My brew - Wherry Clone

[PD]

and a bit of lacing too....er this was the end of No2....

 

[PD]

Chiller is on.....................and the boiler is OFF ( I had to check ! )

 

[PD]

after my 60 min boil I'd still got 21 litres of wort plus my 3 litre dead space... so I think this is where I lost out on my gravity...hey ho
So I boiled a bit longer..... :lol: :lol: :twisted:
Ended up with 19 litres plus my dead space, will see what the gravity has come out later when its cooled.

Coffee time.... Sarah Hughes is a strong lass. :clap:

 

[PD]

OOh happy bunny now. 19 litres in the fermenter with an Og reading of 1.044...... :party:

still down on what brewmate says but a possible 4.2% brew will do me nicely.

I think this will be my last brew with this equipment ( hopefully any way ) so I'm not going to delve too deep into what went wrong with volumes and gravities, Hopefully I will get my new equipment set up better...

time to clean up and relax for 10mins

 

[calumscott]

Nice one PD! I'd rather have been doing that than working... :thumb:

 

[Jeltz]

If your efficiency is down you might want to try giving it a 2 hour mash and see if that improves things. I think the bizarrely high efficiency I've had has been due to the overnight mashing and the fact that the insulation has kept the temperature from dropping much in the 1st few hours.

 

[PD]

Agreed Nic, I'm going to look at mashing times I can't see any reason not to extend it to 2 hours, although for some unknown reason I'm still losing a good 4/5 degrees from the Mash Tun, in the 90 mins.. Its a good insulated cool box with plenty of external insulation thrown across it. So until I can work that problem out I shall not be doing overnight mashes, ( which I'd like to do )

The wort looks and tastes quite nice..... Just added trusty old S-04 yeast at pitching temp of 20C

Efficiency showing at 70%... :?

 

[graysalchemy]

Well done PD :thumb:

 

[screamlead]

Good post well done m8 - might try one of these in the future, when i get some of those hops. :

 

[Cononthebarber]

Great brewday post would love to have a go at this! What was the recipe?

 

[PD]

Recipe used is as follows. I'm sorry to say I cant remember where I collected it from, When I decided to go All Grain I trawled lots of places and copied recipes that appealed and looked simple to do I did.t copy where I'd got them....

19 litre brew length

Maris Otter 3.2kg
Dark Crystal 400gms
Wheat Malt 200gms.

Hops
EKG 20rms 60 min
Progress 12gms 60 min
Bobek ( Styrian Golding ) 40gms last 10 mins with a protoflock tablet plopped in.

Yeast s-04 re hydrated before use.

90 min mash and 70 min boil this time.. :grin:

Still undecided whether to dry hop in fermenter with some Bobek, recipe did not request it.

refreshments were 2 pints of Sarah Hughes Mild and a Greggs steak slice ! ..... all in all a good day.

 

[caerleon]

Dry hopping is a good idea!

 

[PD]

Just a bit concerned that it may overpower it if I dry hop.
The brew had 40gms of Bobek in last 10 mins of boil...might go for a taste test after initial ferment is finished....

 

[caerleon]

I had 70gms at the end. Dry hopping only adds aroma, not bitterness.

 

[Cononthebarber]

Nice one, Wherry is still my favourite kit I've made by far so it would be great to make a decent AG clone! I will put this on my (ever expanding) "to do" list of brews... :

Will be interested in how this turns out, keep us posted :thumb:

 

[LeedsBrewer]

looks like the day went well PD.

Well done :thumb:

 

[PD]

Had a little ponder overnight....

At the moment my gravities are a little low from the sparge, probably due to several reasons, but as it is I do one sparge of 60 mins ( working on 2.75 litres per kg of grain) I then add 5 or 6 litres of hotter sparge water mix well and leave for 15 mins. I then drain this off.
I then add enough hot water (80C) to give me my final volume, mix well leave for 15 mins and then drain off.
I'm wondering if the last 2 x 15 mins mashes are not long enough to help enough sugars to be extracted.
My first batch sparge of 60 mins usually gives me a good high gravity reading....I seem to fall down on the second one too much.
So I am thinking of doubling those times to 30 mins each to see if there's any improvement.
A total mash time of 120 mins.
Another little change I'm considering is when I first start the Mash. At the moment I " warm the mash tun " with just one litre of boiling water and wait 10 mins or so before adding the rest of the water and mixing in the grains.
I can't seem to keep the temps up even though the tun is well insulated so I'm thinking of putting 10 litres of boiling water in and leaving it sealed for a good length of time ( say 1 hour ) before emptying and then mixing the mashing waters and grain.
All together an extra 1 and a half hours on the Mash might improve my efficiencies and gravity readings.

P.S. The Wherry is bubbling away nicely.

 

[screamlead]

Just to follow on - my last two brews were both under their projected SG by about 10 points and i had to add sugar to bring them back up. But as i malt my own i put this down to the malting i did on that batch for those brews. My 3 most recent brews were just about spot on with their SG projections so i can only presume it was my malting. But you guys must get a more consistent type of malt than i do as those maltsters will be doing massive batches, but even so i would think there may be slight changes in extraction rates down to different malts and methods.
Thats the way i see it any others think the same etc???

 

[PD]

I would guess that by malting your own, it wouldn't be as efficient as say a commercial malster, but thats not to say its vastly inefficient. and you get the pleasure and experience of Malting.
Adding sugar to bring the SG back up always feels like a little cheat to me... :) especially when you do it because you have failed to hit your target.

 

[Jeltz]

Simple Solution: Lower the efficiency percentage in your brewing software to what you are actually getting then you'll hit your targets and not worry any more