First brewday

[johnw]

Well first of all thanks to Fil for the tips. Today's had it's ups and downs.

270g Carpils malt
5.4kg Pale malt
About 120g Amarillo hops

Started out okay, got my dough in at 66 degrees, turns out I might have needed a bit more water in the tun though, the first bit of liquid dribbled out then I batch sparged twice, I think I'd been grossly overestimating how much water I was added to the tun but In the end I had about 23l of wort at 1050 gravity. Drumroll please - a mash efficiency of 68%. Not amazing - I think my sparge water could have done with being a little bit warmer. I measured 65 C and 70 C respectively in the tun after the first and second sparge water additions.

Boiling went okay, apart from the fact I completely forgot to add protofloc - oops! It smelt amazing. I was boiling for 70 mins, and I lost a fair bit of liquid volume in that time.

Hot break :)

Cooling was where the fun started. I added about 4 litres of boiled and colled water to try to top up my wort. Then I started colling which seemed to go okay. Saw the cold break, looked over and saw the protofloc on the table. 'Crap' I thought and added a half tablet when the wort had already colled to 50 degrees, probably not the greatest idea. I was stirring throughout the process to get the wort to cool quicker. Is that an okay thing to do?

Anyway I waited until the wort hit about 35 degrees and then started pouring into the FV. I had the bright idea of pitching my yeast as I was pouring, I used the stream of liquid to wash out my yeast starter bottle. Oops. Completely forgot that I probably wanted to pitch the yeast at a MUCH lower temp. Hopefully it's not too dead now. Anyway ended up with about 18 litres of wort in my FV with an OG of 1058. So long as it starts to ferment I'm hopeful that I get nice strong and drinkable, if a little cloudy, pale ale. Just have to hope that the yeast isn't feeling too sorry for itself and that I haven't introduced any nasties during my rather chaotic cooldown period.

The finished product. Lets hope it doesn't just stay in this exact state forever

 

[Ajhutch]

Congrats on your first all grain brew day. It sounds like you had a pretty decent day, we probably all had ups and downs on our first one. If your yeast doesn't survive the high pitch temperature you can add more later but give it a few days to see first. Sounds like a tasty beer!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Fil]

Welcome to the darkside hehe..

forgetting the kettle finnings can happen to the best of us and the cure for a less than crystal clear pint is to sup from an opaque quaffing vessel what you dont notice....

 

[johnw]

Thanks. Well the yeast seems to have hit the ground running. Less than 3 hours later and it's already bubbling away. Feeling the wort it's still above ambient, maybe mid 20s so I've put it into a sink of cold water to chill it out a bit. Sounds like I'll be getting proper beer out of it though, relieved!

 

[Fil]

dont worry too much, afaik (i read a book a while ago) the yeast will initially be in their aerobic growth stage and a higher temp isnt a problem, its when they have exhausted the o2 supply and start the non-aerobic phase when they start producing the alcohol and by product flavours, and this is when you want to keep the temps cooler.. so all is probably very good, time to sit back and chill perhaps..

 

[Leon103]

Well done on your first brew. You will get used to your equipment and measurement will come with time

 

[chrisbjones202]

After a few brews it gets more relaxing. I always put my protoflock on top of my late hops to remind me.

My favourite bit of kit is my thermopen, not cheap but almost instant reading and use it all the time in the kitchen too.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

[johnw]

Update on this thread. I was going to leave it for another week before tasting, honestly I was. But I am a weak, weak man. I tried a bottle, after a 2 weeks in the FV and 1 week in the bottle. I was surprised to find it was a GORGEOUS drink, even this soon after bottling! Looking forward to drinking the next 34 :)

Strong as hell though, I'd thought I had an OG of 1058 but I think I measured that at around the 35 degrees I pitched at, so the actual gravity was probably more like 1063. The high pitching temperature made my yeast (Wyeast American Ale 1056 - 1l starter) go mental within about an hour, and bubble away for days. Finishing gravity after 2 weeks was 1010, so the ale is probably around 6.6 ABV. So a nice, strong, beautiful tasting IPA for my first AG beer, if not a bit cloudy because I forgot that bloody protofloc. Couldn't be happier!

 

[Oneflewover]

Nice one, no looking back now!

 

[mmaguy41]

Straight in at the deep end then! Sounds like you’ve ended up with a good beer and it can only get better from now on