What did you brew today?

[strange-steve]

Did you make any changes to your water treatment regime for the full volume mash?

"Inspiration is the impact of a fact on a well-prepared mind" Louis Pasteur

Do you mean when I changed to the Grainfather? It's a thinner mash but not full volume so I haven't really changed my water treatment.

 

[Sadfield]

Ahh..I'd assumed as you'd taken a hit with efficiency you had gone 'No sparge' on switching to the Grainfather. I've always been a bit perplexed by the All-in-one system actually being a two vessel setup.

 

[strange-steve]

I've always been a bit perplexed by the All-in-one system actually being a two vessel setup.

I agree, requiring a second vessel seems a little inelegant if nothing else.

 

[LarryF]

Last Friday I bottled a Coopers Chocolate coffee stout and managed to sprain my knee shifting crates, brilliant!!! Finally got round to getting the next one on. It's a Coopers English Bitter that I've got a soft spot for (2nd every brew) and I wanted it on last Friday as with it being an early drinker I thought I'd sneak it in before Xmas. Anyway, It's got a Fuggles hop tea, I'm going to dry hop with UK Cascade and it's come in at 1051 and I'm using re-pitched S05 from last weeks stout.

 

[Slid]

This is a beer I sort of remember from my younger days, but never really drank much of, if any. My researches tell me that it is quite similar to the Black Sheep Riggwelter that I have copied twice to good effect, and am drinking as I post.

After my research, which suggested going for a Porter but with Roasted Barley rather than Black Malt to go with the Chocolate malt I went with this as a malt profile:

Maris Otter 5.35kg
Brown Malt 300g
Wheat Malt 250g

Crystal / Choc / RB 600g in total, split as follows, for reasons of emptying bags as much as anything: 213g / 211g / 176g.

Also added 500g of dark and unrefined sugar, seeing as this is an Old Ale.

Bittered with Pilgrim @ 25g at first wort and then added Fuggles 19g @ 10m and 19g @ 0mins, again the quantities empty the Fuggles bag in the freezer.

Went well, with the only slight glitch being the necessity to give the rather large 6.5kg grain bill a good stirring up after about 15 mins into the mash.

It does seem as if, every time I use wheat in the mash, the grain compacts noticeably and needs breaking up.

 

[stigman]

The kids are out with mum so it's a brewday (yay!) mikkeller beer geek breakfast stout. Strike water coming up to temp, just time for a bit of dinner and a beer. God I love this hobby.

 

[MickDundee]

It should give it a light biscuity flavour.

I think it’s going to be quite sweet because my inkbird has been going up and down like mad during my mash. I idea what’s going on but it’s at 68.1 now about an hour in, but it’s been as high as 70 and as low as 64. The (analogue) temperature gauge on my Ace boiler reckons it’s between 60 and 70 so I hope I’m ok!

I didn’t need to worry about my mash temperature going crazy, it was around 1.012/1.013 after a week in the FV and that without “degassing” my sample, which was quite fizzy.

Tastes lovely from my sample, and the Simcoe dry hop will give it the aroma I love in American beers. I’ll bottle next weekend - aiming for Friday but it might be Saturday or Sunday depending what I have on.

 

[Ciaran12s]

The kids are out with mum so it's a brewday (yay!) mikkeller beer geek breakfast stout. Strike water coming up to temp, just time for a bit of dinner and a beer. God I love this hobby.

Looks good. Well jealous. Supposed to be brewing today but I'm dying from last night. See how I feel later on. 2 kids asleep, one to go and hopefully get my eyes closed for half an hour

 

[AdeDunn]

Nothing at all... I was going to, however I think I had the worst start to a brew day you can imagine...

Whilst trying to sort out some RO water for the brew, the RO wasn't working. Whilst trying to fix this the self cutting tap for my RO snapped off in my hand, flooding the kitchen badly before my wife could get to the stop cock, whilst I tried to stick my finger in the hole in the pipe....

So mad dash out for a new tap, which somehow I managed to position over the old hole.... Whilst doing this, I went straight through the bottom of the very much rotten kitchen cupboard under the sink where the RO lives... Then, my wife brought me a board to put in the bottom of the cabinet to put the RO and tank on, only to push the one side of the cabinet off slightly, making it impossible to get the washing machine fully back into place (the stop cock is BEHIND the floofing washing machine....).

The punchline? The RO still wasn't working right, my wife somehow got it working though just by looking at it sternly.... :lol:

I guess I'll brew tomorrow... :whistle:

 

[Ciaran12s]

Nasty one! I though the hose filing out the boiler nd splashing a little bit was bad! My brew day is going brilliantly by comparison

 

[GerritT]

Dryhopped an IPA, a "Mooie Nel" clone. Forgot the weights for the hop bag It'll work out fine.
Bit high at 1015 but it got active after the racking. I planned on carbing it low anyway, it's an ale after all.

