CeeJayCee’s Brewdays

[CeeJayCee]

Batch #1 – Pale Ale​

This is my first “brew day” on the Royal Catering 30L Mash Tun. This is basically the same machine as the Brewmonk, Ace Hopcat, BrewDevil, etc.

I decided to start with a simple recipe, so I went with a House Pale Ale all grain kit from The Malt Miller, which comes from Jon Finch’s Beer Craft book. You can see the recipe on Google Books.

Recipe​

You can view my recipe on Brewfather.

Grain bill:

• 3500g Crisp Best Ale Malt
• 500g Crisp Light Crystal 150

Hops:

• 60 minutes: 20g Northern Brewer 10.7%
• 45 minutes: 20g Cascade 5.5%
• 10 minutes: 20g Cascade 5.5%
• 0 minutes: 50g Cascade 5.5%

Yeast:

• 1 packet – Fermentis S-04

Misc:

• 15 minutes: 1/2 Protofloc Tablet
• Water: 1 Campden Tablet

Mash Schedule:

• Strike: 71°C
• Mash: 66°C for 60 minutes
• Mash out: 75°C for 10 minutes

​

Process​

Mash​

I filled the mash tun with water (about 30 litres, just to be safe), added the Campden tablet and heated the water to a strike temperature of 71°C.

I removed water from the mash tun into a spare fermentation bucket to keep for the sparge, until I reached about 16.9 litres left (probably closer to 17 litres).

I added the grain basket and doughed-in, making sure I poured slowly and alternated between pouring and stirring. I set the temperature to 66°C, the timer to 60 minutes, and turned on the recirculation pump.

The strike temp of 71°C was probably too high – the water temperature didn’t drop as much as I expected.

I checked frequently that there wasn’t too much wort on top of the grain bed. I made a mistake here – putting the top-filter on-top of the overflow pipe, rather than seating it directly on the grain bed – this meant I couldn’t really see what was going on with the grain bed.

I played around with the power settings. I think I set it to 1100W, but I can’t remember exactly. I think the temperature wandered a bit.

After 60 minutes I started a 10 minute mash-out at 75°C.

​

Sparge​

I lifted the grain basket and began the sparge. I added some kettles of boiling water to the water I had collected earlier, hoping to raise the temperature to 78°C – but it never made much difference to the temperature. I’ve since learnt that the temperature of the sparge water doesn’t make much difference – a lower temperature just increases the time to reach the boil.

I began to sparge slowly, about 1 litre at a time. Unfortunately I lost track of how many jugs I poured and think I over-sparged by at least a litre, maybe more. I should have been paying more attention to the desired pre-boil volume in the recipe. My pre-boil gravity was 1.035 (Brewfather predicted 1.038).

Boil​

I turned the power up to 2500W and set it to boil for 60 minutes. I added my 60 minutes hops in a muslin hop-sock. I added other hop additions to the hop-sock at the appropriate time. Protofloc was added directly to the kettle.

The immersion chiller coil went into the kettle at 15 minutes left in the boil to sterilise.

I thought the boil was initially a bit ferocious, so I knocked the power back to 2000W (and maybe even lower, I didn’t record the power settings in my notes). This meant I didn’t have a really good rolling boil, and this affected my boil off rate. The profile in Brewfather says about 5 litres per hour boil-off, I got 3 litres.

At the end of the 60 minutes I turned off the kettle and added my final hops to the hop sock. The recipe doesn’t state whether to hop-stand these at a certain temperature or not, so I just left them all in while the wort cooled – something to look at for future brews.

Chill & Whirlpool​

I turned on the cold water to my chiller and collected a bucket of hot water from the hot-side to use for cleanup later. The rest of the water went down the drain – in the future I’ll collect into the waterbutt, but it was already full from the rain here in Scotland.

I tried to create a whirlpool using a large spoon, but it was difficult with the cooling coil in the kettle. I cooled to about 20°C and then used the pump to transfer the wort to my fermentation bucket. The pump doesn’t have a filter and I also transferred quite a bit of trub – I’ll either get a pump filter or use the tap with the bazooka filter next time.

