First of all a short disclaimer, I'm new to this, I'm a noob, read a few brewing books, had a few drunken chats about brewing, watched lots of YouTube videos. I tend to ramble on a bit, so read on at your discretion and feel free to correct anything!
My second ever Brewday, first all grain...
Prep
- Found a recipe for Gamma Ray recipe (my favourite beer currently) on these forums. Originally from the Brewdog book "Craft Beer for the People". https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/attachments/photo-on-17-01-2018-at-16-29-jpg.12242 posted by Braindead on Jan 17 2018 in the thread https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/gamma-ray-original.74382/page-3
- Bought myself a grainfather
- Loaded the recipe into the Grainfather website and downloaded it to my iPhone
- Ordered all my hops on ebay from crossmyloof brewery
- Ordered my malts and yeast from the Malt miller website
- Ordered some protofloc off of ebay
Saturday 6th October - Brewday
- I brew in my attic (the guest bedroom) and use the attic bathroom for cleaning and water requirements
- Started about 12pm on a Saturday and began by preparing a newly bought spray bottle with star san and sanitising everything
- My grainfather is sat in my attic below a roof light window for ventilation, filled it with 15.2 litres of tap water straight from the tap using a 2 litre filling jug from a tap in the bathroom
- Set the GF to preheat the strike water up to 69 degrees
- Measured out my malts (4.33 kg of malt, extra crisp malt, cara gold and cara malt)
- Once my strike water was up to temp (must say the GF bluetooth thing is fantastic as I could check from downstairs) after about 20 mins I mixed everything in and began the mash
- Measured out the remaining hops used during the boil and hop stand hops, also cut a quarter of a protofloc tablet up
- After 60 mins of mashing (enjoyed watching GF recirculating and doing its thing) the "Mash out" began. 5 mins to hit the mash out temp of 77 degrees then 10 mins more of mashing out
- Kicked off the sparging session and the GF began raising the temp to boiling temp
- Sparged using a mixture of boiled kettle water and cold tap water using my 2 litre plastic jug over the raised GF grain bucket
- Took a while going back and forth, boiling and filling the jug up, also tracking the amount of sparge water. Would be nice to have a sparge water heater (though for now I've spent enough :) so I didn't have to mess about heating and getting water from the tap (10.3 litres). I managed to blow a fuse in my power extension cable too by trying to use the GF and boil a kettle from the same socket at the same time, which was a lot of fun.
- Finally got to the boil after all the faff of changing sockets and getting back to the right stage on the GF
- Put the hop spider in and put in the initial 7g of columbus
- Boiled for 60 mins, put in 1/4 of a protofloc tablet after 45 mins
- Used the GF pump to pump the hot wort through the GF counterflow wort chiller for 10 mins to sanitise it
- Cooled to about 92 degrees celsius and put in the remaining hop pellets (Bravo - 8g, Amarillo - 8g, Mosaic - 8g, Columbus - 8g) into the spider
- Left to stand for 20 mins
- Tried to hook up the GF chiller to my hosepipe (which I dragged out of the outhouse) but worked out I had the wrong connectors so couldn't use it
- Tried to pump the hotish wort into the FV but the GF pump decided to start making a strange whirring noise at me and do nothing despite everything I tried
- Went back about 1 - 2 hours later and managed to pump, think it must have cleared itself (anyone who can clear up why this happens / what to do would be helpful. Maybe need to request a new pump from GF? It's brand new after all). Pumped into the FV bucket and sealed it up with an airlock on it.
- Wort cooled to about 21 degrees by about 2am on Sunday morning and I pitched the yeast (US-05) dried yeast, sealed it up, wrapped it up with an old set of blackout material and set it aside in the attic
- The cleanup, took me absolutely ages, cleaned all the GF stuff in a sink downstairs, nice shiny stainless steel
. Worst part though was having to get up all the hot sticky wort that managed to get on everything and all over the floor. Probably the worst part of it all, hated it!
- OG came in at 1.047, so undershot what I was aiming for (0.051), maybe due to the cold sparging?
- All in all took me from mid-day until 2am to get everything done, was an epic day, definately need to become way more efficient, I'm hoping this will come with experience and time though
Fermentation
Tuesday 17th September
- After 10 days hit FG of 1.008
- Had a taste, tastes awfully bitter but I'm hoping that because it isn't ready, googled it and seems that's quite common (I'm a noob, give me some slack)
- Added my dry hops (Amarillo - 42g, Calypso - 16g, Citra - 50g) straight into the FV, no bags or anything right into the Primary FV
- Looking to get myself better fermentation control as I'm struggling to keep the target temp of 19 - 21 degrees celsius currently
Next steps
- After 5 days of dry hopping, I'll bottle up (22/10/18)
- I'll add some pictures to this post when I get a minute
Anyway. enough rambling, happy brewing and cheers!
