Today's One Can partial mash

[baggybill]

Would that be Smileyr8's recipe, per chance?

The lager kit looks favourite for a mini mash. You could try something like 1.7kg MO, 200g Crystal and 100g RB. 2kg of grain (or a bit less) is plenty for a first try and will allow you to add whatever hops take your fancy on the day.

I say, Just Do It, it will be worth the time and effort.

Well, I just did it :pray:

That's the Tom Caxton Lager kit used up and... I've made something :?

Kept the grain close to 2kg, had to wing it on the hops as I had the amounts but no timings for them (read - only had half a recipe!):

Tom Caxton Lager - Partial Mash
Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 23.0
Total Grain (kg): 4.600
Total Hops (g): 30.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.054 (°P): 13.3
Final Gravity (FG): 1.014 (°P): 3.6
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 5.31 %
Colour (SRM): 7.4 (EBC): 14.5
Bitterness (IBU): 9.1 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 70
Boil Time (Minutes): 60
Grain Bill
----------------
2.000 kg Lager Malt (43.48%)
1.800 kg Liquid Malt Extract - Light (Kit) (39.13%)
0.500 kg Dry Malt Extract - Light (10.87%)
0.200 kg Crystal 60 (4.35%)
0.100 kg Torrified Wheat (2.17%)
Hop Bill
----------------
15.0 g Perle Pellet (4.5% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (0.7 g/L)
7.5 g Saaz Pellet (2.3% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil) (0.3 g/L)
7.5 g Saaz Pellet (2.3% Alpha) @ 1 Minutes (Boil) (0.3 g/L)
Misc Bill
----------------
6L mash & 6L sparge
Fermented at 18°C with Safale US-05

My measured OG at 21' was 1.056 so happy I was in the area. My wort chiller took the wort (9.5L after boil) down to 30' in 13 minutes so might have b* my flame out hop addition <sigh>

Have to say, it was still very time consuming but it's definitely a lot easier working with smaller amounts of grain (as opposed to my last full AG Black Sabbath) and the smaller volumes of water at the start.

Oh well, fingers crossed, it has to be better that if I just "kit & kilo'd" it. Thanks for your advice @Slid, appreciated :hat:

 

[Slid]

Sounds interesting and should be a very decent pale ale.

And, if I helped at all, I am very pleased indeed to have done so. :drink:

 

[Slid]

The grain bill was along the lines of a recent brew that worked OK:

MO 2.3kg plus Amber, Caramalt and Crystal, 300g in total, ratio dictated by what was left, really.

Hops - 30g bittering were Northdown and Progress

Hops at 15 - 15g Progress and 15g Bobek

Hops at flameout - 30g Bobek

Added the Coopers kit (draught) and US05.

 

[Slid]

Today I was going to do a dry stout to GH recipe except to 12-15L or so.

Unfortunately, the delivery driver from DPD preferred to take a picture of my porch yesterday, rather than leave the HBC order in it, as I had suggested.

So today was a dark sort of version of an English bitter, using the Coopers Kit, plus 2.4kg MO, 250g Cara and 60g Chocolate malt.

Used Admiral as a bittering hop -15g and then added the rest of the Progress, 17g plus 13g Bobek at 15 and then the last 40g of the Bobek at flameout.

Went OK despite a late start and pitched one of 6 little bottles of re-used US 05 yeast from the brew above.

 

[clibit]

Nice. :thumb:

Progress and Bobek both lovely, should work together well too, let us know.

 

[Slid]

Nice. :thumb:

Progress and Bobek both lovely, should work together well too, let us know.

Will do so, but the fact is that the PM beers have been very good indeed to date. So much so, that it is hard to say which were better than others.

To mention one of the "stand outs" - Marynka Polish style PA, which was done with a bland Coopers kit - Cerveza - plus 2.3kg MO and 250g Crystal. Chucked in the hops roughly a quarter each at 60 / 15 / 0 and Dry hop. Wonderful marmalade colouring as well as a nicely balanced hop taste.

Most of the others have been done with essentially English sort of hops.

 

[clibit]

Have a go with Centennial. Beautiful hop. I also really like combining English and American hops. It really works.

 

[Slid]

Hi Clibit

I will certainly keep a look out for Centennial.

My most recent batch of stuff from the HBC includes a digital thermometer. Today I used it for the first time and being curious, used it alongside the spirit based Wilko thermometer that has been parameterising my mashing and cooling temps.

It turns out that the digital version returns a score a bit higher in the mashing and sparging temps range of 60 - 80C - maybe about 4C.

I did the obvious test of putting both in a small pot of boiling water - 100.2C for digital - 95-96C for spirit. Very interesting and comparing the scores at lower temps, it would seem that I have been doing my PM mashes not at 65 -66C, but 69 -70C. Can't say I'm displeased with the results and the great malty taste and mouth-feel I get from them would, I think, again be consistent with a high mash temp.

Just for information, I started by wrapping the mash pot in towels and stuff at first, but lately just bung it in the oven at the lowest setting of 50C and giving it a stir and a once over at 30 mins, to revise the setting for the second half, potentially.

