jayk34 brewdays

[jayk34]

Thought I would have all of my brewdays in one thread so that I can look back with ease.

AG#3 - Greg Hughes Northern Brown Ale

24/05/21 - Prep (2hrs 18:00 -20:00)

• Weighed all the grain and hops last night.
• Water additions for the first time.
  • Tap water had alkalinity of 66.23ppm and calcium of 70ppm. Was aiming for target alkalinity of 75ppm and calcium of 100ppm (as per strange Steve water treatment thread). Toyed with leaving the alkalinity as is due to it being close but then changed my mind and used 0.01g/l of bicarbonate to raise 10ppm and 0.11g/l of calcium chloride added to the start of the boil. Measured out 4.2ml CRS to treat sparge water to bring it below 30ppm.
  • 1/2 Campden tablet in 27l of mash/sparge water in boiler boiler.
  • 1/2 Campden tablet in 25l cold water to top up sparge.
  • 10litres of cooled boiled water with 1/4 Campden for liquoring back due to high boil of rate with burco.
• Calibrated ph meter.
• Setup equipment in garage.

25/05/21 - Brewday (5hrs 08:00-13:00)

• Strike temperature calculated at 69°C for mash temperature of 65°C. Turned on boiler to heat up 27l of water at 7am whilst having breakfast.
• 13l of water required for mash, so ran off 14l into cooler for sparge water.
• Mashed in grains for 60 minute mash. Mash ph at 10 minutes 5.55. Started at 65.5°C and ended at 64.2°C
• Boiled 6 litres of treated water to top up sparge and added the 4.2ml of CRS. Reheated are litres in kettle to bring sparge temperature up to 75.5°C
• Started to bring wort to boil during sparging. 27l pre boil with a pre-boil ph of 5.77
• Added calcium chloride and 16g Admiral at start of 70 minute boil. Had an extremely vigorous boil which hasn't happened with the previous few AG batches.
• 1/2 protofloc at 15 minutes.
• 16g challenger at end of boil.
• Post boil ph 5.37.
• Transferred 18l to fermenter which is the point at which the wort was below the burco tap. Tipped it slightly to get one more litre to make it up to 19l in fermenter. In previous batches I have simply poured everything in but wanted to minimise the amount of trub brought over.
• The OG was 1.060 compared to 1.052 in the recipe. Added 2 litres of cooled boiled water to bring total of 21 litres at 1.052 in fermenter.
• Pitched packet of Nottingham yeast at 20°C and set fermentation fridge to ferment at 20°C

Brewhouse efficiency (using brewers friend calculator)
70.32%

 

[jayk34]

AG#3 started fermenting after 14 hours according to ispindle

 

[jayk34]

I had just done a bit of reading on internet about the mash ph and found an interesting article on the Byo website. Seems that my pH was a bit better than expected as I wasn't aware that there is a temperature correction for mash and room temperatures. I had cooled my samples to room temperature (20°C) as I had read that the meter electrode could be damaged at high temperatures.

The temperature corrected value appears to be 0.25 higher than the desired mash ph of 5.2 - 5.6 so 5.55 - 5.85.

• My mash pH at 10 minutes 5.55
• My pre-boil pH 5.77

Happy now that the first time water additions were a success.

 

[jayk34]

Think the ispindle must have a bit of krausen on the lid as it appears the northern brown ale has hit the target FG for the recipe of 1.013 after only 2 days and it's still going like the clappers.

 

[jayk34]

The ispindle is correct this time as I have just checked it with hydrometer.Target was 1.013 and it's currently at 1.010 and still going. Could be combination of low mash temps along with the Nottingham yeast ?

 

[jayk34]

Final stats for AG#3
Bottled today and trub decanted into Kilner jars for use in next brew.

