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