Fermentation​

Half-way through transferring I sprinkled the yeast into the wort (a tip I got from David Heath’s YouTube videos). I think I got 21 litres into the fermentation bucket, which was 2 more than expected (due to the reduced boil off rate, over-sparge and using the pump not the tap on the kettle). The original gravity was 1.038 (target was 1.047, so quite a bit lower than expected!).

I set the heat-pad to 19°C. Fermentation began to happen and I measured the gravity occasionally. We had a heatwave in Scotland, so I saw the temperature rocket up to 24°C towards the end of fermentation.
Fermentation finished at 1.010 (prediction was 1.011).

​

Bottling​

I syphoned the finished beer into a bottling bucket, with 120g of granulated sugar dissolved in some wort (boiled together). I bottled and got about 34x 500ml PET bottles.

I sampled some of the uncarbonated and unconditioned beer that was left-over: very smooth, decent amount of bitterness, not much hoppiness, not much body.

I need to learn how to properly take tasting notes!

I’ll update when the beer is carbonated and conditioned.

Statistics​

• Original gravity: 1.038
• Final gravity: 1.010
• Final volume: 17 litres
• IBU: 46
• EBC: 21.5
• ABV: 4.1% (bottle conditioning added ~0.3%)

 

[CeeJayCee]

For this Witbier I’m using a recipe from Greg Hughes’ book Home Brew Beer.

This is essentially a clone of Hoegaarden. From the reading I’ve done online this is a pretty close replica. I’ll get some real Hoegaarden in to compare when the beer is ready to drink.

You can see my recipe on Brewfather.

Recipe​

Grains:

• 2.3kg Crisp Extra Pale Malt
• 2.3kg Crisp Wheat Malt

Hops:

• 60 minutes: 35g Saaz 3.8%

Yeast:

• 1 packet Mangrove Jack’s M21 Belgian Wit

Other:

• Water: 1 Campden Tablet
• 15 minutes: 1/2 Protofloc Tablet
• 10 minutes: 25g Coriander Seed, 25g bitter orange peel

Process​

Mash​

I filled a spare fermentation bucket with water and added the Campden tablet the night before I brewed. I hoped this would get rid of all the chlorine and chloramine in the water. Who knows if it actually made any difference?

In the morning, I poured about 18.5 litres of the prepared water into the kettle and set the temperature for 71°C. When the water reached strike temperature I slowly added the grains and mixed all the time.

I learned from my last brew and set the mesh screen on top of the grain bed, rather than on top of the overflow pipe. I turned the pump on and adjusted the flow rate so that there was a decent amount of water above the grain bed, but not overflowing. I kept the recirculation pump running for the entire mash, except for when mixing the grain bed.

I set the controller to 65°C to 60 minutes. Another tip I learned from from last time: I stirred the mash approximately every 15 minutes.

After the 60 minutes, I increased the temperature to 75°C for a 10 minute mash out.

Sparge​

I lifted the grain basket out of the brew kettle and then I began to sparge 1 litre at a time, with the remaining water in the fermentation bucket. In total I should have added 14.76 litres of water – I began counting the number of jugs, but as I reached towards the end I used the marker inside the kettle to ensure I hit the 30 litres mark.

During the sparge I set the kettle to bring the wort to the boil. My pre-boil gravity was 1.042 (expected was 1.037, so gained 5 points), much better than last brew.

Boil​

I set the kettle to 2500W, 100°C for 60 minutes. In my last batch I didn’t get the expected boil-off rate, I think this was because the power was not high enough.

When the kettle reached the boil, I added 35g of Saaz (3.8%) to a muslin batch, clipped to the rim of the kettle.

With 15 minutes to go in the boil, I added 1/2 a Protofloc tablet and the immersion chiller.

