Brewday - 4th September 2010 - A Big Beer

[Aleman]

(Pictures May Follow)

A group of like minded (crazy) craft brewers met up at Wibblers Brewery in Essex this weekend for a few beers and to brew a batch of beer for Wibblers October/November one of special beers. I can't help thinking that Phil made a bit of a mistake when he said "lets see just how much we can get into the mash tun" . . . The total capacity is a tad over 2000L (2023L if you are that interested) . . . Nice challenge :party:

After a bit of serious thought on the Thursday evening (aided and abetted by a long quality control session) came up with this as the grist.

95% Pale Malt
2% Dark Crystal Malt (400L)
1% Amber Malt
1% Wheat Malt
0.5% Carafa Chocolate Malt
0.5% Roast Barley

As the full volume of the mash tun will exceed the volume of the copper we decided to parti gyle it and take 4BBL (650L) of the first runnings, and brew a barley wine on the small plant, and whatever we managed to sparge from the remainder to make a small beer (at around 4.4%). . . . This also lead to the fact that we would have to do 2 boils on the small kit as the small copper is only 2BBL . . . Made coming up with the hopping interesting.

Mash Tun and HLT Grist Case Above Mash Tun

So brewday arrived :party: and we started loading the grist case . . . we had preloaded it with 10 Sacks the day before, so Phil started mashing in using his new hydrator . . . what could have been a chore was made relatively simple. In the meantime we crushed the Dark Crystal (14Kg), and the wheat Malt ( 7Kg) and loaded the dark malts (7Kg Amber and 3.5Kg Carafa Chocolate/3.5Kg Roast Barley) into the hopper, before tipping in the remaining 17 sacks of pale malt giving us a total of 675Kg of pale malt. . . . One snag here was that the grain auger couldn't transfer the grain from the hopper to the grist case, as fast as it left to end up in the mash tun. . . . So we had to stop to allow the Auger to catch up a couple of times. Still it was much easier than doing it by hand. . . . When it was all finally in the tun (Which actually required stirring and beating back to ensure that it stayed there :lol:) the mash was level with the top of the tun (Aim Achieved :party: ), and the lid was put on . . . This could present a challenge for sparging as the spiny sparge arm was 8" below the level of the top of the mash ) . . . Turned out we hit a Liquor to Grist ratio of 2.1L per Kg . . . In an acceptable range., should mean the first runnings will be about 1.090

Time for a beer

After the mash time was up we reconfigured the brewery to pump from the Under back into the Old FV and old Mash Tun (as a holding tank) . . . first runnings were 1.092 so fairly close to predicted.

And the first lot of hops (3Kg of Fuggles) was added, this was boiled for 90 minutes and we ran off the barley wine( OG 1.101), into the two FV's . . . before transferring the remaining 2BBL into the copper, on the spent hops, and adding a further 2Kg of fuggles . . .

. . . . After 45 minutes 2Kg of Brewers Gold were added for flavour, and at switch off we recirculated the wort (OG 1.105) while cooling to 80C before adding a Kilo of Goldings for aroma . . . Giving us a total of 8Kg of hops for the barley wine. . . . In order to recover as much extract as possible we sparged the hops to give us 3.3BBL (540L) at 1.095 . . . a bit lower than Phil wanted, but it should ferment well. . . . . Pitched with 8Kilo of yeast slurry.

In the meantime all was not well in the big brewery . :evil: . . . tbc

 

[jamesb]

1% Some Malt

Is this a wheeler recipe? :whistle:

EDIT: And what was going on with Bugs?

 

[Aleman]

1% Some Malt

Is this a wheeler recipe? :whistle:

No, we sort of made it up as we went along, based on a beer one of us had brewed . . . and I can't remember the final malt I'm waiting on an email to tell me what it was.

EDIT: And what was going on with Bugs?

Bugs was making a valuable addition to the BBQ . . . Fresh . . . Very Fresh

 

[Bru4u]

Those pics are very similar to what's in my head whilst I sleep. Mega nice.
You lucky sod Thanks for sharing Aleman :thumb:

 

[Cussword]

I wonder if I could get that down in my cellar :hmm: :whistle:

 

[Wez]

Hows did I miss this post!!!!


Brilliant :clap: :clap: :clap:

 

[unclepumble]

Looks like you had a good time tony :thumb:

UP

 

[highwayman]

Fantastic Guys :clap: :clap: :clap: ....What a Challenge ..I would love to try a pint :whistle:

 

[A T]

Very nice indeed Should fill many cornii

 

[31bb3]

Cor thats a mega brewday hope you had fun

 

[Aleman]

1% Some Malt

Is this a wheeler recipe? :whistle:

OK I have finally been set the correct Grist / Hoping details . . . Still waiting on Piccies

95.0%  675.00 kg.  Pale Malt(2-row)
 2.0%    14.00 kg.  Crystal Dark 400L
 1.0%     7.00 kg.  Amber Malt
 1.0%     7.00 kg.  Wheat Malt
 0.5%     3.50 kg.  Roasted Barley
 0.5%     3.50 kg.  Carafa Chocolate Malt

We then Ran off 2 BBL (284L) at 1.1006 which we boiled down to 270L at 1.1059 with 4kg Fuggles, the second 2BBL of first runnings was boiled down to 1.1004 with 2Kg Fuggles (60 Minutes), 2Kg Brewers Gold(15 Minutes) and 1.25Kg Goldings ( 80C Steep).

We then started sparging and collected 2842L of wort at 1.0464 which was boiled for 60 minutes with 8.2Kg of challenger (60 minutes) and 1.5Kg of Aurora (Super Styrian 15 minutes).

