Hazelwood Brewday

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Just starting my Vintage Ale brew, mash water heating. Starting a bit later than normal today partly because I brew outdoors and -5C is a bit chilly, mostly because my yeast starter is a bit laggy. I think the colder temperatures overnight while the heating has been off has slowed it a little. Right, mash water has just reached temperature, see you on the other side.

 

[Buffers brewery]

I’m content now that I’m using the right malt, the colour of the wort during the mash is completely different as you can see.

View attachment 41232

Because I have plenty of beer to drink, it’s time to experiment with my Summer Breeze recipe. I’m making three major changes:

I usually do a simple 150F single-infusion mash. For this brew I’m doing a stepped mash to try and maximise clarity, fermentability, and body.

I’m introducing a new sparge process. My normal approach is to simply flush some water through my drained grain basket. This time I will leave the grain basket in the wort, decant 1litre of wort, introduce 1 litre of sparge water, circulate through the grain for 5 minutes while maintaining a temperature of 170F, repeat this process until all the sparge water has been used. Remove and drain the basket, reintroduce the decanted wort, and bring to the boil.

The third change is to bring all the flavour hops into the hopstand. I will increase the bittering hops to compensate for the loss of IBUs due to not having a 10 minute hop addition.

Let’s see where this takes us

Be interesting to hear your experience with your new method. My method is to drain all the wort after the mash and refill with fresh water (+5C from mash temp.) and circulate for 30 minutes. This gets drained and process repeated. I get good efficiency (~80%) but still missing a bit of body which I think is a mash temperature thing. I need to up it a couple of degrees I think.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Be interesting to hear your experience with your new method. My method is to drain all the wort after the mash and refill with fresh water (+5C from mash temp.) and circulate for 30 minutes. This gets drained and process repeated. I get good efficiency (~80%) but still missing a bit of body which I think is a mash temperature thing. I need to up it a couple of degrees I think.

I’ve used it twice now, the first time I got 72%, this time something just over 80%. The difference was the recirculation interval, 5 minutes gave me 72%, 7 minutes gave me over 80%. I’m not sure of the final figure but will work it out tomorrow and report back.

@Scrattajack will be interested in this bit of information too I expect.

 

[Clint]

Did Mrs H come outside and find you frozen to the spot since this morning?

 

[Buffers brewery]

I’ve used it twice now, the first time I got 72%, this time something just over 80%. The difference was the recirculation interval, 5 minutes gave me 72%, 7 minutes gave me over 80%. I’m not sure of the final figure but will work it out tomorrow and report back.

@Scrattajack will be interested in this bit of information too I expect.

Out of interest, how many litres of sparge water (i.e. number of 7 minute flushes)?

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Did Mrs H come outside and find you frozen to the spot since this morning?

No, in my brew-shed... doing nothing

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Out of interest, how many litres of sparge water (i.e. number of 7 minute flushes)?

10 litres

 

[Clint]

Ah...you were basking in your tropical paradise whilst decimating the homebrew mountain...

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Ah...you were basking in your tropical paradise whilst decimating the homebrew mountain...

I have to, I have beers to brew that need kegs/fermenters

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Having now done the maths, the efficiency I got from my “high efficiency” sparge process is 80% if you disregard the gravity points from the candi sugar. 89% including the candi sugar.

The final recipe follows although because this is the first time I’ve brewed this beer the FG (so also the ABV) is assumed and based on attenuation of 80%. The range for this yeast is 77%-82% so my assumption is about mid-scale.

 

[Buffers brewery]

Excellent result. So is that up about 10% on your previous method? It's interesting that you achieved that efficiency with a +70 minute 10 step sparge as I've had similar results with my +60 minute 2 step sparge but I drain all the wort each time. More than one way to skin a cat!

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Excellent result. So is that up about 10% on your previous method? It's interesting that you achieved that efficiency with a +70 minute 10 step sparge as I've had similar results with my +60 minute 2 step sparge but I drain all the wort each time. More than one way to skin a cat!

My sparge water is added cold so these multiple additions avoid the wort or the grain bed getting chilled. If I heated the sparge water then your 2-stage process would be more straightforward assuming it works as well on my setup (there’s no reason it shouldn’t of course).

It’s up by 10-15% on my more usual cold flush.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I decided to brew an impromptu Citra pale today, got the mash on now and about to start the sparge. I’m a bit perplexed though because at this stage in the process it looks like my BIAB efficiency is 94%. I know that can’t be right but I can’t find any mistakes in my readings or workings. I’m just very confused at this point.

 

[Buffers brewery]

Out of interest, what are your numbers?

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

4800g Pale malt
480g Crystal 113
20l mash water
SG 1073

I hadn’t started sparging at this point and I know that will bring the gravity down a lot but even so, this seems like a high number.

 

[Buffers brewery]

Yup, I make that 94.7%. Pretty good process

 

[Leon103]

Having now done the maths, the efficiency I got from my “high efficiency” sparge process is 80% if you disregard the gravity points from the candi sugar. 89% including the candi sugar.

The final recipe follows although because this is the first time I’ve brewed this beer the FG (so also the ABV) is assumed and based on attenuation of 80%. The range for this yeast is 77%-82% so my assumption is about mid-scale.

View attachment 41529

What software is that, or a spreadsheet?

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

What software is that, or a spreadsheet?

I just use the calculator on my phone.

 

[Brewnaldo]

What's your boil volume HB? I would like to try your method but my boil volume is usually 29 or 30 litres, not sure I could A collect that much in my FV buckets, or B get it back up and into the boiler

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

What's your boil volume HB? I would like to try your method but my boil volume is usually 29 or 30 litres, not sure I could A collect that much in my FV buckets, or B get it back up and into the boiler

Mash = 20 litres
Sparge = 10 litres (or 8 litres of the beer is destined for a corny keg)