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Iechyd Da Laa

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Hi,

Can anyone help! I’m about to embark on my first full grain brew using my new Hopcat 45l. I have bought a Wainwright’s Golden Ale style recipe kit from Worcesterhopshop.co.uk.

The instruction for the brew day are like the technical challenge on Bake Off. The basics are there but it is missing the detail.

Can anyone help flesh out these instructions? Massive thanks in advance. Image attached of the instructions.
 

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Ok, boyo. Because the title of your thread isn't just "Help!" and so vague that I think G.F.Y I'm in.

Mash temp is 66.5 and there's 4.155kg of grain. Ok, so you want 3 litres of water per kg of grain so

* heat 12.5 litres to 74.3c

* 'Mash in' your grains - gently pour them in, sirring as you go to get out the lumps which beer people call 'dough balls'. I'm presuming that contraption has some sort of grain basket and you're not doing your mash in whatever's at hand, like a dog bed.

* Check the temp and if it's pretty close then leave it for an hour. Stir it every 15 minutes and check - top up with a bit of boiling water to get back to temp if you need to.

* After an hour, or ninety minutes or whatever raise the basket (or squeeze out the dog bed) and let it drain. Now you can wash out the grains with about 17.5 litres of water, ideally at about 77c but even if it's cold don't worry - this is called sparging and your contraption might have a device for doing this, and recirculating. Dog beds don't have this feature so I would not know.

* Boil the sauce that's been produced. It's called wort, which rhymes with skirt. Some people mistakenly call it 'wart' which rhymes with sport. Being an early blossomer while at school when my friends were playing sport, I was chasing skirt. That's a good way of remembering it.

* The times next to the hops are called 'hop timings' and it means how long they're to be boiled for - so 60 minutes means it should be boiled for 60 minutes, not added after 60 minutes. So for your beer and a 60 minute boil:

* As it starts to boil add 18.5g of challenger
* 30 minutes later add 21.5g Hallertau and 9.5g of Bobek
* 25 minutes later with 5 minutes to go add 21.5 of Bobek, 24.5g of Hallertau and the protafloc tablet. People usually say to add the protafloc at 15 minutes. That used to be right but now they're wrong.

* 5 minutes later turn off all the heat and chill it as quickly as possible, dry off the dog's bed and slide it back under the pooch, trying not to dislodge any of the suckling puppoids.

* When the beer has cooled to pfffftt.... 20c then decant it noisly into your fermenting bucket (or whatever you have at hand, such as an aquarium) and get ready to add the yeast.

* If you are a complete monster and don't care about the death of billions of yeast cells - the things that are actually going to turn the sugary soup you've just made into beer - if you don't care about killing half of your workforce, then sprinkle the yeast on top. Hopefully they'll stop mourning their dead and start to work for you, resentfully. If you do care then take 100ml of water, just plain water - heat it to 37c and add the yeast to that. Just pour it on top. After 15 minutes add that to your wort.

That will do for now.
 
If the hopcat is anything like my old first gen ace machine then don't forget to add on an extra 6 litres or so to your initial mash water to allow for the dead space below the grain basket/tube thing

Cheers. Tom
 
Ok, boyo. Because the title of your thread isn't just "Help!" and so vague that I think G.F.Y I'm in.

Mash temp is 66.5 and there's 4.155kg of grain. Ok, so you want 3 litres of water per kg of grain so

* heat 12.5 litres to 74.3c

* 'Mash in' your grains - gently pour them in, sirring as you go to get out the lumps which beer people call 'dough balls'. I'm presuming that contraption has some sort of grain basket and you're not doing your mash in whatever's at hand, like a dog bed.

* Check the temp and if it's pretty close then leave it for an hour. Stir it every 15 minutes and check - top up with a bit of boiling water to get back to temp if you need to.

* After an hour, or ninety minutes or whatever raise the basket (or squeeze out the dog bed) and let it drain. Now you can wash out the grains with about 17.5 litres of water, ideally at about 77c but even if it's cold don't worry - this is called sparging and your contraption might have a device for doing this, and recirculating. Dog beds don't have this feature so I would not know.

