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thechan

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Mash, bang, wallop, I gave brewing a 5 litre batch of all grain ale a go last bank holiday Monday.

I went with the simplest recipe as recommended, 1kg of Maris Otter malt, and some Fuggles Hops.

Process:
1) 1kg Maris Otter in 4L of strike water heated to 69 degrees. Gave it a good stir (put the grain in a bag).

2) Brought the pot into my living room and covered it with 3 duvets for an hour. Over the hour the temperature dropped to 62 degrees.

3) Heated 4L of sparge water to around 77 degrees (near end of mashing period)

4) Poured off the mash water (?) into the sterilised container. Added the sparge water to the pot with the grain and stirred for a bit. Left for 10 minutes.

5) Removed the grain, and returned the mash water to the pot.

6) Boiled for 60 minutes on hob (total of 8L). Added 5g of Fuggles hop pellets at start of the boil, and 10g for the last 5 mins. Over the 60 minutes the volume reduced to a bit less than 5L. SG was 1.041.

7) Cooled in the sink, which was filled with ice water. Took longer than expected, need a lot of ice.

8) Transferred to fermenter and added 3g of Safale-04.

9) Left for 10 days

10) Bottled last night. Got x6 Grolsch bottles, x2 500ml bottles and x2 330ml bottles. Tasted quite nice, and didn't have that twang that the beer kits do! FG was 1.006 so around 4.6%. Batch primed with 30g of cane sugar.

Great experience, I'll definitely be trying another batch in the near future!

UPDATE: This turned out great, the fuggles hops were lovely, and although not fully clear (some finings will hopefully improve that) it definitely encourages further experimentation!

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Second go at an all grain brew after a relatively successful first attempt at a Pale Ale: http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/sh...sh+bang+wallop

I was aiming for an 8 litre batch.

It was based on this recipe: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=141086

My recipe:
Marris Otter 1.2kg (75%)
Vienna Malt 256g (16%)
Roasted Barely 64g (4%)
Chocolate Malt 48g (3%)
Crystal Malt 32g (2%)

Fuggles 14g @ start of boil
Goldings 7g last 15 mins of boil
Irish Moss ~1g last 15 mins of Boil

S-04 Yeast ~4.5g

6 litres Mash for 60 mins @64-69 degrees
6 litres for batch sparging

SG: 1.044

The only reason I changed the recipe was I didn't have enough Vienna Malt. I added the chocolate malt because I had it, but also because the red ale in the Porterhouse has chocolate malt. In retrospect I think I added too much chocolate malt, as together with the roasted barley, the colour is more of a black ale..., but we'll see how it turns out.

A few issues:
1) When I brought the wort to the boil at the start there was a frothy head which seemed under control...until I added the first hops when it immediately boiled over for about 1-2 seconds before sinking right the way back down in the pot.
-Is this the so called hot break? And should I wait until the hot break is over before I add the first hops?

2) Couldn't cool it in time before I had to leave the house, so I transferred it to the fermenter @ ~35 degrees, covered it and pitched the yeast when I was back in the house a few hours later after giving it a stir to oxygenate. Hopefully this won't effect the results, it has already begun to ferment.

Anyway, I'll update when I go to bottle it in a couple of weeks!

Cheers!
 
Bottled this Irish red ale at the weekend.

There was a surprise waiting when I opened the fermenter, it seemed the yeast had built a roof for itself - it looked nasty (see pic). Is this just some of the yeast caking together and floating on the top? it was safale -04.

It tasted absolutely fine though so I went ahead and bottled it with 2.4 measures of CO2 (~45g cane sugar).

It was quite clear and was closer to the red colour than I was expecting given I thought I had added too much dark grain.

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I also brewed an oat stout at the weekend:

Mainly from this recipe: http://byo.com/hops/item/1189-oatmeal-stout-style

Yeast: A cup of safale -04 slurry from previous Irish red ale batch
Batch Size (Gallons): 8 litres
Mash: 60 mins
Boil: 60 mins
Grain Bill:
Marris Otter 1360g 70.1%
Roasted Barley 144g 7.4%
Crystal 80g 4.1%
Chocolate 60g 3.1%
Flaked Barley 120g 6.2%
Oats rolled 176g 9.1%

Hops:
Fuggles 15g @start of boil
EKG 8g @20mins left in boil

Original Gravity: 1.045
Final Gravity: ?
IBU: 38


Had another boil over when I added the first hops so next time I'm going to remove it from the heat completely first.

After reading about over-pitching when pitching directly onto the yeast cake, and also concerns about infecting the fermenter while bottling the red ale, I used a cup of yeast slurry from the bottom of the Irish red ale fermenter and it seemed to start faster than any of my previous brews, was bubbling after 10 hours.

Looking forward to this one!

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Bottled this Irish red ale at the weekend.

There was a surprise waiting when I opened the fermenter, it seemed the yeast had built a roof for itself - it looked nasty (see pic). Is this just some of the yeast caking together and floating on the top? .

That looks like the Krausen to me and is a good, healthy sign :)
Jeff
 
Does the krausen sometimes remain after the fermentation has stopped? There was no sign of this in previous brews.
 
Great work! I'm on my phone but looks like yeast floating on the top to me, which happens.

Let us know how these brews work out.
 

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