Since I have a few brews lined up I figured I would create a thread.
After getting to grips with the practicalities with my first brew (what is shaping up to be a rather sweet "hedgerow" pale ale) my first attempt following a recipe is for Theakston's Old Peculiar, a personal and family favourite (using the CAMRA recipe).
I carried out the brew today (actual measures, slightly different to recipe):
Pale malt (Bairds) 5460 g
crystal malt (crafty brews) 300 g
chocolate malt (crafty brews) 222 g
Challenger hops (craty brews) 30 g boil start
Fuggles hops (crafty brews) 15 g boil start
East Kent Goldings (crafty brews) 15 g 10 min left
Irish Moss (Brupak) 6 g 10 min left (added twice the amount by mistake)
Safale S-04 yeast (this wasn't the recipe yeast but hopefully this will be fine at a third of the price?)
A couple of grams of Goldings for dry hopping
Mashed at 66 C for 90 min: in reality, 66-64 C over 45 mins, top-up with hot liquor and stir in to 66 C again for final 45 min. Then sparged at 77 C. My brother's shed stool is the perfect height to get a three-tiered system going. I don't have a hot liquor tank and a boiler, so I sparge into a bucket and then decant that back into the boiler afterwards. The collander works very well to prevent disturbing the grain bed and you can get a nice continuous sparge going.
So, my pre boil gravity was 1034, and if my calculations are to be believed, that would give me a mash efficiency of 76%? Once I had collected 23 L the wort was definitely still coloured. I wonder if I didn't use enough liquor for the mash?
(pale malt max 38, medium crystal 34, chocolate 28 -> multiply each by kg then divide total by vol (5 gallons) which gives 45 ppg (44.8) as the max? So 1034/1045 is 76%. - criticism welcome!)
This time I added the whole 23 L to the boiler after doing some tests beforehand to check the volume properly (it says 27 L on the sticker on the side but that is pure fantasy). 23 L is slightly above the max line, but it seems ok (and turned out to be ok). The main downside to this boiler it appears is that since its basically a tea-urn it clicks on and off constantly and so doesn't have a consistent rolling simmer for the entire time like a stove kettle (if that's the correct name) would. In any case, it's been fine for me for the time being.
I then cool to about 28 C before transferring to the fermentation bucket (which had made a cameo in the previous step as the sparge bucket - before being washed and sterilised).
I find that after transferring, the temperature in the bucket has dropped to about 24 C since the tap is small so with a slow flow rate, hence cooling to 28 Cin the boiler. A ton of air gets in this way before pitching the yeast which is great though - which I do at 24 C to encourage it to get going.
The gravity at this point was 1054, slightly down on the 1058 in the recipe. Is this due to a poorer efficiency in the mash? Still, quite happy with it and it looks great (and smells good).
The downside of my set-up is that the boiler is a pain to clean, and having seen a number of other threads now where hop bags have been used, this is something I am quite keen to get hold of.
This is the final wort pre-pitch. Colour looks great and the head already looks like Old Peculiar! Optimistic!
I only managed to get about 17.5 L this time, I was hoping for 20 L after the boil but couldn't get the dregs out due to the hop crud - hence the desire to get a hop bag which will hopefully allow access to the elusive remaining volume!
Now just to wait until I take a gravity reading in a week.
Cheers!
After getting to grips with the practicalities with my first brew (what is shaping up to be a rather sweet "hedgerow" pale ale) my first attempt following a recipe is for Theakston's Old Peculiar, a personal and family favourite (using the CAMRA recipe).
I carried out the brew today (actual measures, slightly different to recipe):
Pale malt (Bairds) 5460 g
crystal malt (crafty brews) 300 g
chocolate malt (crafty brews) 222 g
Challenger hops (craty brews) 30 g boil start
Fuggles hops (crafty brews) 15 g boil start
East Kent Goldings (crafty brews) 15 g 10 min left
Irish Moss (Brupak) 6 g 10 min left (added twice the amount by mistake)
Safale S-04 yeast (this wasn't the recipe yeast but hopefully this will be fine at a third of the price?)
A couple of grams of Goldings for dry hopping
Mashed at 66 C for 90 min: in reality, 66-64 C over 45 mins, top-up with hot liquor and stir in to 66 C again for final 45 min. Then sparged at 77 C. My brother's shed stool is the perfect height to get a three-tiered system going. I don't have a hot liquor tank and a boiler, so I sparge into a bucket and then decant that back into the boiler afterwards. The collander works very well to prevent disturbing the grain bed and you can get a nice continuous sparge going.
So, my pre boil gravity was 1034, and if my calculations are to be believed, that would give me a mash efficiency of 76%? Once I had collected 23 L the wort was definitely still coloured. I wonder if I didn't use enough liquor for the mash?
(pale malt max 38, medium crystal 34, chocolate 28 -> multiply each by kg then divide total by vol (5 gallons) which gives 45 ppg (44.8) as the max? So 1034/1045 is 76%. - criticism welcome!)
This time I added the whole 23 L to the boiler after doing some tests beforehand to check the volume properly (it says 27 L on the sticker on the side but that is pure fantasy). 23 L is slightly above the max line, but it seems ok (and turned out to be ok). The main downside to this boiler it appears is that since its basically a tea-urn it clicks on and off constantly and so doesn't have a consistent rolling simmer for the entire time like a stove kettle (if that's the correct name) would. In any case, it's been fine for me for the time being.
I then cool to about 28 C before transferring to the fermentation bucket (which had made a cameo in the previous step as the sparge bucket - before being washed and sterilised).
I find that after transferring, the temperature in the bucket has dropped to about 24 C since the tap is small so with a slow flow rate, hence cooling to 28 Cin the boiler. A ton of air gets in this way before pitching the yeast which is great though - which I do at 24 C to encourage it to get going.
The gravity at this point was 1054, slightly down on the 1058 in the recipe. Is this due to a poorer efficiency in the mash? Still, quite happy with it and it looks great (and smells good).
The downside of my set-up is that the boiler is a pain to clean, and having seen a number of other threads now where hop bags have been used, this is something I am quite keen to get hold of.
This is the final wort pre-pitch. Colour looks great and the head already looks like Old Peculiar! Optimistic!
I only managed to get about 17.5 L this time, I was hoping for 20 L after the boil but couldn't get the dregs out due to the hop crud - hence the desire to get a hop bag which will hopefully allow access to the elusive remaining volume!
Now just to wait until I take a gravity reading in a week.
Cheers!
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