1st AG Brew

[stuey]

try warming your mash tun before you start with some boiling water. will help you keep to your mashing temp more easily.

Well done, you know theres no going back now...

Was confused by this PD....
It had 2 kettles of boiling water for 10-15 mins before mashing this morning.
I temp checked the grains and plugged it into Beersmith.
I had done the 2 kettles trick and temp checked the tun after 15 mins on a dry run t'other day and plugged it all into Beersmith.

I then ended up not hitting my strike temp by 7 degrees!

I will adjust strike liquor up accordingly for the next one but its a bit odd :)

 

[jonnymorris]

My system needs the strike water to be 13degC higher than the desired mash temp. You'll soon work out what your set-up needs.

Congrats and welcome.

 

[joe1002]

Welcome to the darkside Stu.

Just thinking about your slow sparge, I assume you made your fb with the smaller bolts I gave you? Now, it works fine on mine but I don't have that flange sticking up in the middle (no rude comments :nono: :lol:). I reckon the fb is very close to the flange, thus restricting the flow. Try swapping the bolts for the longer ones and see how you get on :thumb:

 

[stuey]

My system needs the strike water to be 13degC higher than the desired mash temp. You'll soon work out what your set-up needs.

Congrats and welcome.

Cheers JM :thumb:

Willing fermentation to finish so I can get another brew on! Only got an undercounter fv fridge so one 23 litre batch at a time

I measured the liquor temp at the end of the transfer pipe and found it was 7 degs cooler than in the hlt. I reckon if I add that to the suggested temp in beersmith it should just work :)

Will probably just set my sparge to 85 degs which seems to be what most folks do... Again the 7 deg theory plus a degree or so drop in the MT should bring me onto a 73 deg sparge.

 

[stuey]

Hey Joe! :thumb: :)

I've got the FB sat on a ring of Vossy's hose with a ring of your long bolts around the centre to stop it sagging. The grain bed will be sitting about 25mm from the floor of the tun and 15-16mm above the top of the flange (wahay!)

Not sure how much higher your fb sits?
I also underlet so there shouldn't be a void under the fb to cause any kind of air lock?

 

[stuey]

Fermentations kicking off with gusto now :thumb:

I kept the FV fridge at 22 degs until airlock activity as White Labs suggest.

Just wound the STC back to 20 degs for remainder of fermentation.

 

[joe1002]

Ah ok, sounds like that isn the problem then.

Mine just sits on the smaller bolts (can't remember how ling they are) but the bottom of my mash tun is completely flat.

Hopefully it won't happen next time :thumb:

 

[stuey]

Ah ok, sounds like that isn the problem then.

Mine just sits on the smaller bolts (can't remember how ling they are) but the bottom of my mash tun is completely flat.

Hopefully it won't happen next time :thumb:

Planning on raising each tun a little higher which will allow a more vertical path for the hoses. I could get a decent flow on the odd occasion I got the hose to fill and then siphon but having a horizontal section of hose made it difficult to keep it full with such low flow.

I am also wondering if adding the extra 1.7 litres of kettle water to the mash to bring the strike temp up resulted in too much liquor sat on top of the settling grain bed which compacted it too much?

I'm crossing everything it doesn't happen next time as it was a nightmare! Took ages, the grain bed must have been cooling all the time it took to run through despite running the sparge water in hotter at the same rate as the outflow.

My wort into the boiler certainly wasn't as clear as it could have been..... the first runnings after 4-5 litres of re-circ were crystal clear! Then it went downhill from there as it glugged and burbled through the rest of the run off

Still had barrels of fun though :party:

 

[stuey]

It's making a break for freedom via the airlock this morning

Making a starter certainly speeded up the lag phase and seems to have led to a really healthy ferment.

Hoping I can harvest the yeast from this batch to re-use... see what trubby delights are left this time next week :)

 

[BrewBilly]

Very good - inspired to go AG

 

[stuey]

Very good - inspired to go AG

Go for it BrewBilly!!

Its superb fun from sourcing and building your kit right through to supping your own brew! :thumb:

 

[stuey]

Had to take emergency action last night.... the lid of the FV bucket had deformed so much it was pressing the airlock against the top of the fridge and blocking the exhaust on the lock.... there was gas and fob seeping from everywhere!! :shock:

Whipped the airlock off and fitted a blow off tube directed into a jar of water..... this ferment really has gone mad...

Seems the violent phase has subsided now, krausen subsided and all calm. It did say the majority of the fermentation would be done in 48 hours or so. Leave it alone to finish up and rack to secondary in 5 days time where it will get a healthy dry hop of Cascade in a hop sock for another 7 days before bottling. :thumb:

 

[joe1002]

Have you had a taster for quality control yet Stu?

 

[stuey]

Hey Joe! :thumb:
Over in Norfolk doing loads of fencing and stuff for our mates so a bit out of touch with forum currently

I bought a few bottles of the SNPA with me to share. It will be two weeks this Friday or Saturday (can't remember) since it was bottled. We crashed cooled a bottle in the freezer last Sunday for experimental purposes.. A little hazy (protein or hops or still suspended yeast) as expected but taste wise it was lovely and clean with bright hop forward flavour. It came across a little sweet though which I'm hoping will back off as it over the next couple of weeks cooling and settling.

It came out around 6.2abv (notes at home and can't remember) which may explain its sweet, thick character.

Compared sip to sip with a bottle of SNPA from Sainsburys it is damn close! Well chuffed :thumb:

Have been fine tuning beersmith to my set - up now which seems to be delivering 80-82% mash efficiency and 75% ish overall.

 

[joe1002]

Excellent, glad you are pleased with it. I put another batch on this weekend to take to a friends 30th at the end of July.

So, not only does your kit look good, it performs pretty well also :thumb:

 

[BrewBilly]

Stuey

Where did you get your wort aerator from?

Cheers
BrewBilly

 

[stuey]

Stuey

Where did you get your wort aerator from?

Cheers
BrewBilly

Hi BB! My wort aerator is a fire sprinkler body with the glass valve bit broken out which was very kindly given to me by Chris on here. It works really well! :) Its fitted onto a 15mm copper fitting which Vossy's silicon hose just about squishes over.

Stu :)