My First AG#1 - Punk IPA clone

[SteelT]

Hi All,

Here it is, my first go at the AG brew. After making several successful batches of extract and partial mash, I decided with my brewing buddy to assemble the equipment and try AG brew following the basics of AG we found on this great forum and youtube.
Here is how my brew day went and some of the questions I would like to ask the more experience brews for further advise.

My equipment (quite basic at the minute):

* Mash tun - converted Coleman Cooler box 36qt.
* 15L SS boiling pot
* Immersion copper coil chiller

Recipe - Punk IPA - BrewDog DIY (sized for 10L batch size)

2.65 kg Extra Pale Maris Otter (100%)

Ahtanum - 8.7g 60 mins
Chinook - 7.5g 60 mins
Crystal- 8.7g 30 mins
Chinook - 8.7g 30 mins
Ahtanum - 8.7g 5 mins
Chinook - 13.8g 5 mins
Crystal - 8.7g 5 mins
Motueka - 8.7g 5 mins

Irish Moss - 3g 15 mins

Yeast - S05 - 6.5 g , I decided to use dry yeast rather than the liquid as was in the recipe. With more experience, i will start using liquid in the future. I hope the result won't be that different.

Mash - 60 mins at 65C (as per the recipe)

I've used an online calculator to estimate the strike water volume of 8L at 72C. I put the strike water into the mash tun and added the grain bill. The mash temperature was slightly under target 63.8C , so I added another 1.2L of boiling water. This increased the temperature to 65C. However I think i spent too much time trying to stir the grains to remove some dough balls.
Then during the mashing I opened the box a few times to stir the grains, which I'm not sure if it is the best practice.
Anyhow, after 60 min the mash was completed and temperature was 63.5 C, which I believe could have been affected by my stirring and opening the box. Otherwise, I was not expecting to lose any heat. Then I did the iodine test, and it was all good.

Next step, vorlauf the first few jugs of wort back on top of the grains. I think this worked OK, as the wort was getting cleaner after re-circulating each jug of wort.

Next step, heat up the sparge water 7.3 L to get to pre-boil volume of about 14.00L. The temperature of the sparge water was 75-78C and i tried to fly sparge with a colander.
All went well, the wort was collected in the boiling kettle and of to the boil. It took awhile to bring to boil as I was using the gas hop in the kitchen but once up to temperature it was all good.
One thing to mention is that there was loads of protein in the wort after boiling, I don't think I've seen this on many videos I've watch. I wonder if this is something wrong ?
Cooling of the wort with the copper coil was very good, about 5 mins to get to 19C where I pitched the S05 yeast (6.5 g)

Gravity readings where as follows :
Before Sparge - 1.062
After Sparge (end runnings from the mash tun) - 1.032
Pre-boil - 1.038 (the online calculator shown only 62% efficiency)
OG - 1.047

Questions:

1.) I found my efficiency was much lower than expected but I guess I didn't manage to keep the mash temperature well?
2.) The online calculator shown at 62% for that batch volume the OG should have been 1.052, but mine was 5 points lower, why is that ?
3.) Do I have to stir the grains during mashing?
4.) Is it wrong to have too much protein after the boil? In the kettle where was quite a bit.

Here are some pictures from the brew day.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Slid]

Hi SteelT

Good on you for doing an AG! I am still quite fond of the partial mash brews and the link here shows how I would get 12.5L or so to add to a kit, or do on its own, which is a great approach. Differs slightly from your own, so is for information, not instruction :thumb:.

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=50779

To make suggestions around your specific questions:

1. Low efficiency may go hand-in hand with low volumes and hence temp control, as larger bodies of liquid change temp more slowly.

2. Is following on from 1 above, and life being a b!tch.

3. My small batch AG methodology would involve one good stirring at 30 mins. I can't think of a specific biochemical reason for this being a good idea, but it does relieve the boredom and gives you the feeling that something useful is being done.

4. A big load of trub is again a consequence of small batch brewing. Partly this may be due to the difficulty in holding a strong rolling boil on the stove. I would reckon on a 12.5L batch having 2.5L of protein and yeast trub following fermentation.

