First AG - Dark Ruby Mild

[jenki]

Hi All, This is my fisrt AG Brew day, so I thought I'd share it with you, then may be you can help with a few bits :?

Ok, so here's the set up, converted kegs for HLT and Boiler, and fermenting bucket for mashtun.
SHDRM
5.4kg Maris Otter (4.5 EBC), 600g Crystal Malt (145 EBC),30g Black Malt (1280 EBC)
Mash at 67C
Fuggles (3.6% AA) 40g for 90 mins, Goldings (5.9% AA) 26g for 90 mins
Goldings (5.9% AA) 20g at switch off.
You can just make out 78Deg for strike water in the HLT, controlled by a simmerstat - this worked well with a bit of tweaking.

15L of Strike water and the mash temp was 67 DEG, 90min mash, then jugging off the 1st runnings, picture of sparging (10mm copper pipe bent into a circle with holes pointing up)

 

[jenki]

Part 2

Running off into the boiler taking care not to splash, as soon as the elements are covered the asda elements are on and the boil is started, picture of the full boil, which was very strong.

Boil temp 99.?, then the chiller went in.

Starter bottle of nottingham yeast mixed with 250ml of cooled wort, then filling the FV

Not bad I think, but i'm sure i made mistakes. :x

 

[jenki]

OK, so you can see from above it seemed to work, now the questions.

It was cold today 1 deg in my shed. I started with 36L of water in my HLT and covered this to keep the steam inPlus filled form my combi so started at 48Deg.
I lose 2L in the boiler, 1L in the Mash Tun, 1L in the HLT, I allowed for 3L loss to boil and 6L for grain, 1/2L to hops.
Thus should get 23L, I got 18L WHY??
Was it due to the rapid boil and losing more because of the temp?
EDIT: Watered back by adding 4L of water to 22L OG now 1.068 and more beer

Next problem, I was aiming for a an OG of 1.058 after the boil, i Measured 1.094 at 22deg :!:


Any help on the above would be great. going to pub now
for a bit more info I started at 8.00 and finished at 14.20 all clean and ready for brewday 2 :)

 

[31bb3]

Nice setup Jenki im on my first AG today aswell hope it works out

 

[jenki]

Nice setup Jenki im on my first AG today aswell hope it works out

Thanks hope it goes well for you - mines in the hands of the yeast now - we'll have to wait and see.......

 

[Muddydisco]

I would set your boil off rate higher, I normally loose 4 ltr in a warm enviroment so you in 1c would of lost alot more. Also there is the shrinkage to take into affaect ( yes the volume will change once cooled) say around 4% i normally work with also the loss to hops is low I woek on 2 ltr loss to hops, Trub, and break material.

You got a high OG cos you reduced the volume down in the boil, but the sugar is still the same amount :thumb: You can water this back with some treated water to get your correct volume and also should hit the right OG there abouts.

And if it's your first you wouldn't know how much you were going to loose first time, you just need to recalcute your figures for the next brew and eventually you will get it right. It's all about knowing your system and what works best for you!!!

Thats an expensive brew stand there Watch nobody weighs it in for the scrap money!

Anyways good photos and a good brew day :thumb:

 

[jenki]

You can water this back with some treated water to get your correct volume and also should hit the right OG there abouts.

Are you saying I could add say 4L of filltered water to the FV now, when you say treated do I need to do anything else? Thanks in advance

 

[Muddydisco]

Bring the water to the boil to get rid of any nasties, cool it to your FV temp and treat the water with some campden :thumb: remember 1/2 a tablet for 25 ltr so you need to reduce the amount of tablet.

 

[Vossy1]

A great 1st Ag brew day post jenki, you should be really happy :clap:
Even had time to take some fab photos, well done that man

Nice setup Jenki im on my first AG today aswell hope it works out

I hope it's going/gone well 31bb3 :thumb:

 

[Sean_Mc]

Seriously impressive setup for your first AG brew Jenki :thumb:

Looks good

 

[rickthebrew]

well done on your first :thumb: great set up to, i`m all buckets and workbenches :lol:

 

[evanvine]

Very impressive set-up Jenki, it would do a lot of old hand brewers proud.
With regard to your brew length, I just keep sparging till I get about 28 ltrs in the boiler and then boil down to about 23 ltrs.
As I only get around a cup full left in the boiler the only loss is that hung up in the hops.
I think your brewing will go from strength to strength!

 

[unclepumble]

Good 1st AG brew there, well impressed, injenious use of 15mm copper for a brew stand, could be routed into a wort cooler and serve a second purpose!


UP

 

[Franklin]

nice :) Interesting brewery stand :)
What is the fitting that your thermometer is going through?

 

[Bru4u]

I don't think you made many mistakes at all, you just getting to know your system, well done :thumb:

 

[jenki]

What is the fitting that your thermometer is going through?

To be honest i'm not sure how long it will last, but it is:
15mm brass tank connector with the 1/2" thread outermost, then a 1/2" brass coupling, with lots of PTFE (i will change this to liquid gasket when i get some on the van), then i've screwed a 15mm brass compression TEE (removing the nut and olive) into the coupling, (i used a tee so i could use the same hole for the sight glass), the TEE is then bushed down to 10mm, the sight glass is 10mm. the thermometer is about 3mm, so i used some plastic tube and cut this down the length so it fitted snug around the thermometer and then used some heat shrink to hold it in place, I then used some larger diameter tube (again cut down the length) and then hoped the compression fitting would hold, 1 brew down and it has, but not sure on the the longevity?

 

[jenki]

With regard to your brew length, I just keep sparging till I get about 28 ltrs in the boiler and then boil down to about 23 ltrs.

This was where i was unsure, as I got the boil on real quick; I was still sparging and the wort in the boiler was boiling, the level on the sight glass was all over the place so i was not sure on what I had.

I do know that I must have lost at least 6L due to boil off :shock: so I will try to accomodate for this next time, as the sparging was finished the wort was boiling so I wonder if i boiled for too long? questions questions

Would you stop the boil early if the QTY was short or try to sparge more wort? - trying to be efficient i had already cleaned the mash tun by the time i realised the qty was short.

 

[evanvine]

The boil is really over when the wort take on a sparkle effect (hot break).
This is not normally achieved under 1 hour.
I "fly" sparge and do not turn the boiler on until the elements are well coverd.
If the sparge is slow I only use 1 element until the level I want in the boiler is reached.
Once the boil is really happening I turn an element off, only switching back on occasionally to keep the "roll" going.
On my first use of my twin element boiler I over cooked it and had to make the length up in the FV with the now cool water from my HLT.

 

[Franklin]

I'll maybe figure my own method out then ha ha Cheers

 

[tubby_shaw]

jenki, that is some brewery you have put together for your first brew :thumb:
The brew day looks like it went well to me, take note of your losses on this brew and apply then to your next and all will be fine
This will be the best beer you have ever tasted trust me :grin: