First partial mash of 2013.

[Duxuk]

This year I will start to do AG with a brew in the bag setup, initially, at least. But time and beer wait for no man and I haven't got my system in place so, yesterday, I thought i'd better get brewing.
With my current equipment I can manage to mash a kilo of grain plus some crused crystal and by adding another kilo of DME I brew 15 litres.
I brewed before Christmas and bottled it just before New Year. When I tasted the brew, to which I had added 200g of sugar to up the gravity, I was well chuffed. It is strong and a little sweet so I decided to do everything the same but to drop the sugar completely.

Firstly I mash a kilo of Maris Otter and 150g of crushed crystal in 2.5l of water. I heated the water to 75C but lot concentration so it got to 80C. After cooling to 78C I added the grain and found the temp was 69C, only one degree over my target. I put the stockpot in the oven set to 60C which experience tells me will hold it to temperature. This time it did rise to 70C during the 90 minutes.
Could someone remind me of the effects of higher mashing temps?
I drained and rinsed the mash giving me about 6l of liquid which I brought to the boil with the Kilo of DME added. I don't have a big enough stock pot yet to boil the hops together with the malt so I put this in the FV whilst I made a hop tea in the stockpot to add to the FV later.
15g Northern Brewer for 60 mins
15g Cascade for 20 mins
15g Cascade for last 5 mins.

I drainid this into the FV then rinsed through with warm 75C (ish) water to make up to 15l.
Today I added some Gervin English Ale yeast and fermentation is just starting.
The OG was 1044.
It's a bit more time consuming than a kit or pure extract brew but I hope the results will be well worth the effort.
Sorry I have no pictures. The camera's batteries had gone AWOL intp one of my son's toys, I'd wager.

 

[pittsy]

hi , sounds like a good brew day , mashing at higher temps will give a "thicker beer" or more mouthfeel , mashing lower will make a thinner beer but stronger . You may wish to mash in at 64c for 20 mins then raise to 68/70c for the remainder giving you the best of both . Btw the sweetness in your last brew may of been down to mashing high and crystal malt , it won't be the sugar as the yeast will consume it so it will be from the unfermentable sugars from the mash (high mash = more unfermentable low= more fermentable sugars thus stronger abv% ) Your brew may only get to 1014/1016 .
If it was me and i thought it was too sweet , next brew i would use less crystal , no sugar and mash in at 66c or 64c+68c . hope it turns out a good un .