Still turns out well in the end.

 

[BeerCat]

Excellent photos, thanks for sharing your brewday. I cant do full size batches due to my boiler size and i dont always get the efficiency i want. Also get lots of trub sometimes. Pretty much given up worrying about it as it all settles out. I also normally end up short so have to top up after the boil. Good luck and let us know how it comes out. Wanna try this one myself.

 

[SteelT]

Hi guys , here is something strange with this AG brew.

After 7 days of fermentation the airlock is still bubbling and the FG looks like is 1.003 ?

I'm really surprised here as I've used before US-05 and has never been that low. Previously it has been 1.006 at the lowest.

Any idea?

Otherwise the beer taste awesome so far

 

[GHW]

Wow that is low for 05. My riwaka went to 1008/9 and that surprised me.

Check your hydro in water, it should be 1000 (I think,though minerals might skew it a bit).

 

[SteelT]

Wow that is low for 05. My riwaka went to 1008/9 and that surprised me.

Check your hydro in water, it should be 1000 (I think,though minerals might skew it a bit).

I couldn't understand either, so i did check the hydrometer in water and reads 0.999

 

[GHW]

Having re read your post I think it must be your mash temp. If it ended up around 63c , you'll have created a very fermentable wort. I mashed my riwaka about 65c which will have accounted for that going low

Chuck a duvet over your mash tun. I mash in an uninsulated pot, but just chuck a duvet on it, it doesn't move a degree over an hour.

 

[cornyandy]

I use a Tesco cheapo cool box (unmodified, I lauter in a separate vessel) it only looses about half a degree in 90 mins (with a couple of towels slung over the top as the top insulation is a little sparse)

 

[SteelT]

Thanks for the comments, i think it was my miscalculation of the strike water temperature, I wasn't convinced that I manage to get the desire mash temp.

Otherwise, I have a Coolman Extreme cooler box, and it should be great for the job.
I will watch out for this next time. I hope the beer is still good after conditioning.

 

[SteelT]

OK, so next think I was planing to do today was to bottle my first AG. However, once I open the FV saw so much trub floating on the top.
This put me off from bottling today, but the question is would this settle so I can bottle in a few days?

See the picture for details.

What is your advice?

Can i bottle like this or wait if this deposits on the bottom ?

Beer still taste fine !

 

[JabeerIni]

Perhaps you could remove that with a sanitised skimmer? (that's how I remove floating hops after dry-hopping.
In any case, congrats! I'm really looking forward to see the final result. I LOVE that beer!
Cheers!

 

[MyQul]

Just rack it from below. Should be fine

 

[Notlaw]

If you use a siphon, just put a hop bag over the end of the siphon stick and hold it on with a sanitised peg, bulldog clip or something like that. Certainly for leaf hops, you'll not get any through the siphon doing this.

 

[SteelT]

Come to the conclusion that brewing small batches will be a pain.

Manage to rack from the tap , and bottled 12x500ml & 6 x 330, not much :hmm:

Next time need to do some research how to reduce this trub !

Thanks for the advice so far

 

[MyQul]

Come to the conclusion that brewing small batches will be a pain.

Manage to rack from the tap , and bottled 12x500ml & 6 x 330, not much :hmm:

Next time need to do some research how to reduce this trub !

Thanks for the advice so far

Totally agree. For the effort, imo, small batches aren't worth it (if your fine with drinking 23L or can share). I'm also pretty sure that trub amount isn' linear, so you get less trub overall with 23L that you do with 10L or 15L

 

[SteelT]

So, first tasting of the beer was today and I'm hugely disappointed. I know, it has been only 14 days since bottling but I think there is something wrong with the taste.
There is a strong off flavour, very astringent and feels like plastic.
The beer is obviously very dry, more like lager than IPA. ( but I guess this is linked to the poor mash control). No taste of the hops at all, bitterness is there but I can't tell if it is because of the off-flavour

I've used bottle spring water for the entire batch without any further treatment.

I don't know if this beer will improve after cold conditioning but I don't have good feeling about it :sick::-(