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Completed my first all-grain brew for over10 years.
It was also the first outing for the new tower brewery set up from Hamstead Homebrewing centre, now there's not a lot of room in my garage as it's got to compete with my bikes and woodworking equipment
I cleared a bit of wall and floor space and it fits right in
I opted to use the insulated mash tun that I had just built up instead of the heated MT supplied with the brewery. This was made using a 5 US gallon Igloo cylindrical cooler, a 9â stainless steel false bottom from Hop & Grape, and taps etc from polyplumb â all push fit.
I used water from our softened water supply for both sparge and mash - I haven't tested yet, maybe for future brews.
For my first brew I went for a Brupaks Yorkshire bitter mash kit. I filled the HLT with the Mash volume of 11 Litres plus dead space and switched on. It reached strike temp 72 degrees very quickly.
Once at strike temp I opened the tap from the HLT and drained into MT, this was a bit slow so I will probably add an extra tap with a bigger bore for the next brew. I had kept the malt indoors overnight to keep its temperature up and it was 16 degrees at doughing in (when I got it out f the garage the previous evening it was only 6 degrees) I thought I was doughing in fairly carefully but I had quite a few dry pockets that needed breaking up with a stainless spatula)
With a temp probe in and lid on the temp registered 66 degrees. It remained at 66 for the entire 90 minutes.
Whilst the mash was going on I added the rest of the water 23 Litres and switched on the HLT with about 40 minutes to go. It just made it to sparge heat by the time the mash was finished.
I assembled the spinning sparge arm using the push fit connectors and centered it above the MT.
First litre of wort had bits in but it soon cleared and I jugged this back onto the mash. Sparging went reasonably well but as the head of water from the HLT reduced the arm stopped spinning, there wasnât any noticeable channeling and I kept a little water on top of the mash and it kept draining well.
I drained directly into the boiler and put the heater on as soon as the element was covered,
The final volume collected was 28 litres and it came to the boil pretty quickly. Addition of the hops created some foaming but not enough to get a boil over and the element kept a rolling boil for the full 90 minutes.
There was about 25 litres left at the end of the boil
At the end of the boil I let it sit for a few minutes then chilled using an S/S immersion chiller coil. Wort to 20 degrees then dropped into fermenter. About 2 litres left in the boiler, trub and hops, so Fermenter volume was 23 litres. Gravity of the bitter wort was 1038.
I pitched the supplied yeast which I had made up as a starter 48 hours earlier and itâs fermented away happily.
First 4 days in bucket type fermenter the dropped to closed fermenter for 3 days FG 1008, added finings and put in the garage overnight, it dropped bright. Racked into a Corny keg added CO2 and left for 3 days
Drink, great head very hoppy flavour, slight chill haze straight from the garage, clear at room temperature.
IMPROVEMENTS
think the HLT needs a bigger tap, and I'm going to add a sight tube.
cheers
It was also the first outing for the new tower brewery set up from Hamstead Homebrewing centre, now there's not a lot of room in my garage as it's got to compete with my bikes and woodworking equipment
I cleared a bit of wall and floor space and it fits right in
I opted to use the insulated mash tun that I had just built up instead of the heated MT supplied with the brewery. This was made using a 5 US gallon Igloo cylindrical cooler, a 9â stainless steel false bottom from Hop & Grape, and taps etc from polyplumb â all push fit.
I used water from our softened water supply for both sparge and mash - I haven't tested yet, maybe for future brews.
For my first brew I went for a Brupaks Yorkshire bitter mash kit. I filled the HLT with the Mash volume of 11 Litres plus dead space and switched on. It reached strike temp 72 degrees very quickly.
Once at strike temp I opened the tap from the HLT and drained into MT, this was a bit slow so I will probably add an extra tap with a bigger bore for the next brew. I had kept the malt indoors overnight to keep its temperature up and it was 16 degrees at doughing in (when I got it out f the garage the previous evening it was only 6 degrees) I thought I was doughing in fairly carefully but I had quite a few dry pockets that needed breaking up with a stainless spatula)
With a temp probe in and lid on the temp registered 66 degrees. It remained at 66 for the entire 90 minutes.
Whilst the mash was going on I added the rest of the water 23 Litres and switched on the HLT with about 40 minutes to go. It just made it to sparge heat by the time the mash was finished.
I assembled the spinning sparge arm using the push fit connectors and centered it above the MT.
First litre of wort had bits in but it soon cleared and I jugged this back onto the mash. Sparging went reasonably well but as the head of water from the HLT reduced the arm stopped spinning, there wasnât any noticeable channeling and I kept a little water on top of the mash and it kept draining well.
I drained directly into the boiler and put the heater on as soon as the element was covered,
The final volume collected was 28 litres and it came to the boil pretty quickly. Addition of the hops created some foaming but not enough to get a boil over and the element kept a rolling boil for the full 90 minutes.
There was about 25 litres left at the end of the boil
At the end of the boil I let it sit for a few minutes then chilled using an S/S immersion chiller coil. Wort to 20 degrees then dropped into fermenter. About 2 litres left in the boiler, trub and hops, so Fermenter volume was 23 litres. Gravity of the bitter wort was 1038.
I pitched the supplied yeast which I had made up as a starter 48 hours earlier and itâs fermented away happily.
First 4 days in bucket type fermenter the dropped to closed fermenter for 3 days FG 1008, added finings and put in the garage overnight, it dropped bright. Racked into a Corny keg added CO2 and left for 3 days
Drink, great head very hoppy flavour, slight chill haze straight from the garage, clear at room temperature.
IMPROVEMENTS
think the HLT needs a bigger tap, and I'm going to add a sight tube.
cheers
