Have a go at simple AG

[Oneflewover]

so sorry if I'm sounding slow this evening so you're saying 4 weeks in the FV (2 to ferment and 2 to condition)?

Hmmmm. I rarely leave a beer in primary for more than 2 weeks. My opinion of the 2+2+2 guide, fwiw, is 2 weeks primary fermentation in FV, 2 weeks secondary (carbonation) in bottles / keg, 2 weeks conditioning at cellar temps.

 

[AlienMarky]

Super, I'll give that a go with the next batxh, or at least it'll give me an excuse to run two batches at the same time to see the difference!

 

[dleary]

Thanks as well will give that a try so

 

[dan125]

I think you're getting your carbing & conditioning muddled.
The usual 2+2+2 routine is;
2 weeks in fermenter
then
2 weeks carbing (in warm)
then
2 weeks conditioning (in the cool)
:small

 

[cushyno]

I think you're getting your carbing & conditioning muddled.
The usual 2+2+2 routine is;
2 weeks in fermenter
then
2 weeks carbing (in warm)
then
2 weeks conditioning (in the cool)
:small

I'm still learning too. There is another thread on the go right now about conditioning (https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/when-to-cold-crash-condition.78495/) that is also useful.

So I am learning that conditioning refers to the phase after bottling/kegging rather than the clearing phase that may be allowed to happen in the FV or secondary (or even in the bottle). And though some conditioning will take place just by letting the beer stand after fermentation, you ideally want to allow it to condition (at whatever temperature is appropriate for the style) after carbing in keg/bottle. In my limited understanding, some styles need almost no conditioning and are best consumed young (light ales, wit beers and hop bombs) with others needing weeks or months (like stouts and barley wines).

Is that right?

 

[dan125]

I'm still learning too. There is another thread on the go right now about conditioning (https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/when-to-cold-crash-condition.78495/) that is also useful.

So I am learning that conditioning refers to the phase after bottling/kegging rather than the clearing phase that may be allowed to happen in the FV or secondary (or even in the bottle). And though some conditioning will take place just by letting the beer stand after fermentation, you ideally want to allow it to condition (at whatever temperature is appropriate for the style) after carbing in keg/bottle. In my limited understanding, some styles need almost no conditioning and are best consumed young (light ales, wit beers and hop bombs) with others needing weeks or months (like stouts and barley wines).

Is that right?

Yep that's right. Even if you leave the beer to clear in the FV it'll need some time to settle/condition after re-fermenting a bit if you are naturally carbing.
And sorry for any confusion as I hadn't seen @Oneflewover 's post - I was replying to the earlier post.

 

[stan.distortion]

Finally got around to this! There's about half an hour of the boil left to go and the kitchen looks like a sticky disaster but it went without a hitch. Add one more to the many thanks to clibit for starting this thread, it was the inspiration to having a go at AG.

Waiting for a stockpot was the main delay and that finally arrived this morning so the first step was checking how much would boil off during the boil and whether my cooker was capable of holding a boil! All went well, 15L stock pot, 10L for test, 8L after 1 hour.

Also tested my thermometer at the same time and a good thing I did, reading 104 deg in a freshly boiled kettle and reading 69 deg at a reading of 66 using the inkbird probe.

Cooling those 8L from boiling to under 30 deg took around 45 minutes in the sink, all set to go.

Keeping things very basic with 2kg pale malt, 5g of magnum hops at 60min and 5g of magnum at 5. Aiming for 8L to fit comfortably in 2 demijohns, allowing 1L for trub, 2L for boil off, wasn't sure how much to sparge so went with 8L and sparge up to 11L.

Made one noob mistake after the mast and plonked the hydrometer straight in the mash at 60 deg, thankfully no damage done but was a bit disappointed at the reading of 1.03... brewtarget worked it out at 1.039 at 70% efficiency but then I did the temp correction and got 1.043. After filling a sample jar and allowing it to cool it came in at 1.042 so 76.45% efficiency, very pleased with that :)

The last hops have just gone in and it smells the business, will update as it progresses.

EDIT: Oops, nearly forgot the sacrifice to the gods of brewing! A pint of the LHBS own brand golden ale kit opened up and going down well, only a week and a half in the bottle but pretty good all the same and it was a shock to realise I can taste the sweet malty stuff that just came off the stove in it, a bit of what it was before it was boiled away to nothing and poured into a plastic bag.

Anyway, all done bar the cleanup, one demijohn pitched with US-05 and the other with Nottingham. Looks kinda sludgy and grey at the mo but I'm betting it'll turn out the best brew I ever tasted

 

[Mungri]

Finally got around to this! There's about half an hour of the boil left to go and the kitchen looks like a sticky disaster but it went without a hitch. Add one more to the many thanks to clibit for starting this thread, it was the inspiration to having a go at AG.

Waiting for a stockpot was the main delay and that finally arrived this morning so the first step was checking how much would boil off during the boil and whether my cooker was capable of holding a boil! All went well, 15L stock pot, 10L for test, 8L after 1 hour.

Also tested my thermometer at the same time and a good thing I did, reading 104 deg in a freshly boiled kettle and reading 69 deg at a reading of 66 using the inkbird probe.

Cooling those 8L from boiling to under 30 deg took around 45 minutes in the sink, all set to go.

Keeping things very basic with 2kg pale malt, 5g of magnum hops at 60min and 5g of magnum at 5. Aiming for 8L to fit comfortably in 2 demijohns, allowing 1L for trub, 2L for boil off, wasn't sure how much to sparge so went with 8L and sparge up to 11L.

