First attempt at extract with steeping grains

Today marks my second ever brew and an attempt at extract brewing with steeping speciality grains.

Recipe:
Target OG 1.058 ABV 6.18% IBU 64.14

Batch size: 20L

3kg Light DME
500g Caramalt
250g Carapils
200g Carafa special III
100g Chocolate malt
75g Black malt

Hops:
Magnum 12.7% / Amarillo 10% / Bravo 13.4% / Columbus 15%

Schedule
20g Magnum 60min
10g each of Amarillo, Bravo, Columbus 10min
15g each of Amarillo, Bravo, Columbus 5min
35g each of Amarillo, Bravo, Columbu 0 min

Dry hop with 25g of each

Started today weighing everything out and properly cleaning and sanitising all equipment.

I calibrated my FV as I was certain the markings were out, and I was right!

Measured out 23L into the kettle, added half a campden tablet, then transferred 3L to a smaller pot. The aim was to steep the grains at 68C for 30 minutes in the kettle, then transfer to "sparge" at 71C in the smaller pot for 10 mins. The sparge water was then added to the kettle.

I read somewhere that in order to steep grains in a large volume of water, to make sure the SG of the liquid is above 1.010 so I added some of the DME to the kettle water (I later realised that I think I could have just added all of the DME to the cold water then begin the steep?).

Anyway, got up to steeping temp, threw the grain bag in, moved it to the sparge water after 30 mins. Whilst the grain bag was in the other pot I added the rest of the DME and mixed it in. Then I added the sparge water to the kettle to bring it up to 23L.

Brought the wort to a boil, added a half teaspoon of gypsum, then threw in my 60min boil additions. It very nearly boiled over within seconds, but luckily I managed to turn the heat down in time.

Continued with the boil, adding hop additions at 10min, 5 and flameout. I left the flameout hops to stand for about 30 mins whilst I readied a large builder's bucket outside with ice and water. Sanititised the lid of the kettle and stuck it on before moving.

When I moved the kettle to the bucket I soon realised the bucket was far too small and only allowed about 2 inches of water around the kettle! My kitchen sink was too small, so I rushed the kettle to my bathtub, turned on the cold water and added all of the ice.

Managed to cool the wort down to 20C in about 20 minutes, so it wasn't too bad.

Brought the kettle back to the kitchen and tried creating a whirlpool to get all the trub in the middle.

Then took my sanitised auto siphon, sieve and wine aerator (thought I'd finally get to use it!) and prepared to rack to the FV. My brother helped hold the siphon tube into the aerator and above the sieve, whilst I controlled the siphon.

The auto siphon clogged up at the bottom so I poured the rest of the wort out into another pot through a sanitised paint strainer bag, then poured it into the FV.

Good thing I calibrated the FV as it showed as having about 17 litres in, so I lost about 6 litres in the boil. I took a gravity reading of the wort and it came out at 1.074!

I went to the store and bought some distilled water and topped it back up to 20 litres, which had a gravity reading of 1.064, so I thought why not keep it there.

I then aerated the wort with a sanitised whisk, got a good 2-3 inches of foam on the top, then pitched 2 packets of Safale US-05 onto it, sealed the lid and put the airlock on.


The sample I took for the OG tasted pretty roasty. Not sure how it's going to turn out as I took a Gamma Ray (APA) clone recipe and added chocolate and black malts as I fancied more of a Black IPA / Porter style.

I'll just have to wait and see!

I reckon that's going to be a great beer, I really do.

"Managed to cool the wort down to 20C in about 20 minutes, so it wasn't too bad." That's bloody good going!

Great write up, cheers!

Sounds good! Not come across Bravo before though. I hope you report back on how it turns out, am interested to hear as I bought come Carafa III and chocolate the other day to do a black IPA.

Bravo are Columbus-ish I think.

I'll keep this thread updated as things progress. It's currently bubbling away nicely in the FV. It got going pretty quickly last night. There's plenty of head room in there so hopefully I won't need to switch to a blow off tube (famous last words).

Now comes the hard part: trying to forget about it for a few weeks! Time to plan my next brew...I might give extract with steeping grains a few more goes before I switch to AG, otherwise all of my money will be gone. Or maybe I'll try BIAB before investing in a mash tun. I've actually got a 33L cooler box already that I use in summer. Reckon that could be converted into a temporary mash tun from time to time?

clibit said:

I reckon that's going to be a great beer, I really do.

"Managed to cool the wort down to 20C in about 20 minutes, so it wasn't too bad." That's bloody good going!

Great write up, cheers!

Click to expand...

I think it probably could've gone a bit quicker had I known I was going to use the bath tub. I was stirring the wort clockwise and moving water round the tub anti-clockwise. My brother came home whilst I was doing this and thought I was a bit mad!

I saw a video where some guys actually have a pre-sanitised container that was filled with boiled water then frozen. They then chuck in the ice block when cooling the wort to aid with the cooling and to top up it. Pretty ingenious!

So I came home tonight and turns out the place in the flat I thought was the coolest isn't as cool as I thought. The FV was at 23.1C.

We do have a basement, but it's like 15C down there. Not sure what to do to try and keep the FV cool during the day when I'm out at work. Do I risk leaving it outside, or should I wrap it in a wet towel or something?

