Mash, Bang, Wallop

[thechan]

Mash, bang, wallop, I gave brewing a 5 litre batch of all grain ale a go last bank holiday Monday.

I went with the simplest recipe as recommended, 1kg of Maris Otter malt, and some Fuggles Hops.

Process:
1) 1kg Maris Otter in 4L of strike water heated to 69 degrees. Gave it a good stir (put the grain in a bag).

2) Brought the pot into my living room and covered it with 3 duvets for an hour. Over the hour the temperature dropped to 62 degrees.

3) Heated 4L of sparge water to around 77 degrees (near end of mashing period)

4) Poured off the mash water (?) into the sterilised container. Added the sparge water to the pot with the grain and stirred for a bit. Left for 10 minutes.

5) Removed the grain, and returned the mash water to the pot.

6) Boiled for 60 minutes on hob (total of 8L). Added 5g of Fuggles hop pellets at start of the boil, and 10g for the last 5 mins. Over the 60 minutes the volume reduced to a bit less than 5L. SG was 1.041.

7) Cooled in the sink, which was filled with ice water. Took longer than expected, need a lot of ice.

8) Transferred to fermenter and added 3g of Safale-04.

9) Left for 10 days

10) Bottled last night. Got x6 Grolsch bottles, x2 500ml bottles and x2 330ml bottles. Tasted quite nice, and didn't have that twang that the beer kits do! FG was 1.006 so around 4.6%. Batch primed with 30g of cane sugar.

Great experience, I'll definitely be trying another batch in the near future!

 

[Slid]

Hi Chan

Looks like your kit would easily accommodate a 10L brew to me!

A better alternative to icing the cool down water (at Step 7) might be 1 or 2 "tap temps" water changes and then the ice at the end when the wort is fairly cool anyway.

Get thermodynamics on your side for a change.

 

[clibit]

Nice one thechan! Good fun innit? Let us know how it turns out.

 

[thechan]

Thanks Slid, I'll try icing the latter changes of sink water instead of the ones at the start.

My pot is around 15litres so it would easily do a 10litre brew, but I don't drink enough at home to warrant a bigger brew, especially since I'd like to experiment with a few recipies.

 

[thechan]

I opened one of these (6 of these) at the weekend after 9 days in the bottle (maybe a bit premature?).

There was still some yeast floating in the bottles, maybe expected after only 9 days and no cold conditioning. I didn't expect it to taste as nice as it did, very fresh and easy drinking! Looking forward to trying some different malt/hops to see how it effects the taste!

 

[Cwrw666]

Glad that worked out for you. Regarding chilling - lots of people don't bother. After switch off I make my last hop additions if needed, let it stand for 20 mins to let the hops steep and settle and then strain into the FV. As it's not much less than boiling it effectively sterilises the FV. Seal it up and leave it til it's at pitching temperature before adding the yeast. Works for me. You might get a little chill haze doing it this way, but seriously, who cares?

 

[thechan]

Glad that worked out for you. Regarding chilling - lots of people don't bother. After switch off I make my last hop additions if needed, let it stand for 20 mins to let the hops steep and settle and then strain into the FV. As it's not much less than boiling it effectively sterilises the FV. Seal it up and leave it til it's at pitching temperature before adding the yeast. Works for me. You might get a little chill haze doing it this way, but seriously, who cares?

Yea if it works then it could shave off some time from a brew. Had to do this with my latest batch, cooled it to ~35 degrees in ice water and then let it cool at room temperature for a few hours before pitching the yeast.