With 10 minutes to go in the boil, I added 25g coriander seed (that I had toasted in a pan, and then lightly crushed) and 25g bitter orange peel to the muslin hop bag.

I was left with 25 litres in the kettle – which is the boil off rate predicted by BrewFather.

Chill & Whirlpool​

When the boil was reached, I remove the muslin bag containing the hops, coriander and orange. I tried to whirlpool using a brewers spoon, but I don’t know how effective it was. I turned on the cold water to the immersion chiller and began to chill the wort.

When the wort reached 28°C I lifted the kettle higher, and drained the wort into a clean fermentation bucket using the tap (fitted with a bazooka filter). In my last brew I used the recirculation pump to pump into the fermentation bucket – but I got a lot of trub too. Using the tap meant I had 2 litres left in the kettle, but less trub in the FV – I need to decide what’s better.

Fermentation​

Half-way through transferring the wort, I pitched 1 packet of Mangrove Jack’s M21 Belgian Wit yeast. I got about 22 litres into the fermentation bucket – it had a huge foamy head!

My original gravity was 1.046 (expected was 1.045, so pretty much spot on).

I set the head pad to 24°C and it kept this temperature reasonably accurately for the first week. At the start of the second week was another heat-wave, where temperature rose a bit.

Bottling, conditioning and tasting to come…

 

[CeeJayCee]

I had a sneaky taste of the not-yet-ready Batch#1 Pale Ale last night.
Tasting decent so far.
Carbonation has happened, but not much head.
Maybe some astringency? Or is it bitterness? Need to read-up on what those really are...

 

[starseeker]

I had a sneaky taste of the not-yet-ready Batch#1 Pale Ale last night.
Tasting decent so far.
Carbonation has happened, but not much head.
Maybe some astringency? Or is it bitterness? Need to read-up on what those really are...

You need a bit of patience in brewing ,give it another month and the difference will be massive

 

[Agentgonzo]

I brewed a hoegaarden clone with m21 a few months ago. Almost identical recipe and tasted amazingly like the original. The yeast stalls at any 1.020 for a couple of weeks, then restarts. So don't bottle to early. Plenty of info on the forum about it.

 

[CeeJayCee]

You need a bit of patience in brewing ,give it another month and the difference will be massive

Oh definitely, I was just interested in seeing how it was carbonated and how the taste might change over time.

I see others saying “7 days from grain to glass” - they are force carbonating with CO2, but why don’t they need to wait for other conditioning?

I brewed a hoegaarden clone with m21 a few months ago. Almost identical recipe and tasted amazingly like the original. The yeast stalls at any 1.020 for a couple of weeks, then restarts. So don't bottle to early. Plenty of info on the forum about it.

Thanks for the tip. Gravity has been at 1.015 for the last few days, but I’ll give it a while and keep searching this forum for info.

I was thinking about splitting the batch and putting raspberries into half - not decided about trying that yet.

 

[Agentgonzo]

Oh definitely, I was just interested in seeing how it was carbonated and how the taste might change over time.

I see others saying “7 days from grain to glass” - they are force carbonating with CO2, but why don’t they need to wait for other conditioning?



Thanks for the tip. Gravity has been at 1.015 for the last few days, but I’ll give it a while and keep searching this forum for info.

I was thinking about splitting the batch and putting raspberries into half - not decided about trying that yet.

I did a similar thing as well (strawberries instead of raspberries though). My experience was that it was a pain and the beer was worse for it. I don't want to put you off though, but maybe do a smaller-than-half split to start with... Eg, 4L. If you don't have a 1 gallon glass demijohn, you can use the 5l bottles of water from the supermarket as a cheap fermenter

 

[CeeJayCee]

If you don't have a 1 gallon glass demijohn, you can use the 5l bottles of water from the supermarket as a cheap fermenter

Great idea. I've used them before for making turbo cider - and reduces the amount of raspberries I have to buy!

