AG#1: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale Clone

[JonD_87]

Batch Size (L): 25.0
Original Gravity (OG): 1.053
Final Gravity (FG): 1.013
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 5.21 %
Bitterness (IBU): 38.3 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 70
Boil Time (Minutes): 70

5.592 kg Pale Ale Malt (93%)
0.421 kg Crystal 60 (7%)
18.0 g Magnum Pellet (12.5% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes
14.0 g Perle Pellet (6% Alpha) @ 30 Minutes
25.0 g Cascade Pellet (9.2% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes
56.0 g Cascade Pellet (9.2% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes

Mash at 67°C for 60 Minutes.
Ferment at 18°C with Safale US-05

This is technically my second all grain brew, however my first was a Belgian ale kit from the malt miller and whilst it went fine, I didn't use any software and my starting water was a little estimated. I used it as a bit of practice into AG and I am classing this as my first proper AG brew.

Ideally I want to try and get to a stage of making my own recipes but I thought it would be better to do a clone first.

I put the above details into brewers friend and adjusted the batch size to 23L. This gave me a starting water of 32.03. I used water from the hot top to speed up the process. As the water was heating up to my target of 71°C I put the bag in the pan. I say bag, it is just a big piece of voile. I am too lazy to start sewing a proper bag. This was held in place by a couple of bungee chords.

Once i hit the 71°C, I turned off the heat and passed the wife the mash spoon. She said she would help stir as long as I went the shop to get some chocolate! Once all the grain was in, I checked the temperature and it was bang on 67°C. The lid was put on and the pan was wrapped in 6 towels, 2 fleece blankets and a duvet!

The recipe only called for a 60 min mash. Once it was up I removed the wrapping and took another temperature reading. It was still 67°C so I hadn't lost any heat :thumb:

Lifting the bag was a little difficult but not too strenuous. I bought an extendable colander from Aldi for ����£6 which worked very well holding the bag over the pot whilst the wort drained in. After a few big squeezes I put the colander over a fermentation bucket to drain some more. Any remaining bits were poured into the boil.

I used my steel ruler to measure the volume and it was about 0.5 liters less than the calculation on brewers friend. I took a pre-boil gravity reading and I was only at 1.029!! I had a real panic thinking the brew would be very weak. However after a bit of googling whilst it came up to the boil I found that you need to stir a lot as otherwise you can get an off reading. My sample was taken from the top so it may explain the low reading.

I brew in the kitchen and on my previous boil I only used two burners. I did reach a rolling boil but it wasn't that strong. This time I used all four and got a fairly vigorous boil. My ghetto hop spider was put over the boil. I was a little concerned the plastic might melt into the boil but a close inspection afterwards didn't show any marks.

Hop additions were added as per the recipe. Thankfully it was only a 70 min boil as the extractor fan started making a weird noise half way through. Perhaps brewing indoors isn't a great idea!

Chiller was put in with 15 mins to go and connected up out the kitchen window. It didn't take too long to get down to 18°C. I took another reading from my ruler and it worked out at 0.4 litres less than what the software suggested. Although I did have a hop bag and cooler in the liquid so I presume this may have inflated this reading?

Once cooled I started to siphon the beer into the fermenter. I did have a bag on the end to stop the trub getting in but it got clogged up. The bag was removed and the flow rate greatly increased. On my previous brew there was very little trub and I was able to siphon up the majority of what was in the kettle. This brew however had a lot of trub and I had to stop the siphon when I noticed big bits going into the fermenter. I was only at 20L which was 3 liters short :-(. The first brew used only leaf hops, this one was pellets, perhaps that was the difference?

A post boil gravity reading was taken and it was 1.052, 1 point of the recipe. I was made up to see this after my pre-boil gravity was leading me to believe I was going to have a very weak beer!

Finally, I re-hydrated the yeast, pitched it into the fermenter and gave it a good old shake. It is now sitting nicely under the stairs. Fermentation hasn't started yet (after about 20 hours) but I will be patient, my first kit beer took 3 days to start!

The efficiency was calculated at 60% which is a bit disappointing. Does any one have idea why it was so low? Still, overall I was happy with how it went and I have a better idea of how my equipment all works.

 

[TheRedDarren]

Nice one! Lovely write up.
I've made this twice now, fantastic beer, you'll be pleased I'm sure.

 

[Spapro]

Nice right up and great pictures, good luck with it.

Regarding efficiency, true/pure BIAB doesn't include a sparge, you use more mash water as you have done, ie 32 litres or thereabouts.

A good number of us on here have the Peco boilers - which will only take about 27litres of mash water. I therefore do a seperate dunk sparge of the grains after mashing in a seperate FV with 3 kettlefuls of hot water to wash as much sugar off the grains as possible, and squeeze the grain bag out well.

My efficiency is around 70% which is what most recipes appear to be based on.

Maybe you could add a sparge/dunk sparge stage to increase efficiency, or just add a bit more grain (grain is cheap enough).

Or you could try adding another 4 litres to start with, starting with say 36litres - to make up for your littles bits of loss and the loss to trub at the end. More mash liquour at the start should increase your efficiency = and mean you get 23l into your FV.

We all use different eqquipment and finding out what works for each of us (in terms of process and water volumes in particular) does take a few brews of trial and learning.

Maybe someone that does pure BIAB (no sparge) can offer more advice on efficiency.

 

[Covrich]

You could add a mash out, after your mash keep the grains in there and raise the temp to about 75ºc stir and hold for 10 minutes and then stir and drain..

I do this , whether or not it makes much difference to my efficiency or not I don't know but doing this on true BIAB I get around 75% efficiency..

The only other thing I do which I think helps me is I mill my own grain..

And again one thing to always make sure is when you dough in give it a really good stir before the rest make sure all the grains are swimming freely

 

[BrewzLee]

Excellent write up of your first proper AG brew day, thanks for taking the time to post it.

I am new to BIAB as well, having now completed 4 brews, and have also experienced the issues you have ending up with a lower than expected volume in the fermenter. I seem to find that the losses due to boil off and cooling are around 4-5l and then there are further losses to trub/hop absorption.

I think Spapro is right in suggesting to add additional water at the start of the boil or to introduce a dunk sparge to the process which is something that I have also started doing. This has helped to increase my efficiency to around 70%.

 

[JonD_87]

Thanks guys!

Although 60% is a bit disappointing, I am not that worried at the moment. I still have 20 liters of beer! :thumb:

I think I will do my next brew using the same process to see if I am still getting a similar efficiency and if so, I will then look to include a sparge.

Just had a quick peek after work, going on 36 hours from pitching the yeast. No bubbles in the airlock yet but there is a 2-3cm white layer on the top of the brew so hopefully everything is going well.

 

[cheapbrew]

Excellent write up and pictures, that pic of the thermometer reading 67 is one of the best I've seen :thumb:

 

[JonD_87]

After about 2 weeks in the bottle in my cupboard I have now moved this to the shed outside. Put a bottle in the fridge on Monday and tried it tonight. It is quite cloudy, which I hope will clear with time, but the taste is fantastic. Been a while since I had the original but I think it will be close to it taste wise. I will give it a couple of weeks in the cold shed and try a side by side test with the original (if I can wait that long).

Also tried a bottle of the Belgian Blond which was a set recipe from the malt miller I did before the SNPA clone. This was my first go at AG to get to grips with the process. The brew came out at 7.1% so it was quite strong. Again it was cloudy, but my boil wasn't that strong and I didn't use a whirfloc tablet. The beer itself is ok, but it has a bit of strong alcohol after taste. A bit of reading online suggests this type of strength beer should be left a good few months in the bottle to properly condition, does this sound about right? Perhaps I let the fermentation temperature get to high?