My second ever Brewday, first all grain...
Prep
- Found a recipe for Gamma Ray recipe (my favourite beer currently) on these forums. Originally from the Brewdog book "Craft Beer for the People". https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/attachments/photo-on-17-01-2018-at-16-29-jpg.12242 posted by Braindead on Jan 17 2018 in the thread https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/gamma-ray-original.74382/page-3
- Bought myself a grainfather
- Loaded the recipe into the Grainfather website and downloaded it to my iPhone
- Ordered all my hops on ebay from crossmyloof brewery
- Ordered my malts and yeast from the Malt miller website
- Ordered some protofloc off of ebay
Saturday 6th October - Brewday
- I brew in my attic (the guest bedroom) and use the attic bathroom for cleaning and water requirements
- Started about 12pm on a Saturday and began by preparing a newly bought spray bottle with star san and sanitising everything
- My grainfather is sat in my attic below a roof light window for ventilation, filled it with 15.2 litres of tap water straight from the tap using a 2 litre filling jug from a tap in the bathroom
- Set the GF to preheat the strike water up to 69 degrees
- Measured out my malts (4.33 kg of malt, extra crisp malt, cara gold and cara malt)
- Once my strike water was up to temp (must say the GF bluetooth thing is fantastic as I could check from downstairs) after about 20 mins I mixed everything in and began the mash
- Measured out the remaining hops used during the boil and hop stand hops, also cut a quarter of a protofloc tablet up
- After 60 mins of mashing (enjoyed watching GF recirculating and doing its thing) the "Mash out" began. 5 mins to hit the mash out temp of 77 degrees then 10 mins more of mashing out
- Kicked off the sparging session and the GF began raising the temp to boiling temp
- Sparged using a mixture of boiled kettle water and cold tap water using my 2 litre plastic jug over the raised GF grain bucket
- Took a while going back and forth, boiling and filling the jug up, also tracking the amount of sparge water. Would be nice to have a sparge water heater (though for now I've spent enough :) so I didn't have to mess about heating and getting water from the tap (10.3 litres). I managed to blow a fuse in my power extension cable too by trying to use the GF and boil a kettle from the same socket at the same time, which was a lot of fun.
- Finally got to the boil after all the faff of changing sockets and getting back to the right stage on the GF
- Put the hop spider in and put in the initial 7g of columbus
- Boiled for 60 mins, put in 1/4 of a protofloc tablet after 45 mins
- Used the GF pump to pump the hot wort through the GF counterflow wort chiller for 10 mins to sanitise it
- Cooled to about 92 degrees celsius and put in the remaining hop pellets (Bravo - 8g, Amarillo - 8g, Mosaic - 8g, Columbus - 8g) into the spider
- Left to stand for 20 mins
- Tried to hook up the GF chiller to my hosepipe (which I dragged out of the outhouse) but worked out I had the wrong connectors so couldn't use it
- Tried to pump the hotish wort into the FV but the GF pump decided to start making a strange whirring noise at me and do nothing despite everything I tried
- Went back about 1 - 2 hours later and managed to pump, think it must have cleared itself (anyone who can clear up why this happens / what to do would be helpful. Maybe need to request a new pump from GF? It's brand new after all). Pumped into the FV bucket and sealed it up with an airlock on it.
- Wort cooled to about 21 degrees by about 2am on Sunday morning and I pitched the yeast (US-05) dried yeast, sealed it up, wrapped it up with an old set of blackout material and set it aside in the attic
- The cleanup, took me absolutely ages, cleaned all the GF stuff in a sink downstairs, nice shiny stainless steel
. Worst part though was having to get up all the hot sticky wort that managed to get on everything and all over the floor. Probably the worst part of it all, hated it!- OG came in at 1.047, so undershot what I was aiming for (0.051), maybe due to the cold sparging?
- All in all took me from mid-day until 2am to get everything done, was an epic day, definately need to become way more efficient, I'm hoping this will come with experience and time though
Fermentation
Tuesday 17th September
- After 10 days hit FG of 1.008
- Had a taste, tastes awfully bitter but I'm hoping that because it isn't ready, googled it and seems that's quite common (I'm a noob, give me some slack)
- Added my dry hops (Amarillo - 42g, Calypso - 16g, Citra - 50g) straight into the FV, no bags or anything right into the Primary FV
- Looking to get myself better fermentation control as I'm struggling to keep the target temp of 19 - 21 degrees celsius currently
Next steps
- After 5 days of dry hopping, I'll bottle up (22/10/18)
- I'll add some pictures to this post when I get a minute
Anyway. enough rambling, happy brewing and cheers!