 

[CeeJayCee]

I brewed a hoegaarden clone with m21 a few months ago. Almost identical recipe and tasted amazingly like the original. The yeast stalls at any 1.020 for a couple of weeks, then restarts. So don't bottle to early. Plenty of info on the forum about it.

You’re right. It looked fermentation had stopped at 1.015, but checking again tonight there are lots more bubbles in the blow off tube and lid of the fermenter has pressure against it.

 

[CeeJayCee]

Fermentation on my Witbier got down to 1.010.

I bottled 10 litres (well, 9.5...) and got 19x 500ml bottles. I batch primed and they're now tucked away to carbonate and condition.

The remaining 12 or so litres I moved into a secondary fermentation bucket and added 700g of raspberries (that I had frozen and defrosted a few times). I'll leave them for 5 days and then bottle. It's already gone a nice pink colour!

 

[CeeJayCee]

I think this thread needs an update.

Batch #1 - Pale Ale

The beer is over-carbonated – it gushes when you open a bottle. If you really chill it down, you can open without gushing, but pouring is hard and results in about 1/3 glass of foam. I batch primed 18 litres with 120g of table sugar. I must have miscalculated the volume I think!

The yeast has mostly settled to the bottom of all bottles, with some on the edges of the bottles – but has only compacted softly, so there is some floating sediment in a poured glass. I wonder if this is causing the gushing?

The taste is great, particularly for my first all-grain beer. Very drinkable, not too bitter and not too heavy. Not a lot of aroma, but a decent taste. Probably not the most exciting beer ever, but a decent first attempt.

Batch #2 - Witbier

I took 10 litres of the Witbier, and primed with 90g of table sugar.

A nice light colour with a nice white head. Probably under carbonated for a Witbier, which I was surprised about, so the head doesn’t last long. A nice smooth and very low bitterness taste, but maybe a slight sweet finish? The F.G. was 1.010, so the final taste is surprising. I wonder if this is a slight diacetyl taste. Maybe I should have performed a diacetyl rest after fermentation (or maybe I rushed it)? I haven’t compared against Hoegaarden, which this recipe is inspired by.

Batch #3 - Raspberry Witbier

I ended up using 11l or so of the original Witbier, transferring it to a secondary fermenter and adding 700g of raspberries for about a week.

A lovely pink colour with a white and slightly pinkish head. Much more head that the plain beer, and better carbonation. I primed with less sugar than the witbier, so maybe the raspberries have done something. Very drinkable, and a slight sourness from the raspberries. Not a strong raspberry flavour, may add some raspberry syrup next time too.

Both Witbiers beers are very refreshing to drink cold on a hot day. I’d definitely make the raspberry beer again, but maybe not the plain.

 

[CeeJayCee]

Batch #4 - Oatmeal Stout

This is from Greg Hughes book. I've not had an Oatmeal Stout before, but they sound delicious.

Grain:

• 2.74 kg (86.2%) Weyermann Pale Malt
• 130 g (4.1%) Crisp Medium Crystal 240
• 100 g (3.1%) Crisp Chocolate Malt
• 50 g (1.6%) Weyermann Roasted Barley
• 160 g (5%) Oats (Porridge Oats)

Hops:

• 25 g (27 IBU) Challenger 6.1% – Boil – 60 min
• 10 g (2 IBU) Challenger 6.1% – Aroma – 20 min hopstand @ 80 °C
• 10 g (2 IBU) Goldings, East Kent 6% – Aroma – 20 min hopstand @ 80 °C

Yeast:

• 1 pkg – Fermentis S-04 SafAle English Ale

Other:

• Water: 1/2 Campden Tablet
• 15 minutes: 1/2 Protofloc Tablet

Slight issue that the grain bill was 270g lighter than expected. I think the shop have mis-read the custom grain bill. I think it's just the base malt that's effected - so I got a slightly lower than expected pre-boil gravity. I extended the boil slightly to compensate, but probably not enough.

It's in the fermenter now, in my new fermentation fridge set to 20°C. Let's see how we get on.