Archive for June 2009
All Grain Brew #1 – Deuchars IPA
Posted on: June 28, 2009
- In: Brewing
- 4 Comments
Deuchars IPA – www.caledonian-brewery.co.uk
Time to pop my Cherry, Started at 8.30am, the Mash is now on at 9.20am 🙂 I’m going to do a 90 minute Mash and a Boil of 60 mins… which should hopefully time well with the Bacon & Egg butties for breakfast with the other half 😉 *so we can actually use the cooker and grill ‘cos its not got a fecking huge pan on it!* 🙄
I’ve just slightly over estimated my grain weights to be on the safe side as have I with the Batch Sparge volumes using DaaB’s Batch Sparge Calculator.
Fermentables:
Maris Otter Malt 2180 grams
Crystal Malt 105 grams
Hops:
Fuggle 9 grams @ 60 mins (FWH)
Aurora 9 grams @ 60 mins (FWH)
Willamette 9 grams @ 15 mins
Bobek 10 grams @ 5 mins
Fuggle 9 grams @ 5 mins
Copper Finings:
Protafloc Tablet – Last 15-20 Minutes
Predicted stuff:
Final Volume: 12 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.043
Final Gravity: 1.010 *final reading was actually 1010*
Alcohol Content: 4.2% ABV
Total Liquor: 18.5 Litres
Mash Liquor: 5.7 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 33 EBU
Colour: 15 EBC
The Mash:
Recipe done in BeerEngine software www.practicalbrewing.co.uk and notes scrawled!
The original recipe came from www.hopandgrain.com
Most of the ingredients from www.barleybottom.com
Pre-heating the Mash tun with hot tap water, good pinch of Sodium Met treating the Hot tap water in the FV
Grain Temperature 18.5 Deg C
The Maris otter malt and Crystal Malt
Water at Strike heat and Grain ready to mash
Strike Temp, tweaked with a dash of boiling water as I decanted from the boiler with a jug and lost a few degrees
Starting Mash Temperature, Mash to last 90 minutes
All tucked up and monitored with a cheap Fish Tank thermometer from Dealextreme.com 🙂
Wort to the Copper:
End of Mash period, I actually went 15 minutes over the planned 90mins
Mash topped up and stirred ready for first runnings
First runnings, which are returned to the mash until it runs clearer (Which was at least 3 Litres)
Filling FV before transfer to boiler (Think you’d call this an Under-back)
Hops all weighed out, First Wort Hops, 15min hops, 5 minute hops and half a protafloc tablet
First Wort Hops with boiler filling
Spent grains
The Boil:
15 minute hop addition + Protafloc
5 minute Hop addition
The Wort (still hot)
Left overs (Still hot as I haven’t made an IC yet)
Safale s-04 Pitched once this had cooled down in the bath 🙂 Now its cooled I can really see the cold break forming as its gone all clumpy and is slowly settling.
All done, not bad for about 6 hours, not including cooling time as it will be a while sat in cold water in the bath 🙂
And all pretty stress free, I’m glad I have been doing some extract brews as its got me fairly confident with the boiling and hop schedules, the Mash was a piece of cake with no problems.
Lessons learned:
I need to do is calibrate all my buckets and my boiler pot.
It would be handy to have an IC.
HLT isn’t necessary for the moment.
Time to look into water treatment a little.
🙂
Mash details:
about 18-20 Litres collected @ OG 1022 / 62.1 Deg C
In the FV:
Final Volume was about right looking for my 12 litre brew length, maybe slightly more than planned which would probably be due to Sparge Volumes / 60 vs 90 minute boils.
OG 1026 / 72.8 Deg C *Actual OG is 1046, just a little higher than its supposed to be.
I think this makes my efficiency pretty good. 🙂
**Update** Bottled today 10th July 2009, tasted pretty good 🙂
Mini mash tun with false bottom
Posted on: June 27, 2009
I made a mini mash tun with False bottom, made out of a 15 Litre bucket, drum tap, Camping mats (2 layers, 3 on Lid with 2″ skirting), a pink plastic plate (2mm holes drilled), some copper fittings, a tank connector and a bit of PVC tube, and Duct tape 😉
Even though I already made a Thermos Coolbox mash Tun, I still want to experiment with small batches which means more brewing and ‘testing’ 🙄 of recipes 😉
The finished thing:
Inside:
The False bottom and bits of dodgily pushed together pipe:
Did a little heat loss test with hot water:
Time : : Temp
19.36 – 61.1 C
20.38 – 58.6 C
21.06 – 58.0 C
21.35 – 57.6 C
Ordered some Mash-able grains from BarleyBottom / Hope-&-Grape… 🙂
If it falls apart on first use I’ll be tipping the mash into the Coolbox to sparge and I’ve got a slight re-design in mind which won’t fall apart! 😉
Bit of hop repotting
Posted on: June 21, 2009
Fuggle put into a big planter with enough room to give it a pile of mulch on top for winter.
Challenger is a bit more spindly but growing well, also in a large planter, the bit of wood screwed to the wall behind is my ‘Heath Robinson’ hop climbing frame and has strings attached stretching across the yard for the hops to grow on.