 

[MickDundee]

Dryhopped an IPA, a "Mooie Nel" clone. Forgot the weights for the hop bag It'll work out fine.
Bit high at 1015 but it got active after the racking. I planned on carbing it low anyway, it's an ale after all.

I never usually bother weighing down my dry hops, and my tea strainer is probably lighter than a Muslim bag. All the breed I’ve used it with have turned out beautifully.

 

[Hoddy]

Today was a Vermont pale ale kinda day.

All went well, apart from the tap on the fermenter leaking just after I had transferred the cooled wort in and pitched the yeast....... ffs!!!

A quick clean and sterilise of another fermenter hopefully means it will still be ok, and hopefully I haven’t picked up any bugs in the transfer.

Here’s the recipe if your interested.

Total boil vol (after sparge) was 30 litres and 24litres went into fermenter.

IBU’S 32
EBC 15

Vermonty Pale Ale
4kg golden promise
400g oats
500g Vienna malt
200g crystal 40
125g caramunich

15g citra - 40 min
15g Comet - 30 min
25g Eldorado - 10 min
25g Rakau - 10 min
25g citra - 10 min
50g Rakau - whirlpool
50g eldorado - whirlpool
50g citra - whirlpool

Dryhop will be another 150g of citra, Rakau and edlorado

Pitched a vial of Yeastbay Vermont yeast onto 24 litres at 19oC

Actually overshot again with excessive efficiency so had to water down by 4 litres mid boil but was still 3pts over target.

Water correct was very minimal - 2.5ml of AMS for a ph target of 5.3, and 3g of calcium carb.




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[Slid]

OK, I totally give in. What is "RO water", please?

 

[Hoddy]

OK, I totally give in. What is "RO water", please?

Reverse Osmosis - essentially filtered to a specific microscopic level to remove excessive minerals.

(The process is where water is forced through a special selective membrane)


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[AdeDunn]

OK, I totally give in. What is "RO water", please?

Sorry about that, glad somebody explained it, I'm usually the first person to complain about folks using abbreviations and jargon too....

Anyway, our water here is rock hard, which means if I use it as is I get a way too high mash pH, and naff efficiency. So I mix water filtered through my reverse osmosis system (around 97% pure, very soft) with my tap water to get a better mash pH, whilst the tap water provides the needed calcium etc.

Oh and currently brewing a Greg Hughes Witbier, with just a tiny bit less coriander (I did a triple take when I read 25g... Had to make do with about 18g... lol).

 

[MerlotMark]

Hi folks,

I'm just about to embark on my first ever all-grain brew! Pretty excited about it as I took delivery of a 'Bulldog Brewer V.3' yesterday and also received three recipe packs to get me going. I've got a 'Wreck the Halls' winter ale, St. Austell 1851 IPA (both from BrewUK) and a Hop Shop 'Smash Kit' Best Lager (from home-brew-hop-shop). I also picked up some Protafloc tablets from my local supply shop as I read these are useful to add to help clear and preserve the beer before bottling.

I do have a couple of quick questions to ask the experts out there... first of all the instructions provided by BrewUK are pretty basic but fairly straightforward, except for the last line of the 'Hop Schedule' bit. It reads 'End of Boil: Balance of Hops then Cool'. I've absolutely no idea what that means! I can't find any info about that technique (plenty about 1st Wort Hopping, Bittering Hops, Late-Hop Additions, Dry Hopping, etc. but nothing that seems to correlate with what's written in the instructions). Should I just throw the remaining hops into the boiler for a minute or so before crash cooling? The hops in question are Styrian Celia 50g.

The other question is about the Protafloc tablets. When should I add them and should I use just one (it's a 23L brew).

Thanks in advance for your help!

All the best,
Mark

 

[Gerryjo]

Protofloc is added at 10mins before flameout/end of boil.
60/90 etc are denoted as start of boil depending what is called for so this is start of countdown.
Your hop addition is at flameout when you cut power/heat so as to cool to around 80 degrees and add allowing the oils to disperse for around 20/30 mins prior to cooling.

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[Saisonator]

I think flame out means at the point of flame out, the cooling to 80c is more of a personal option. It depends on if you want more bitterness and aroma or less bitterness and even more aroma.
I did an IPA following a recipe and I think cooling to 80c first before adding fla.e out hips meant the beer was under hopped
It is all down to experience I guess.

 

[Clint]

Hoddy are the oats bringing mouthfeel in your recipe?