First ever brew (and it was all-grain!)

[Camberwell Canary]

My first ever brew. Thank you to everyone who has helped me from this board! Grateful for feedback, but acknowledge it's a lot to read.

Aim
Brew 23 litres of Burton Bridge Bridge Bitter from the Graham Wheeler book

Outcome
10 litres of, I suspect, very hoppy and ultimately alcoholic wort in a fermenting fridge.
Two main issues:

1. Very inefficient mash, probably because I dumped all the malt in at once?[/*:m:3od81gru]
2. Leaving tap open when filling boiler[/*:m:3od81gru]

Prep
Measured deadspace in boiler (Brupaks 29l). 3 litres - seems like a lot!
Deadspace in mashtun (Thermos coolbox). 2.75 litres - ditto!
Hydrometer showed 1.002 @ 20.4C. Thought this was accurate enough for a first go.
Weighed 3730g Maris Otter, 205g Crystal, 20g Challenger, 13g Target.
Mixed malt in a fermenting bin.
28 litres liquor into boiler + 1 crushed Campden tablet + 33ml CRS (i.e. 1.2ml per litre - London water v hard)

Mash in
Boiler reached 78C.
Preheated mashtun with a kettle full of boiling water. Shook it around a bit.
Added 10l liquor to mashtun.
Dumped all grain in at once (shouldn't have done this!)
Stirred a bit.
Temp now 65C
Added boiling water from kettle to bring to strike of 66C
Did not take pH (will next time)
Added another 10l to boiler + 12ml CRS

Mash out
95-minute mash. Temperature 63C when mash tun opened.
Liquor in boiler at 85C.
Fly sparge using foil with holes in. Quite fiddly.
Managed to get 20 litres of wort before it started tasting watery (and 0.999 SG before temp correction)
Emptied into boiler but boiler tap open!
Lost about 4-5 litres of wort before realising
Wort gravity 1.020 (before temp correction)

Boil (90 minutes)
Added 7g DLS at start of boil
Added all the hops despite liquor loss!
After 45 minutes, added 94g brewing sugar (vs about 125g in original recipe)
Added chiller 15 minutes before end.
3g Irish moss 10 minutes before the end.

Post boil
At 80C added 7g Celeia hops
Chilled pretty quickly (15-20 minutes?) using copper coil to 20C
10 litres of wort into the fermenting bucket (tasting very hoppy!)
OG 1.071
Pitch White Labs Burton Ale Yeast (made into a 750ml starter the night before)
Into the fermenting fridge

Questions

1. Anything obvious I did wrong?[/*:m:3od81gru]
2. Is it OK to tip the boiler to get a bit more wort out?[/*:m:3od81gru]
3. How often should I check the SG now? Should I put the contents of the trial jar back into the fermenter?[/*:m:3od81gru]
4. What should I look for while it's fermenting (there's no airlock, just a lid with an opening)? Is it worth skimming?[/*:m:3od81gru]
5. I'm not really clear what I should do when the SG is stable. I plan to bottle it all. I have another fermenting bucket. Into bottles straight away? It looks like there's something called secondary fermentation I can do. Wheeler says I should cask before bottling, but I don't have a cask.[/*:m:3od81gru]

Many thanks

CC

 

[Duncs]

[*]Anything obvious I did wrong? Yep, there's no pictures
[*]Is it OK to tip the boiler to get a bit more wort out? Don't see a problem with it, as long as you don't burn yourself
[*]How often should I check the SG now? Should I put the contents of the trial jar back into the fermenter? once it looks like it's finished, in about a weeks time. No, you drink it :lol:
[*]What should I look for while it's fermenting (there's no airlock, just a lid with an opening)? Is it worth skimming? Look for a nice foamy head. I don't bother skimming, it all drops to the bottom eventually
[*]I'm not really clear what I should do when the SG is stable. I plan to bottle it all. I have another fermenting bucket. Into bottles straight away? It looks like there's something called secondary fermentation I can do. Wheeler says I should cask before bottling, but I don't have a cask. use your other FV to batch prime and from there into your bottles

 

[graysalchemy]

Welcome to the Forum :thumb:

And more importantly.......

Welcome to the Darkside young Padawan :twisted: :twisted:

 

[Camberwell Canary]

Much appreciated Duncs.

Here is the only picture - will do more next time!

 

[oz11]

I don't fly sparge so I don't understand your volumes, but you certainly should have been able to get more pre-boil wort. You might like to try batch sparging as an alternative. Use the handy forum calculator to get your volumes.