I had this problem today where mine got to 23c. I wrapped a wet towel around it and pointed a big floor fan directly at it and got it back down to 21c. Tomorrow isn't supposed to be as warm, so should Ok.

ProjectBeer said:

So I came home tonight and turns out the place in the flat I thought was the coolest isn't as cool as I thought. The FV was at 23.1C.

We do have a basement, but it's like 15C down there. Not sure what to do to try and keep the FV cool during the day when I'm out at work. Do I risk leaving it outside, or should I wrap it in a wet towel or something?

Click to expand...

You have two options, is it def 15ºc down there.. You could put it down there and wrap it up to warm up to say 18ºc it would be spot on.. now this one has started I would probably leave it but something to possibly think about next time maybe..

I've got one of those temperature guns. We have bottles of beer and other things stored down there and they all measured 14-15C so I'm guessing that's what the FV would acclimatise to.

The space where the FV is sat is near door that opens into a lightwell (weird design feature of the flat). I've cracked the door open to let cool air in. Hopefully if I keep it open during the day it should help. I'll probably wrap the FV in a wet towel in the morning to help prevent it from getting too warm.

Although, the basement does seem like it would be less likely to fluctuate if I wrapped up the FV...but would wrapping a blanket around it keep it warm enough? I wouldn't want to risk stalling the fermentation.

Believe me, I've been thinking about buying a second hand fridge among other things (corny keg...?), but I don't want to go nuts spending so much cash right off the bat.

Ok, left it next to the open door last night and this morning it was down to 16C! Whoops...it was still fermenting, just a lot slower. Today is meant to be a high of 15C in London so I've closed the door for the day and pulled the blinds down halfway. By the time I left for work, the FV was almost up to 17C so hopefully it doesn't get as high as it did yesterday.

Wrapped the FV in a fleece blanket last night. It was around 18C last night and this morning. Bubbling in the air lock is very slow going now. I hope the drop in temp the other day didn't take most of the yeast out of suspension.

I'll take a gravity reading when I get home tonight, but would it be worth pitching more yeast if it's still high and going slowly or should I just leave it be?

Been browsing eBay for a fridge to make a fermentation chamber out of since this fiasco of temperature swings...

ProjectBeer said:

I think it probably could've gone a bit quicker had I known I was going to use the bath tub. I was stirring the wort clockwise and moving water round the tub anti-clockwise. My brother came home whilst I was doing this and thought I was a bit mad!

I saw a video where some guys actually have a pre-sanitised container that was filled with boiled water then frozen. They then chuck in the ice block when cooling the wort to aid with the cooling and to top up it. Pretty ingenious!

Click to expand...

What I used to do before I started no chilling was freeze water in some 500ml water bottles, sanitise them, then chuck em in the wort 5 at a time

MyQul said:

What I used to do before I started no chilling was freeze water in some 500ml water bottles, sanitise them, then chuck em in the wort 5 at a time

Click to expand...

That's a great idea! If I had the freezer space....hehe

Just writing up a few things sort of as a log just to keep ideas in one place.

I pitched dry yeast by sprinkling it onto the aerated foamy head of the wort. Perhaps I should properly rehydrate it first from now on.

If the fermentation is a bit stuck a few options:

- Warm the FV slightly to see if it activates the yeast
- Gently rock the FV to stir some yeast back into suspension
- Pitch more yeast

I’ve read that it might be worth giving the wort a gentle stir and get some of the flocculated yeast back into suspension. Won’t this disturb the CO2 blanket? I suppose it wouldn’t matter too much if fermentation hasn’t been complete as it would just create more CO2.

I’m expecting a FG of 1.011 (according to Brewer’s Friend) so if it does get stuck above this I’ll give the options above a go.


I know these ramblings are probably paranoid, but I tend to worry about these sorts of things!

FV is at 19.4C tonight.

Took a gravity reading and it measured 1.018 after only 4 days of fermentation. I'm guessing it'll continue slowly until it's done in that case. Brewer's Friend estimated 1.011 FG.

I took a picture of it. It's not as dark as I was hoping for. I didn't want to go overboard on the black malt - maybe I'll bump up the speciality grains a bit next time, but it may be too early to tell.

Just won this off eBay. £36 for a nice display fridge to use as a fermentation chamber.

Now to get hold of an STC-1000 and other bits and bobs.

The addiction is real.

ProjectBeer said:

The addiction is real.

Click to expand...

Like I always say about this rather addictive hobby, 'full fridge, empty wallet!' :mrgreen:

Empty wallets, full fridges, full hearts and fuzzy heads :)

It's so easy to get carried away and think of future set ups (kegs!), but I think temperature control is a necessity from everything I've read so far and with summer hopefully just around the corner, being able to keep that constant would be great!

Plus when it's not in use, it'll be a great display beer fridge!

Took another gravity reading today (3 days since the last one). I reckon it comes in at 1.017, so 1 point down from 3 days ago. I'm not sure it will drop much lower to the expected 1.011. Today marks 7 days since brew day. Can fermentation really be up that quickly?

I haven't tried stirring the wort out of fear of losing the carbon dioxide blanket. Would stirring the wort to rouse yeast out suspension be advisable or even a good idea?

I took a taste and it's really really promising!