AG#1 - SNPA clone... pictures added

[simonranson]

Right, this weekend is the big day. I've fart-arsed around long enough building up my brewery, so am going to attempt AG#1 on Sunday or Monday.

To make things slightly easier on the recipy front, I ordered the SNPA clone kit from the Malt Miller, so I've got a recipy and this lot....

6kg Lager Malt
1kg Pale Crystal Malt
100g Northern Brewer Hops
100g Cascade Hops
Some US-05 yeast

I'm going to do this...

5.45kg Lager Malt
0.45kg Crystal malt

30g Northern Brewer (60min)
30g Cascase (10min)
70g Cascade (1min)

I've done the water alkalinity/hardness test (that just confirmed that my water is a hard as nails!) so just need to get some CRS in the morning.

I'm flying totally blind with this, apart from the guides printed out from here.

Fingers crossed :pray:

Cheers
Simon

 

[Good Ed]

Good luck Simon, relax and enjoy it, any questions just post them up : busting beer to start with :thumb:

 

[keith1664]

I think you've got your hops mixed up, it's the cascade that goes in at the end.

 

[simonranson]

oops, yes you are right Keith - that was a typo when i copied over the recipy. I'll do a quick edit.

:
Simon

 

[gurtpint]

Go for it Simon! I'll be making something along these lines next too.

 

[NegFerret]

Good luck Simon, let us know how it turns out - looks like it might be a good one for me to try! :

 

[Sean_Mc]

Very similar to the one I did Simon and it turned out great.
Good luck with the brew and hope your doing pics so we can see the system in action :thumb:

 

[simonranson]

Thanks for the words of encouragement, guys. I think I'm nearly ready to go for tomorrow. Just going to recheck the deadspace volumes, and think through how I'm best going to transfer the liquids between pots.

I'll get the camera out, and update this thread with sone pictures.

Cheers
Simon

 

[luckyeddie]

Good luck - and may all your yeasties be friendly ones.

 

[simonranson]

Here goes... HLT is warming up :)

 

[snail59]

Here goes... HLT is warming up :)

And so it begins

Good luck with the Brew Simon. Just take your time and enjoy. :thumb:

 

[simonranson]

Thanks Snail.

First lesson learnt is next time, weigh-out the grain outside! HLT is nearly up to temperature, just going to pre-heat the mash tun.... pictures are being taken :)

 

[snail59]

Thanks Snail.

First lesson learnt is next time, weigh-out the grain outside!

:rofl:

Yes there can be a lot of flour in there.

I weigh mine the night before then keep them in the kitchen next to the boiler, along with the mash tun, to warm them to help with heat loss.

 

[micmacmoc]

I've been doing similar brews almost exclusively, its a wonderful pint. What yeast are you using, it really does make more of a difference than you would think. I've generally used us05 but on my latest its been wlp005, tried it last night, lovely!

happy brewing!

 

[simonranson]

The mash is on. :)

 

[BarnsleyBrewer]

Good Luck :thumb:

 

[simonranson]

Cheers BB.

First runnings are out. What a lovely colour :) :)

 

[simonranson]

Boiling nicely... and first hops in. My earlier concerns about the 3kW element not giving a nice rolling boil are unfounded. :)

This is great fun

Simon

 

[simonranson]

I've been doing similar brews almost exclusively, its a wonderful pint. What yeast are you using, it really does make more of a difference than you would think. I've generally used us05 but on my latest its been wlp005, tried it last night, lovely!

happy brewing!

Cheers :)

The pack from the Malt Miller came with US-05, so I'll use that this time.

 

[simonranson]

Here's a few pictures of today's AG#1. It was great fun :)

Filling the HLT...

Measuring out the grain - it got a bit dusty. oops. There's 5.45kg of lager malt, 0.45kg of crystal malt and a little bit of gypsum.

HLT up to temperature...

... and filling the pre-heated mash tun with 12-and-a-bit litres of water.

In with the grains...

Time to sit back for a while...

Hops and water additives weighed out...

Thats the 60 minutes done. These thermo pots really do keep their heat in!

Lovely colour :)

Start of the boil, with the first hops in. I had worried about how good the boil was going to be...

... but it soon got going. I had the PID on manual mode, which worked a treat. once boiling it was turned down to 90%.

Chiller and 1minute hops in. I need to modify the chiller to get it down lower. The pot is too big for it how it is.

Gunk... I'm assuming that the break material?

Nice stuff... it took about a litre to clear, then looked lovely.

More gunk...

All clean and tidy...

And there it is :) I was a bit short out of the boiler, so I topped up to 23 litres with 2.55 litres of bottled water. The temp-adjusted SG before the top-up was 1063. I need to work out what went where to end up being that much short.

All-in-all a great fun day. I'd like to thank everybody on here for all the help they've given over the few months its taken to get here.

Cheers
Simon