Batch Sparge Calculator

 

[Camberwell Canary]

Thanks am going to try batch sparging next time. Less likely to burn myself!

 

[TRXnMe]

Welcome to the dark side :)

Don't worry about leaving the tap open, you're not the first and I'll be you won't be the last either

From my experience (limited, just over 1 year and 9 AG brews) you are OK putting all the malt into the mash tun in one go, as long as you spread it around and stir it well to avoid 'dough balls'.

I now batch sparge twice (BrewMate (free software) will give you quantities) and then fly sparge with tin foil until the hot wort drops to around 1.000 on my hydrometer, this have seen my efficiencies improve to the mid 70s and increased my final wort volume by a good 8 litres or so

Kudos for stepping straight into AG, it took me a few kit brews to work up the guts to make the leap.

 

[Good Ed]

well done CC :thumb:

best way to learn is to get another brew on

one thing you can do if you end up with a quantity of wort at a higher OG than planned is to liquor back, that is to add cooled boiled water (I just use bottled water) which increases the volume and lowers the OG

 

[Duxuk]

Yes, I'd liquor back. A post boil OG of 1071 is a whacking great figure. Why not decide what OG you would like, or consult the recipe and see what it should be, then go to the forum calculators and find how much water you need to add? Then you can use bottled water, or treat some boiled/cooled tap water. Did you say London??? Awfull water when I lived there :sick: Could hardly get a lather on soap. So bottled water is probably the answer. I believe you only need to pay 17p for 2 litres! I 've seen on the forum that many people use it fro their entire brew length, which would only cost 2 pounds odd! And it you like 2 litre bottles of beer you will always have more than enough bottles. Sounds like a great idea :thumb:

 

[jaymondo]

congrats on you first brew and wellcome to the dark side :twisted:
an og of 1.071 means its likely to be a very strong beer :? reading through its difficult to see what you've done wrong, maybe not enough sparge liquour? but as has allready been said if your og is high then you can liqour back to get it down to a reasonable level. your not the first to leave the tap open...i did it too, but not untill my ninth all grain when i thought i was getting the hang of it :lol: keep practicing it will still go wrong
now is the time to start deciding what to brew next :wha:

 

[Camberwell Canary]

Next I think I'm going to try to brew what I meant to brew the first time! I have the hops for it.

While I'm here I'd be grateful if someone could answer a couple more questions:

1. Best place to store hops? In fridge at the moment, but some people seem to advise freezer?[/*:m:3az2gdz6]
2. If I batch prime, what's a good way to determine how much malt extract/sugar/water to use? I plan to use malt extract, as I have a decent-sized bag and I've only used a little for the yeast starter so far.[/*:m:3az2gdz6]

 

[Good Ed]

freezer for your hops

this is useful http://webspace.webring.com/people/ms/sirleslie/AlcoholChart/PrimingCalculator.html I'd just use ordinary sugar or glucose and keep you DME for making starters

 

[Camberwell Canary]

Great thanks - is there any cost to keeping the CO2 at the low end of the range? I don't like my beers too fizzy.

CC

 

[Good Ed]

no problem, these are only guidelines, it's down to personal preference

 

[Camberwell Canary]

Ah OK great. So there's no advantage to more CO2 other than taste?

Does it keep longer if you carbonate it more?

 

[Good Ed]

I don't think so, none of my beers last that long so I haven't experimented with keeping them

 

[Camberwell Canary]

Taken the first SG reading: 1.011

8% ABV!

Very cloudy, tastes halfway between a Belgian and an English IPA.

Assuming the reading is the same on Saturday (which seems pretty certain), I'll batch prime and bottle.

How long do you recommend for conditioning? Is the cloudiness likely to clear? I used plenty of Irish Moss in the boil.

Any other tips appreciated.

 

[Good Ed]

I wouldn't worry too much about the cloudiness, it is bound to get clearer with time. Once bottled keep in the warm for a week (easy in this weather) then put them somewhere cooler, a cellar is ideal. With a strong beer such as this you may be talking 8 weeks to be tasting good, but have a sample every week and you will be surprised how the beer changes over time. I'm not a great one for keeping beers a long time as the hop flavour can disappear over time, but having said that I have kept beers for up to a year, again it's all personal preference.

 

[Camberwell Canary]

Thanks again for your help.

I hope I can repay the forum someday.

 

[Jeff Brewjubbly]

Great job CC... that is far fewer hiccups than I did on my first 2 brews. Addictive hobby underway! :)