* Boil the sauce that's been produced. It's called wort, which rhymes with skirt. Some people mistakenly call it 'wart' which rhymes with sport. Being an early blossomer while at school when my friends were playing sport, I was chasing skirt. That's a good way of remembering it.

* The times next to the hops are called 'hop timings' and it means how long they're to be boiled for - so 60 minutes means it should be boiled for 60 minutes, not added after 60 minutes. So for your beer and a 60 minute boil:

* As it starts to boil add 18.5g of challenger
* 30 minutes later add 21.5g Hallertau and 9.5g of Bobek
* 25 minutes later with 5 minutes to go add 21.5 of Bobek, 24.5g of Hallertau and the protafloc tablet. People usually say to add the protafloc at 15 minutes. That used to be right but now they're wrong.

* 5 minutes later turn off all the heat and chill it as quickly as possible, dry off the dog's bed and slide it back under the pooch, trying not to dislodge any of the suckling puppoids.

* When the beer has cooled to pfffftt.... 20c then decant it noisly into your fermenting bucket (or whatever you have at hand, such as an aquarium) and get ready to add the yeast.

* If you are a complete monster and don't care about the death of billions of yeast cells - the things that are actually going to turn the sugary soup you've just made into beer - if you don't care about killing half of your workforce, then sprinkle the yeast on top. Hopefully they'll stop mourning their dead and start to work for you, resentfully. If you do care then take 100ml of water, just plain water - heat it to 37c and add the yeast to that. Just pour it on top. After 15 minutes add that to your wort.

That will do for now.

Thank you Drunkula, Hugely helpful and entertaining all the way. Really enjoyed reading your instructions. Will follow them in my brew day. Thank you!
 
Ok, boyo. Because the title of your thread isn't just "Help!" and so vague that I think G.F.Y I'm in.

Mash temp is 66.5 and there's 4.155kg of grain. Ok, so you want 3 litres of water per kg of grain so

* heat 12.5 litres to 74.3c

* 'Mash in' your grains - gently pour them in, sirring as you go to get out the lumps which beer people call 'dough balls'. I'm presuming that contraption has some sort of grain basket and you're not doing your mash in whatever's at hand, like a dog bed.

* Check the temp and if it's pretty close then leave it for an hour. Stir it every 15 minutes and check - top up with a bit of boiling water to get back to temp if you need to.

* After an hour, or ninety minutes or whatever raise the basket (or squeeze out the dog bed) and let it drain. Now you can wash out the grains with about 17.5 litres of water, ideally at about 77c but even if it's cold don't worry - this is called sparging and your contraption might have a device for doing this, and recirculating. Dog beds don't have this feature so I would not know.

* Boil the sauce that's been produced. It's called wort, which rhymes with skirt. Some people mistakenly call it 'wart' which rhymes with sport. Being an early blossomer while at school when my friends were playing sport, I was chasing skirt. That's a good way of remembering it.

* The times next to the hops are called 'hop timings' and it means how long they're to be boiled for - so 60 minutes means it should be boiled for 60 minutes, not added after 60 minutes. So for your beer and a 60 minute boil:

* As it starts to boil add 18.5g of challenger
* 30 minutes later add 21.5g Hallertau and 9.5g of Bobek
* 25 minutes later with 5 minutes to go add 21.5 of Bobek, 24.5g of Hallertau and the protafloc tablet. People usually say to add the protafloc at 15 minutes. That used to be right but now they're wrong.

* 5 minutes later turn off all the heat and chill it as quickly as possible, dry off the dog's bed and slide it back under the pooch, trying not to dislodge any of the suckling puppoids.

* When the beer has cooled to pfffftt.... 20c then decant it noisly into your fermenting bucket (or whatever you have at hand, such as an aquarium) and get ready to add the yeast.

* If you are a complete monster and don't care about the death of billions of yeast cells - the things that are actually going to turn the sugary soup you've just made into beer - if you don't care about killing half of your workforce, then sprinkle the yeast on top. Hopefully they'll stop mourning their dead and start to work for you, resentfully. If you do care then take 100ml of water, just plain water - heat it to 37c and add the yeast to that. Just pour it on top. After 15 minutes add that to your wort.

That will do for now.

Thanks again Drunkula, my first brew day went like a dream. No issues at all! See a little planning and know how goes a long way. Thank you.
 
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