Hi All,
Forgot to update this thread, and let you all know how it went.
As far as going to plan was concerned it failed! But I also learnt a lot about my kit and required upgrades.
So... Kit was HBC Hobble Wobble, clone of Hob-Goblin. split it in half just to test all grain kit.
I have a 20lt boil pot for heating water and a 5g Igglo cooler for mash tun, and a 22.7l pot for boiling. Made my own mash tun manifold from 22mm cooper, pvc pipe attachment and tap which came with the Igglo.
So kit instructions for full brew is was mash in 14l of water at 67 deg c so I split the kit and water in half and put 3lts to pre-heat mash tun at 70deg c allowed it to drop and pre-heat tun for 20mins. Then added grain.
Stirred in and then added the further 4lts at 70 to keep temp inline with mash temp. Checked and stirred twice to mix up and ensure good evan heat distribution for starch conversion. After the hour mark checked for starch conversion with iodine which was successful, at hr mark then, drained to boiler. added second batch of water for batch sparge. Ended up with a stuck sparge due to taking it all out/or to quickly. Added the second lot of water at 80 deg c for a further 15mins. after which I had to fix drain and re-drain about four times, which took about 2 hrs with a STUCK SParge.
After all the faffing with the sparge it went pretty well. I will be upgrading the connection interally and adding a better valve for sparging as the type currently fitted requires you to hold the valve open constantly.
Boil.
This went slowly. I have a 1.5kw electric plate heater. Which I will have to upgrade to at least 2-2.4kw. takes far to long to get to the boil.
Anyway at the boil stage we have three types of hops. Fuggles, Styrian Goldings. added at 60-30-15. with a whirlfloc tablet added at 15 mins before end.
The Yeast type slips my mind at the minute, but I think it was Us05.
the brew turned out a lot darker than I had thought it would. Could be the exrta time going through all the sparging etc.
Tasting after fermentation is great. all malty with ah great hop flavour plus it's the first brew I have kegged so all in all it was an interesting brew.
