Planning the brew day

jezbrews · Sep 4, 2022

Hi, so this will be my first all grain batch on my AIO, and it's the first all grain batch I've done in about a year after doing a couple of clones. As such, I've had to relearn what to do. The fact it's on the Brewzilla shouldn't make much difference but as I need recommendations on anything I've missed, this could be relevant. Due to small volume, I won't bother sparging, and I will use a bag instead of the grain pipe. Please let me know if I've missed anything!

This is a simple, single hop pale ale small batch, with the intention of ending up with ~10L. Water quantities derived from Brewfather recipe "plan".

Ingredients:
2.1kg Pale Ale Malt 87.5% of bill
300g Extra Light Crystal 100 12.5% of bill

61g Cascade hops in total, split 10g, 10g, 17g, 24g

Lallemand English Ale Yeast

1. Heat 16.5L water to 76°C (ordinarily 11L of strike, 5.5L of sparge) with full 2.4kW
2. gradually in grain, mixing as I go
3. Heat to 65°C and turn on circulation pump
4. Leave for 1 hr
5. Turn off circulation arm, raise malt out and allow to drain
6. Check gravity, should be 1.042 or thereabouts
7. Raise to boil with hop spider
8. 10g at 60 mins, get dried yeast culture started
9. 10g at 30 mins, get chilling bin of water with ice blocks filled and pump ready*
10. 17g at 20 mins
11. Insert chiller with pipe fittings at 10 mins to sterilise
11. At 0, take gravity reading. Should be 1.053 or thereabouts. Put in final 24g of hops
12. Start chiller circulation, should take less than half an hour with such a small mass of wort
13. When down to 24°C, drain to FV which should reduce the temperature a degree or two and check gravity one last time.
15. Pitch yeast
16. Leave!

I have a tap adapter for hosing in the post so I will be able to chill straight from the tap flow rather than a bin of cold water, more reliable for larger masses, but as this is such a small batch, I'm not too concerned about the length of time.

what do you think?

Rwilts · Sep 4, 2022

Water chemistry? If only Camden tablet for 20 min before mashing in.

And I know we discussed this on other thread but with that amount of grain I think your going to be very high if you start at 76 if your looking for 65.

And finally why a bag instaed of the malt pipe ( I was a BIAB brewer for a long time so not against it ) you could achieve exactly same with the malt pipe and I find them easier to clean !

jezbrews · Sep 4, 2022

Rwilts said:
Water chemistry? If only Camden tablet for 20 min before mashing in.

And I know we discussed this on other thread but with that amount of grain I think your going to be very high if you start at 76 if your looking for 65.

And finally why a bag instaed of the malt pipe ( I was a BIAB brewer for a long time so not against it ) you could achieve exactly same with the malt pipe and I find them easier to clean !

a) I will get to that in time. I've got a water filter and I'm actually going to get the mineral profile of my tap water, when filtered, examined, but getting the basic process is what I'm going for here.

b) I was quite tired yesterday evening so maybe I didn't take it in. Should I just go with a couple degrees, like 67?

c) I won't be used the malt pipe because there is a risk that, with the dead space to the false bottom, the quantity of water involved won't sufficiently cover grain in the malt pipe, even with the circulation pump. Ordinarily I would just use the malt pipe.