Made one noob mistake after the mast and plonked the hydrometer straight in the mash at 60 deg, thankfully no damage done but was a bit disappointed at the reading of 1.03... brewtarget worked it out at 1.039 at 70% efficiency but then I did the temp correction and got 1.043. After filling a sample jar and allowing it to cool it came in at 1.042 so 76.45% efficiency, very pleased with that :)

The last hops have just gone in and it smells the business, will update as it progresses.

Sounds like the business.
I wonder if Clibit knows how many people he’s set on the AG road.

 

[AlienMarky]

I've harvested a bunch of hops from work so thought I might have a go at this again wet hopped, and dry the remainder in the interim for later use.

 

[AlienMarky]

Did another batch but think something went a bit awry. Ended up having to add 2.5l to the FV to get the volume up to 5l! It's starting at 1.030 which I'm fine with, but not sure how I lost so much in the boil as I started with 6l.

 

[dleary]

Tried my first all grain beer last night only and was very pleasantly surprised how good it was, although I shouldn’t be after reading this thread. I followed the recipe but used mosaic hops. It was only bottled a little over a week so maybe this is what surprised me most regarding the taste

 

[Dunkocaster]

If I want to add Oats to my recipe can I use any type of Oats ? Scotts ? do they have to be milled etc ?

 

[braziliain]

If I want to add Oats to my recipe can I use any type of Oats ? Scotts ? do they have to be milled etc ?

I often use a small quantity of rolled breakfast oats from Aldi in my mash, yes. No need to mill.

 

[Martybhoy]

Yep. Just use regular breakfast porridge oats.

 

[MyQul]

I use 'Marks & Spencer you plebs cant afford these' oats, because Im posh

 

[Slid]

Tried my first all grain beer last night only and was very pleasantly surprised how good it was, although I shouldn’t be after reading this thread. I followed the recipe but used mosaic hops. It was only bottled a little over a week so maybe this is what surprised me most regarding the taste

Most commercial beers are drunk around this time. I recall (from the OP on this thread) that AG is unlike the "never-never land of kits" in the sense that it is drinkable much earlier. This is especially true of the fashionable highly hopped beers using hops like Mosaic.

 

[Underbrew]

Long time lurker of this forum, first time poster! Some great information that has helped me out so far. I've done 6 kits over the last few years so decided it's about time to give this simple AG a go.

With my 2 year old at nursery tomorrow I've got a spare day to give it a try. I've got a few (probably stupid) questions if any of you kind folk can help me out...

I'll be giving it a go in the infamous wilko 12 litre stock pot, I have a muslin bag large enough to fit in comfortably. Does it make a difference if I carry out the mash with the grains in the bag then lift the bag out to use in the sparge, or mash thr grains directly in the pan then filter via the muslin?

Also debating whether to go for a 5l or 10l for the first go (i have plenty of ingredients) has anyone got any experience of a 10l boil in these wilko 12 litre pots, is it pushing it?

Many thanks in advance!

 

[MyQul]

Long time lurker of this forum, first time poster! Some great information that has helped me out so far. I've done 6 kits over the last few years so decided it's about time to give this simple AG a go.

With my 2 year old at nursery tomorrow I've got a spare day to give it a try. I've got a few (probably stupid) questions if any of you kind folk can help me out...

I'll be giving it a go in the infamous wilko 12 litre stock pot, I have a muslin bag large enough to fit in comfortably. Does it make a difference if I carry out the mash with the grains in the bag then lift the bag out to use in the sparge, or mash thr grains directly in the pan then filter via the muslin?

Also debating whether to go for a 5l or 10l for the first go (i have plenty of ingredients) has anyone got any experience of a 10l boil in these wilko 12 litre pots, is it pushing it?

Many thanks in advance!

It dosnt matter really if you mash the grain either in or out of the mash bag but it will be LOADS easier to do them n the bag as you can just lift them out.

I use the Wilko stock pot (it actually 15L to the brim) for 10L brews. You can quite easily do a 10L brew in it if you want

 

[Underbrew]

Brilliant thanks for the reply, I'll give it a try in the morning and report back!

 

[MmmBeer]

Long time lurker of this forum, first time poster! Some great information that has helped me out so far. I've done 6 kits over the last few years so decided it's about time to give this simple AG a go.

With my 2 year old at nursery tomorrow I've got a spare day to give it a try. I've got a few (probably stupid) questions if any of you kind folk can help me out...

I'll be giving it a go in the infamous wilko 12 litre stock pot, I have a muslin bag large enough to fit in comfortably. Does it make a difference if I carry out the mash with the grains in the bag then lift the bag out to use in the sparge, or mash thr grains directly in the pan then filter via the muslin?

Also debating whether to go for a 5l or 10l for the first go (i have plenty of ingredients) has anyone got any experience of a 10l boil in these wilko 12 litre pots, is it pushing it?

Many thanks in advance!

I did many 10 litre brews in my Wilko stock pot and it worked fine. I later managed to push it up to 11.5 litres, which meant that I could copy a 5 gallon/ 23 litre recipe from a book / online and simply halve all quantities. As MyQul said, it's easier to put the grains in the bag for the mash, drain the bag and pour the wort into another container, such as your fermenter, then dunk the bag of grain into the sparge liquor for 10 mins and combine the two lots of wort in your pot for the boil.