AG#25 - May-Day

[Franklin]

I had plans of doing some Hop gardening today, I got as far as screwing some Rawl Eye Bolts into the house then it started to rain and hail.
Paul over at BB mentioned it was national Brew day or something... so what the heck! Its a Mayday brew :)
I'm using mostly Lager hops, Perle & Saaz with a small addition of Cascade in the final Flame out steep, I had a bag of Mild Ale malt that I thought I'd find a use for with a couple of small additions of Crystal-malt-esque things and a tad of wheat malt for head retention.

May Day

Fermentables:
Golden Promise 4000g 74.1%
Mild Ale Malt 1000g 18.5%
Wheat Malt 200g 3.7%
Cara Red 100g 1.9%
Aromatic Malt 100g 1.9%

Hops:
Perle 60 mins 50g
Saaz 15 mins 50g
Saaz 0 mins 50g (20min steep)
Cascade 0 mins 10g (20min steep)

Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.052
Final Gravity: 1.012
Alcohol Content: 5.3% ABV
Total Liquor: 33.7 Litres
Mash Liquor: 13.5 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 48 EBU
Colour: 12 EBC

Mashing for 1 hour, Boiling for 1 hour. Good healthy Teaspoon of Gypsum to the Mash.
Yeast to be Nottingham probably or maybe a Whitelabs Edinburgh Ale yeast which might be nice :)

Mashing:

Mash Temp at start:

Hops all weighed and ready:

Did a pH just to see if I still don't need to bother:

Sparge:

FWH, I split the bittering addition between FWH and Start of boil:

Start of boil hops:

Predicted 1052, maybe a little over:

Really tasty wort, pitched a couple of splits of a Whitelabs Edinburgh Ale yeast (I might skim a bit to keep)

 

[rickthebrew]

another great looking brew - lager hops are great in pale ales, tettnang is realy good - looks like a winner to me :drink:

 

[Franklin]

fingers crossed, just a few mins left of the boil :) Going to Pitch a split Edinburgh Ale Yeast :)

 

[Franklin]

Running to Fermenter now, damn tasty wort :)

 

[Tony]

:thumb:
Looks like a great brew!

Nice one!

 

[Franklin]

No yeast action yet, Whitelabs always seem to take the better part of 24-48 hours to get upto speed :)

 

[Sean_Mc]

Looks a good day :thumb:

 

[Franklin]

No yeast activity yet gave it a good rouse this morning, I am poised to rehydrate and pitch some Nottingham if nothing happens in the next few hours.

 

[Franklin]

Fermenting well now!

 

[bolty]

Did you just 'drop' the white labs in? Every time I have done this there seems to be a good lag, which always worries me. I am half tempted to start making starters for white labs, though wyeast seem to go off really well (may be the whole activation pack thing).

Nice looking brew BTW :thumb:

 

[Franklin]

Yeah, just dropped in! Starters are a better idea. :-)