SafetyThird
Active Member
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2018
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Originally a teenage brewer of ropey Boots beer kits because it was cheap, I didn't brew again until the past couple of years. The kits had improved but, now in my 50's, so have my tastes. A bit of research on here led me to the 'have a go at simple all grain' thread so a few evening's reading ensued. At the start of lockdown, I ordered a bunch of supplies from Geterbrewed with the idea I'd have plenty of time to do some brewing experiments. Somehow 9 weeks have gone past and there's now a 48' polytunnel in the allotment, a new chicken house for our additional chickens built just from what was lying around in the barn, a couple of weeks getting all the vegetables in the ground, a few days trying to tame the jungle that used to be our lawn, dagged the sheep and picked up a couple more piglets to fatten for the autumn. Don't seem to have had a spare moment.
However, yesterday I cleared the kitchen out, pulled all the supplies together and did my first all grain. I forgot to take many photos as I was constantly checking my notes and the tick sheet I'd printed out and keeping an eye on it all. I brewed the English IPA from Greg Hughes book, at half size, so 11.5L.
Laid out all the ingredients and put the hop pellets in some jam straining bags and tied the tops with butchers string. According to the book, I needed ⅛ of a protofloc tablet but they don't break very cleanly. I'm wondering if I can just use ¼ or ½ a tablet and if that will make much difference. I think it ended up being about ¼ of a tablet.
I'm doing a partial brew-in-a-bag method in that I'm using a cooler as a mash tun but with a bag in there to make doing a sparge a lot easier as there's no valve in the cooler to drain it, I just pour out the mash and throw in the sparge water. Discovered the bag I bought is nowhere near big enough for the cooler, I managed ok with my wife holding the bag open while I poured the grains in and stirred but I think I'll be buying a much bigger one that will go over the edges more easily. I 'might' consider putting a drain valve in the bottom of the cooler too as lifting and pouring from it with the attached lid isn't very easy.
Did a 1 hour mash, temperature dropped about 3 degrees which seems ok, then a 20 minute sparge soak after.
Then it's into my shiny new 23l pressure canner that arrived recently and is now the largest pot in the house. This seems a decent size setup to work with for now, making 20 pints at a time, gives me a chance to experiment with various recipes and the equipment is all stuff we have around the house anyway so investment is fairly low so far.
Apart from the grains and hops, I've only bought some copper pipe to make a wort chiller and the brewing bag, oh and an extra fermentation bin to make racking/bottling a bit easier.
Boil off seemed a reasonable amount, I didn't measure but 3-4 litres seems likely. The induction hob was on max through the whole boil so I think this might be the limit of the size I can brew on our home hob. I'm hesitant to invest in a larger pot without testing first to see if the hob would keep up. Otherwise I'd have to buy a new heater or propane burner to handle the mass of wort.
I was very impressed with how fast the chiller brought the temperature down, with some stirring of the wort, it was done in 5 minutes.
Then out with the hop bags, into the fermentation bin, pitch in the yeast I'd activated and into the game/charcuterie/beer fridge in the barn at 18 degrees and we'll see how it goes.
The level on the bin says just over 13L, which seems higher than expected but I don't know how accurate that is, I should have tested it but forgot.
OG after mash was 1038 and after boil-off 1058. All in all, it took a few hours but it was very enjoyable. I have enough supplies to make a few more batches so a bitter and a porter are next on the list once this one's done. I won't be going back to kits if this turns out well :)
However, yesterday I cleared the kitchen out, pulled all the supplies together and did my first all grain. I forgot to take many photos as I was constantly checking my notes and the tick sheet I'd printed out and keeping an eye on it all. I brewed the English IPA from Greg Hughes book, at half size, so 11.5L.
Laid out all the ingredients and put the hop pellets in some jam straining bags and tied the tops with butchers string. According to the book, I needed ⅛ of a protofloc tablet but they don't break very cleanly. I'm wondering if I can just use ¼ or ½ a tablet and if that will make much difference. I think it ended up being about ¼ of a tablet.
I'm doing a partial brew-in-a-bag method in that I'm using a cooler as a mash tun but with a bag in there to make doing a sparge a lot easier as there's no valve in the cooler to drain it, I just pour out the mash and throw in the sparge water. Discovered the bag I bought is nowhere near big enough for the cooler, I managed ok with my wife holding the bag open while I poured the grains in and stirred but I think I'll be buying a much bigger one that will go over the edges more easily. I 'might' consider putting a drain valve in the bottom of the cooler too as lifting and pouring from it with the attached lid isn't very easy.
Did a 1 hour mash, temperature dropped about 3 degrees which seems ok, then a 20 minute sparge soak after.
Then it's into my shiny new 23l pressure canner that arrived recently and is now the largest pot in the house. This seems a decent size setup to work with for now, making 20 pints at a time, gives me a chance to experiment with various recipes and the equipment is all stuff we have around the house anyway so investment is fairly low so far.
Apart from the grains and hops, I've only bought some copper pipe to make a wort chiller and the brewing bag, oh and an extra fermentation bin to make racking/bottling a bit easier.
Boil off seemed a reasonable amount, I didn't measure but 3-4 litres seems likely. The induction hob was on max through the whole boil so I think this might be the limit of the size I can brew on our home hob. I'm hesitant to invest in a larger pot without testing first to see if the hob would keep up. Otherwise I'd have to buy a new heater or propane burner to handle the mass of wort.
I was very impressed with how fast the chiller brought the temperature down, with some stirring of the wort, it was done in 5 minutes.
Then out with the hop bags, into the fermentation bin, pitch in the yeast I'd activated and into the game/charcuterie/beer fridge in the barn at 18 degrees and we'll see how it goes.
The level on the bin says just over 13L, which seems higher than expected but I don't know how accurate that is, I should have tested it but forgot.
OG after mash was 1038 and after boil-off 1058. All in all, it took a few hours but it was very enjoyable. I have enough supplies to make a few more batches so a bitter and a porter are next on the list once this one's done. I won't be going back to kits if this turns out well :)
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