Left hand plastic bottle is a couple of broken off Fuggle cuttings and the right hand pot is the WGV cutting, which was kindly given to me, is coming on nicely now.
Thermos Coolbox Mash Tun Conversion
Posted on: June 20, 2009
I picked up my old Thermos Cool Box from the parents house a bit back…
Bought it back when ESSO petrol was just stopping giving petrol tokens, so it was a freebie from petrol, I guess it must be the best part of 15 years old.
It clips apart and there is about 30-35mm of polystyrene insulation in it, which I guess is enough for my Mash Tun, I’ll probably fill any voids and the lid with expanding foam at some point.
I’ll be still doing some Extract brews for now as I feel there is plenty for me to learn while I’ve limited space for a full AG setup that has a permanent place to live, but at least I’m progressing with the kit; big old stock pot with S/steel ball valve and hop strainer and now a Coolbox for a mash tun… Just need the HLT and an Immersion cooler.
This things holds about 30 Litres:
The makings of my Mash Tun manifold to hold back the grain so the wort can run off:
The Ball Valve tap with compression fitting:
The Strategically soldered manifold, I had to bend the copper pipe a bit to get the manifold to sit nice and flat against the base of the coolbox:
The Saw cuts in the lower third of the pipe:
How I decided it would come apart, I have some stainless Steel Jubilee clips to secure certain bits:
I did a leak and heat retention test:
It didn’t leak, and it only lost 2.4 Deg C over an hour using Hot Tap water starting at 56.2 C, and the manifold drained the Mash tun down to less than 200ml 🙂
Experiment in Wort Cooling
Posted on: June 17, 2009
Thoughts on cooling wort!
You use a 10-15 meter coil to make either a Counterflow cooler(CFC) or a Immersion cooler(IC)….
In the case of the CFC, could you slow down the flow of Hot Wort and speed up the flow of cooling water and thus reduce the length of your copper coil?
I’m just in the making of something that I think will speed up my Boil-to-Pitching temperature time even if it doesn’t entirely chill things down, mainly as an interim measure to either buying or making an IC, but also as a bit of an experiment…
🙂
The unequal T’s are 15x15x22mm from B&Q
The Spiral bit it a bendy tap connector also from B&Q
The Pipe is 22mm and there are a couple of 15mm bits in there too
…the other fittings are from Screwfix and just standard 15mm connectors.
I intend to restrict the flow of the 15mm down to 8 or 10 at the out-end.
Soldering it up, added a 15mm compression nut to attach to boiler and a 15-8mm reducer to restrict the flow.
I’ve ordered some bits, garden hose, Tap connector and hose quick releases.
I’m ready to go… Brewday today 🙂 while we’re off work.
Apparently its almost exactly the design of a piece of Chemistry equipment – Allihn condenser – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condenser_(laboratory)
🙂
***OK then…
****Well its just been tested!
Left the boiler to settle for 20 mins from boiling, hooked up my bits of copper pipe and garden hose and turned on the cold water.
At a sensible flow rate of wort it was able to cool to 55°C
At a slow trickle I can get it down to 34°C
I ended up with 13 Litres of wort @ 45°C in the FV (with lots of flow rate changes and temperature checks)
If I’d let it trickle it would have taken ages to empty the boiler so it had to sit in the bath cooling off some more.
Here’s the pics:
It does prove that if you were to gang 3 or 4 of these up you could probably get a lower temperature and a faster flow, but that goes against my simplistic idea, I’m now going to go buy a coil of 10mm copper pipe… 10,15,20 metres??? and make a proper IC coil! 🙂
Extract#006 – T’old Blotchy Duck
Posted on: June 17, 2009
Kind of ‘Morland – Old Speckled Hen’ meets ‘St.Austell – Admiral’s Ale’ or at least thats what I’m trying for!! 😀
T’old Blotchy Duck
Fermentables:
- Coopers Light Malt Extract   1500 grams
- Caramalt   200 grams
- Crystal Wheat Malt   190 grams
- Sugar, Household White   150 grams
- Crystal Malt   30 grams
- Roasted Barley   26 grams
Hops:
- Challenger      60 mins   13 grams (FWH)
- Cascade   60 mins   11 grams (FWH)
- Cascade   15 mins   8 grams
- Bobek   15 mins   8 grams
- Challenger   15 mins   8 grams
The Ingredients, just missing the tin of Light Coopers LME:
Getting the Gervin English Ale yeast ready, I seem to have run out of s-04:
Grains and First Wort Hops going in at about 40 C:
Final Volume:Â Â Â 13Â Â Â Litres
Original Gravity:Â Â Â 1.046
Final Gravity:Â Â Â 1.009
Alcohol Content:Â Â Â 4.8%Â Â Â ABV
Bitterness:Â Â Â 42Â Â Â EBU
Colour:Â Â Â 43Â Â Â EBC (I dare say its going to be a bit darker than planned due to the coopers Light LME)
Not a bad little brewday 🙂 I only had to add 1 Litre to dilute to get the correct OG 🙂
Probably Due To Network Congestion 