I say we started sparging but it wasn't really that simple due to the fact that we ended up with a stuck mash (the grain auger tends to crush the malt a bit finer as it transfers up to the copper) plus the weight of sparge liquor on top of the grain pushed it onto the FB. If you think you have a problem with a stuck mash in our mash tuns . . . you really want to try it when you have 2000L of mash! :evil: eventually Phil managed to free it up by underletting a sh*tload of sparge liquor and stirring the cr4p out of the mash. . . . Still we actually over hit our target OG s and the sparge gravity never dropped below 4.5 Brix (1.018) Batch sparging on a massive scale :lol:

We ended up with 2800L at 1.0481 in the big FV.

Great days brewing really, I love playing on the Big Boys Toys :party: :party: :party:

 

[BigYin]

2800 litres of beer? :shock:

Now that should last at least a week :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[MickD]

Is that a can of beer in the 3rd pic ? tut tut AleMan....
Looks like it was a good day :

 

[Franklin]

Good stuff, getting your hands properly dirty

 

[Tony]

must have missed this post .. cracking day had by all by the look of it.

Now where can I get me some gear like that..?

 

[Aleman]

Well the good news is that Wobbly wabbit had dropped from 1.1024 to 1.020 so a nice little 11% Barley wine . . . . I'm waiting details on the Cwafty Wabbit

So for those of you in the Maldon / Southminster /Tillingham / Mayland area are in for a treat . . . get your local to contact Phil at Wibblers Brewery and order a cask of cwafty wabbit and a pin of wobbly wabbit

 

[Aleman]

A Bit of a Bump for this as some more Piccies have come through from Abby :party: :clap:

As I mentioned in the first post we had preloaded 10 Sacks of malt into the Grist case, and here we are first thing trying to sort out a plan of action for the rest of the day.

We detailed Phil and Russ to take the Stillage down to the field . . . it was the Dengie tractor festival that weekend too . . . so we also helped set up for that.

Phil's target for this weekend was to max out the brewery . . . Looking at the mash tun once we had completed mashing in I think it is safe to say we achieved that aim . . . There is a spinney sparge arm in there somewhere

Still we were able to run off into Phil's nice underback with no problems.

And Darren kept an eye on the level in the small copper next door.

So no issues running off the 4BBL of first runnings for the barley wine . . . and we just started sparging to fill the big copper . . . and that is when the problems started. the weight of sparge liquor on the grain (which had been floating nicely while we ran off the first wort), caused it to block the filter plate . . . Stuck Mash . . . which Phil managed to clear by underletting a shed load of liquor and stirring like mad.

So with all these shenanigans the first boil in the small copper was over, and it was transferred to one of the FV's so that we could refill the copper and boil the second batch of Barley Wine . . . Phil also did a quick gravity check

We were still running off in the big brewery . . .just checking the gravity of the run off . . . still around 4.? Brix

Half of the copper hops going in. . . . Just 8Kg this time into the Big Copper, And then we set Russ to digging out the mash tun

It's a serious thing this brewing lark :drink: . . . at least while the boil is going on. And Bugs needed his jacket taking off before he could make his contribution to the BBQ

A great weekend was had by all, I still think Phil is completely mad letting a bunch of amateurs loose at the brewery to produce beer that he than has to sell :lol: . . . but I'm glad he does it

 

[jamesb]

A great weekend was had by all, I still think Phil is completely mad letting a bunch of amateurs loose at the brewery to produce beer that he than has to sell :lol: . . . but I'm glad he does it

Remember, the only difference between amateurs and professionals is that the latter get paid for it.

 

[BeerBloke]

A Bit of a Bump for this as some more Piccies have come through from Abby :party: :clap:

As I mentioned in the first post we had preloaded 10 Sacks of malt into the Grist case, and here we are first thing trying to sort out a plan of action for the rest of the day.

We detailed Phil and Russ to take the Stillage down to the field . . . it was the Dengie tractor festival that weekend too . . . so we also helped set up for that.

Phil's target for this weekend was to max out the brewery . . . Looking at the mash tun once we had completed mashing in I think it is safe to say we achieved that aim . . . There is a spinney sparge arm in there somewhere

Still we were able to run off into Phil's nice underback with no problems.

And Darren kept an eye on the level in the small copper next door.

So no issues running off the 4BBL of first runnings for the barley wine . . . and we just started sparging to fill the big copper . . . and that is when the problems started. the weight of sparge liquor on the grain (which had been floating nicely while we ran off the first wort), caused it to block the filter plate . . . Stuck Mash . . . which Phil managed to clear by underletting a shed load of liquor and stirring like mad.

So with all these shenanigans the first boil in the small copper was over, and it was transferred to one of the FV's so that we could refill the copper and boil the second batch of Barley Wine . . . Phil also did a quick gravity check

We were still running off in the big brewery . . .just checking the gravity of the run off . . . still around 4.? Brix

Half of the copper hops going in. . . . Just 8Kg this time into the Big Copper, And then we set Russ to digging out the mash tun

It's a serious thing this brewing lark :drink: . . . at least while the boil is going on. And Bugs needed his jacket taking off before he could make his contribution to the BBQ

A great weekend was had by all, I still think Phil is completely mad letting a bunch of amateurs loose at the brewery to produce beer that he than has to sell :lol: . . . but I'm glad he does it

And for those that are interested we're doing it again next month for the 13th UK-HBD/CBA Flocculation......

PS I'm still an amateur as I don't get paid ;-) 'Wibble' :drunk: