forgetting the boil will lead to evaporation which on my machine is about 2L for a 60min boil. Once finished boiling add cooled wort to your fermenter. Fermenting at 18deg seems slightly low but you should be ok, what yeast are you using?. I don't as a rule sparge, had a bad experience on one brew, once bitten twice shy etc.
Hope the above is of help. There are some pretty good videos on YouTube of how to programme the controller etc.
Sorry if I have mentioned anything you already know.

 

[Paul1084]

Hi Davy6Mac, thanks for your reply.. I have "How to brew" by John Palmer, which is a great book! goes through the basics, and then in depth on each stage of the brewing process...

Good tip on calculating the dead space, I assume mine will be the same as yours, but I will check... 7.85l seems a lot?

So my plan is to start with 23L water as per the Braumeister instructions, for 60mins, then raise temp to 77 for 10 mins... lift the malt pipe, let drain, then add approx 4l water to bring up to 27l.... wold you add the 4l through the malt pipe, or remove the malt pipe, and add straight to the wort?

what problems did you have when Sparging?

I am using Safale US-05

I may increase the fermentation temp a bit... one of the benefits of fermenting under pressure is the ability to ferment at higher temperatures... but I don't really need to... just aiming for a nicely carbonated IPA straight from the fermenter

 

[Davy6Mac]

Hi Paul1084, in answer to your question, yes remove the malt pipe before adding the water to the wort. Yes i thought 7.85L was a lot but i did measure it out, i think most people round it up to 8.0L. The problem i had with sparging was that i didn't have a sparge arm/equipment etc so i put some thick tin foil with holes in on top of the malt pipe and poured a jugs of water at correct temp over the foil, but it created a whole batch with astringent flavours which after reading some books etc is caused by disturbing the grain bed during sparge. Safale US-05 is a quick performing yeast will probably have finished fermenting your brew in about 4/5 days.
Hope the above is of use
When are you going to brew? and hope it all goes well, sorry i can't help you with pressure fermenting etc.

 

[Paul1084]

I dont have a sparge arm either, I was just going to use a jug and slowly pour the sparge water into the malt pipe, on top of the diffuser plate (not sure if that's the correct name) keeping the water level just above... seen a lot of YouTube videos demonstrating this technique.. but following the Braumeister instructions, it doesnt call for Sparging, so one less thing to do :)

I plan to brew as soon as I am happy i know what i am going to do at each stage, tested my equipment with water at the weekend, so fairly happy with the process, and functions... resolved some leaks with the hose connections to my wort chiller.... Think I may pick up a co2 tank from my local home brew shop before so I can purge the oxygen from my fermenter, and also test it for pressure leaks before I fill it with beer... but other than that, I'm good to go

I will report back here with my progress