dan125's 2018 brewdays

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

dan125

BIAB brewer
Joined
Mar 13, 2013
Messages
3,027
Reaction score
3,004
Location
Medway
As I've picked up a few new bits of kit over the festive period I thought it would be fun to catalogue the cock ups and plot the progress along the never ending journey towards better beer with a brew day thread.

Today's brew will be the 2nd in the new fermentasaurus, which has led to quite a few changes to the way I do things. This time round I'm gonna be focusing on -
  • Nailing mash Ph, now that I finally have a Ph meter. 1st time trying it on the last brew my Ph was a bit high, so I'm gonna change up my water treatment a bit and include 2% acidulated malt this time.
  • Increasing batch size to 28L (will push this up to 30-31L eventually).
  • Making the most of the Fermentasaurus by naturally carbonating properly & kegging/bottling without any O2 exposure - so I'm using less dry hops than usual to try to make sure I can add them via the bottle on the bottom of the FS, rather than open the top up. Although I am adding a nice big whirlpool addition for some hoppy goodness.
Here's the recipe and I'll try to take a few pics as I go, to post later.
Let me know what you think, and I'm always up for a bottle swap if any of my brews take your fancy

:smallcheers:

VPaleAleRecipe.JPG
 

Attachments

  • upload_2018-1-13_8-28-42.png
    upload_2018-1-13_8-28-42.png
    243.5 KB · Views: 80
Last edited:
Wow your really going for it this year Dan!
Just had a look at that fermentasaurus on the web, sounds like its definitely pushing it up a notch.
When are you taking your mash ph? mine starts a little high, but then by the end of mash sample it seems to bang on. I'm not sure if that how its meant to be or not?
 
Wow your really going for it this year Dan!
Just had a look at that fermentasaurus on the web, sounds like its definitely pushing it up a notch.
When are you taking your mash ph? mine starts a little high, but then by the end of mash sample it seems to bang on. I'm not sure if that how its meant to be or not?

Onwards and upwards mate ;)
Sadly the fermentasaurus thread that @Hoddy started has disappeared with the site upgrade, but I've been very impressed with it on its first outing.
I pressure transfered in a keg for the 1st time last night and it worked a charm. Unfortunately I couldn't see a way of filling bottles with carbonated beer from it without shelling out more cash on a beer gun, but that worked brilliantly too (although I think the beer was undercarbed).

Last brew I checked the Ph at 15mins into the mash - I know it drops during the mash, but I thought this was the usual time to check it ???
 
Hi!
I bottle from a keg using a carbonation cap - it works a treat!
There's a You Tube video that covers the process.

Yeah they look good for filling plastic bottles, but I want to fill glass bottles too.
I'll be trying out the degassing wand that you suggested on the other thread, to aerate this batch.
 
Lots of Cascade at flame out.. nice

does the hop oil work well to bitter?

I've only used it once before, and that was a very low IBU beer, so this will be a better test.
Its horrible thick gloopy stuff though, that you need to warm up before you can syringe out of the bottle.
 
Nice one Leon - there'll be a bottle with your name on it.

Is a 60 min IPA a 30 min mash and a 30 min boil??
No normal mash and boil but hopped for 60 minutes. I am following the schedule from Greg Hughes recipe. 15g at 60 mins and then 15g every 5 mins from 30 mins. Also a dry hop. A thread is in my brewday log
 
Onwards and upwards mate ;)
Sadly the fermentasaurus thread that @Hoddy started has disappeared with the site upgrade, but I've been very impressed with it on its first outing.
I pressure transfered in a keg for the 1st time last night and it worked a charm. Unfortunately I couldn't see a way of filling bottles with carbonated beer from it without shelling out more cash on a beer gun, but that worked brilliantly too (although I think the beer was undercarbed).

Last brew I checked the Ph at 15mins into the mash - I know it drops during the mash, but I thought this was the usual time to check it ???

If I’m honest I couldn’t find that thread now in this crazy new world. So I wouldn’t even know if it had gone AWOL or not.

I’m trying to work out how to bottle some beers either from the FS or the keg so I can share them to. Without buying a £99 beer gun

If it makes you feel any better I over shot my ph in my rye ipa beer I brewed last weekend. Looks like it’s finsished up already so I’m planning on the dry hop mid next week.

Three way bottle swap @dan125 and @Leon103 ??
 
If I’m honest I couldn’t find that thread now in this crazy new world. So I wouldn’t even know if it had gone AWOL or not.

I’m trying to work out how to bottle some beers either from the FS or the keg so I can share them to. Without buying a £99 beer gun

If it makes you feel any better I over shot my ph in my rye ipa beer I brewed last weekend. Looks like it’s finsished up already so I’m planning on the dry hop mid next week.

Three way bottle swap @dan125 and @Leon103 ??
I would be up for that
 
No normal mash and boil but hopped for 60 minutes. I am following the schedule from Greg Hughes recipe. 15g at 60 mins and then 15g every 5 mins from 30 mins. Also a dry hop. A thread is in my brewday log

Looks good - I haven't used any of those styrian hops myself so it'll be nice to try them
 
FG1.jpg
Efficiency was up a bit on usual today at 72%, so I ended up with 28L @ 1.049

Shed loads of trub in the FS though after another failed attempt at filtering through the lauter helix
 
It's chugging away nicely this morning, I'm gonna try to keep it at 12psi until its packaged and adjust next time if the carbonation is out.
12_psi.jpg
 
From mead making I think I've read that CO2 has a negative impact on yeast health, one of the reasons (though not the only one) we degas mead during fermentation. This carb as you go idea would seem to go against that. Maybe it's the lower gravity or extra nutrients in a beer as opposed to a mead meaning that the CO2 doesn't matter too much.
 
From mead making I think I've read that CO2 has a negative impact on yeast health, one of the reasons (though not the only one) we degas mead during fermentation. This carb as you go idea would seem to go against that. Maybe it's the lower gravity or extra nutrients in a beer as opposed to a mead meaning that the CO2 doesn't matter too much.

That would make sense , as CO2 is a waste product of the yeast. But as all beer has some dissolved CO2 I guess it can't do too much harm??
 

Latest posts

Back
Top