AG#3 – Fuggles Bitter

Posted by: pdtnc on: August 1, 2009

• In: Brewing
• 1 Comment

AG#3 – Fuggles Bitter, H.Hillbilly’s House Bitter Grain bill
Thanks to Horden Hillbilly for answering my questions, I’ve used his grain bill for this recipe and just replaced the Goldings Hops with Fuggles.

Fermentable   Colour   lb: oz   Grams   Ratio
Maris Otter   4.25 EBC   4 lbs. 9.2 oz   2080 grams   90%
Crystal Malt   120 EBC   0 lbs. 4.9 oz   135 grams   6%
Torrefied Wheat   4 EBC   0 lbs. 3.3 oz   93 grams   4%

Hop Variety   Type   Alpha   Time   lb: oz   grams   Ratio
Fuggle   Whole   4.9 %   60 mins   0 lbs. 1.0 oz   28 grams   65.9%  ((FWH))
Fuggle   Whole   4.9 %   15 mins   0 lbs. 0.4 oz   10 grams   24.4%
Fuggle   Whole   4.9 %   0 mins   0 lbs. 0.1 oz   4 grams   9.8%
Protafloc Tablet   Pellet   0 %   0 mins   0 lbs. 0.0 oz   0 grams   0%

Final Volume:   12   Litres
Original Gravity:   1.043
Final Gravity:   1.010
Alcohol Content:   4.3%   ABV
Total Liquor:   18.5   Litres
Mash Liquor:   5.8   Litres
Mash Efficiency:   75   %
Bitterness:   33   EBU
Colour:   16   EBC
Water Treated to the ‘Bitter’ profile on the GW calc.

Mash on!
Water Treatment for Keighley Area to the ‘Bitter’ profile.

The Grains. (I Just sneaked in a little oddment of Crystal Wheat malt)

Mash temp at start.

Mash pH. (Is this a little on the low side? I think its about pH5.7, shouldn’t it be more like pH5.2????)

Hops Weighed out, Half a Protafloc Tab in with the 15minute addition.

Sparge!
Mash finished.

FWH in with first batch or wort warming up.

Recycling at second batch sparge, trying not to disturb the grain bed. Had some sticking issues which I think are down to the flexibility of the plastic false bottom something I need to address before the next brewday.

Mash fun! I poked it with the paddle handle which seemed to keep it going.

Boiling.

Boil and Cool!
Last 15 mins and the Cooler going in to Sanitize.

Cold break.

I scooped up a little from the boiler, looks pretty clear once the cold break settles.

Sanitised sieve to catch the occasional hop seed and give the wort a good aerate.

Boiler to FV setup, the long restricted (down to 8mm bore) copper pipe makes for an excellent syphon effect.

Trub left overs.

I was a few points short of my OG, seems I hit about 1036/38 ish @ 22 Deg C, Pitched Safale s-04 dry sprinkled.

I’m pretty sure my excess volume was me overestimating a little while sparging as the last was boiled with the cooler in for the full 90 mins, this time I only had a 60 min boil and put the cooler in for the last 15 mins. I think leaving the IC in for the full boil actually makes for more boil off, hence the overcompensation!
All in all not a bad day, started at 7.40am and finished about 2pm with just a little clearing up left to do.

**The morning after:

Good Yeast head this was getting going well last night less than 8 hours after dry pitching the yeast.

**Bottled 12/08/2009
Bottled about 15L with 70g sugar and re-pitched approx 5g of rehydrated s-04 yeast (see if I can solve my carbonation problems with the AG brews) First bottling using Starsan to sanitise. A tiny taste and it was pretty smooth.

Tags: ale, beer, bitter, boiler, Brewing, cold break, copper, craft brewing, Crystal Malt, crystal wheat malt, fuggle, fuggle hops, fuggles, grain, grains, home brew, home brewing, Hop, hops, hot break, Maris Otter, mash, Mash Tun, mashing, pale malt, pH strip, pH test, starsan, stuck mash, Torrefied Wheat, torrified wheat, trub, water treatment, yeast