 

[Slid]

Did my first brew for a couple of weeks today and decided to keep things simple. During December I picked up 2 x 1.5kg cans of Amber LME from Wilko at £3 each, as this line has been discontinued. (I may have had a polemic on the marketing of this line previously).

2.5kg MO
250g Caramalt
19g Admiral (16%) @ 60mins
42g Challenger @ 15mins
39g Cascade @ 0mins

This made about 12L of wort, using a 15L stockpot, cooled down in the sink. The slightly odd looking quantities for the hops are not scientific, BTW, just what came out when I shook the packets, really.
Then added 1.5kg LME and 400g sugar and pitched my re-used US 05 at 20C.

 

[Slid]

Nice. :thumb:

Progress and Bobek both lovely, should work together well too, let us know.

I had a bottle of this over Xmas sometime and it was OK, but I was not particularly sober at the time and don't really recall the specifics too well. :whistle:

The rest of it is in 2L PET bottles and since it is only 3 weeks in the bottle, I may leave it another week or so?

What I decided on for this evening is a PM English IPA style effort from August, featuring Bramling Cross and First Gold. Not much on the nose, but a mellow flavour, not bitter hardly at all.

 

[clibit]

I had a bottle of this over Xmas sometime and it was OK, but I was not particularly sober at the time and don't really recall the specifics too well. :whistle:

The rest of it is in 2L PET bottles and since it is only 3 weeks in the bottle, I may leave it another week or so?

What I decided on for this evening is a PM English IPA style effort from August, featuring Bramling Cross and First Gold. Not much on the nose, but a mellow flavour, not bitter hardly at all.

How much hops and how did you hop them?

 

[Slid]

How much hops and how did you hop them?

I take it you mean the Progress / Bobek? My records say:

Admiral 15g @ 60, 17g Progress & 13g Bobek @15 and 40g Bobek @ 0

Bittering may seem low, But the Coopers English kit is fairly bitter at 32 IBU's.

 

[Slid]

For the BX / FG, corresponding entry runs:

Northdown 20g @55
Bramling Cross & First Gold mix - 28g @15, 28g @flameout

 

[clibit]

I'm surprised at the lack of hop presence given that hop schedule.

 

[Slid]

I take it you mean the Progress / Bobek? My records say:

Admiral 15g @ 60, 17g Progress & 13g Bobek @15 and 40g Bobek @ 0

Bittering may seem low, But the Coopers English kit is fairly bitter at 32 IBU's.

Am drinking the last but two of the 2L bottles this evening.

The hop profile did indeed come to the fore after a short while and this is (was!) definitely one of my favourites. Very good hop mix, as our man, clibit, suggests

 

[Slid]

Today was a Dry Stout Brewday, that started yesterday evening with a steep of the grains that don't need mashing. It turned out 200g Roast Barley, 200g Chocolate and 100g Crystal, but I may have used more RB had the open pack contained more. I messed around with this for a bit last night and boiled up the wort with some pellets (Nugget) before doing a No Chill effort overnight.

Not a big deal, really as it only amounted to about 2.5L of wort altogether.

Mash was 2.6kg MO and 400g Flaked Barley (i.e. what was in the opened bag). Hops were Challenger (opened bag used up from freezer) and Herkules (modern High Alpha hop).

Used the Wort Chiller for only the second time! :whistle: Despite getting the HBC BIAB - Boiler / Bag / Chiller pack ages ago.

As I only had about 12L of wort to chill in the pot, it seemed like it only took a few minutes (maybe 30). I did notice that the chiller only actually functions with any real effect if the hot wort is continually stirred / agitated. This is known as "whirlpooling", I think.


Positives from the day:

Getting the wort chiller going - now I know I will be doing AG and not "just" Partial Mash brews going forward.

Trying out the idea of "No Chill" overnight using a cling film barrier.

Splitting the grain bill between Steep and Mash grains to make the manipulation of the Mash grains less fraught. 3kg is the most I have done on a PM brew!

 

[Slid]

I went back to one of my previous PM efforts today, using a Coopers Lager kit and basically Marynka hops. These are dual purpose hops, at 8%, but today I used 10g Herkules for bittering, over and above the kit, which is about 20 IBU at 23L.

I split the 100g Marynka bag 25@ 15m, 25g@5m and the rest at flame out.

This turned out quite well when I last tried the hop out last May.

This time I am using US 05, my go to yeast at the moment.

 

[Slid]

I went back to one of my previous PM efforts today, using a Coopers Lager kit and basically Marynka hops. These are dual purpose hops, at 8%, but today I used 10g Herkules for bittering, over and above the kit, which is about 20 IBU at 23L.

I split the 100g Marynka bag 25@ 15m, 25g@5m and the rest at flame out.

This turned out quite well when I last tried the hop out last May.

This time I am using US 05, my go to yeast at the moment.

This has turned out really well, a good advert for this brewing approach.

My favorite at the moment is a Belgian Golden Ale using Triskel hops and the (re-used) Belgian yeast that came with the Brewferm Xmas Ale kit. At last, I get why the Greg Hughes book features so many recipes from the land of Eddy Mercz, the only famous Belgian who is not a beer style, a cartoon character or a fictional detective.