• OG 1.052
• FG 1.010 (Target 1.013)
• ABV 5.5%
• 37 x 500ml bottles. Half with 1/2 tsp of sugar and other half with 1/2 tsp muscavado sugar as I ran out of sugar
• Final beer pH 4.18
• Electricity usage:
  • Brew day - £1.34 ( estimated 8.8kwh @ 15.202)
  • Fermentation - 19p (1.28kwh @ 15.202p/ unit for 17 days)
• Ingredient cost from brewfather £11.72
• TOTAL COST (excluding equipment costs) £13.25
• Cost per bottle 36p

 

[jayk34]

AG#4 Smash First Gold

A few mistakes on this one that I'm putting down to vaccine side effects. Woke up this morning and still felt a bit foggy but decided to crack on with brew.

I normally bring 27litres to strike temperature and drain off the excess into cooler to leave the required mash water. Was supposed to mash with 11litres for this but ended up tipping half the grain into the whole 27litres before realising

Flapped about for a few minutes trying to get my head into gear and deciding what to do, so extracted 1 litre of water from burco and mashed all grain into 26 litres of water. Mashed in at 67°C.

Mash stats

• Strike temperature 71°C
• Mash temperature 67°C
• Mash lost about 0.5°C over the hour.
• Mash pH at room temperature 5.58

Sparge stats

• Sparged with approx 6 litres to reach 27 litres pre boil
• Pre-boil mash pH 5.71 (room temp)

Boil stats

• 60 mins addition 20g first gold
• 15 mins addition 20g first gold & half protofloc tablet
• 5 mins addition 20g first gold

Post boil stats

• Volume in fermenter 19.5l. Did not transfer anything below tap and again forgot to liquor back.
• Cooled to 21°C with OG of 1.046 (target 1.043)
• Post boil mash pH 5.57
• Put in 250ml of slurry (llallemand Nottingham) from AG#3
• Set fermentation fridge for 20°C.

Electricity usage

Burco​

• Strike Temp 1.72kwh
• Bringing to boil + 60 minutes boil = 3.57kwh
• TOTAL burco = 5.29kwh

Kettle to make up sparge​

• 6 kettles @ 3 minutes per boil at 2.2kw (10 litres) = 0.66kwh

TOTAL = 5.95kwh
TOTAL Electricity cost = 5.95 x 15.202p = £0.90

 

[jayk34]

Kettle upgrade

Trying to install filter in burco to extract as much wort as possible without bringing over the **** at the bottom of the kettle and without having to tip it up.

Bought helix spring and various stainless steel fittings and now leak testing. Off to get a cup of tea whilst the water heats up.

No leaks with 20 litres and heated up. The new dead space for the burco is just over 700ml. Happy with that.

 

[DocAnna]

How did you connect the coil to the outflow? I’d wondered about replacing the false bottom of the brewzilka with a helix like this?

 

[jayk34]

How did you connect the coil to the outflow? I’d wondered about replacing the false bottom of the brewzilka with a helix like this?

The whole thing is based around 1/2" threaded stainless steel nipple. On the inside to there is a silicon washer, stainless steel washer, lock nut with groove for an o-ring and then a second lock nut to. I then put a 90° 1/2" male to 1/2" female stainless steel elbow onto the end of the threaded 1/2" stainless steel nipple and turned it towards the bottom of the boiler. There is a 1/2" adapter that the helix spring is screwed into.

I can attach a list of parts and where I got them if you want ?

 

[DocAnna]

The whole thing is based around 1/2" threaded stainless steel nipple. On the inside to there is a silicon washer, stainless steel washer, lock nut with groove for an o-ring and then a second lock nut to. I then put a 90° 1/2" male to 1/2" female stainless steel elbow onto the end of the threaded 1/2" stainless steel nipple and turned it towards the bottom of the boiler. There is a 1/2" adapter that the helix spring is screwed into.

I can attach a list of parts and where I got them if you want ?

The 90 deg elbow is the key part I think. It is a bit less of an issue at the moment as I'm using the pump with the counterflow chiller but I would like to be able to filter the wort more effectively at drainage.

 

[jayk34]

The 90 deg elbow is the key part I think. It is a bit less of an issue at the moment as I'm using the pump with the counterflow chiller but I would like to be able to filter the wort more effectively at drainage.

I couldn't turn the 90° elbow so that it was pointing directly to the base of the boiler as the spring would have a 90° bend and the coils would open up at this point rendering it useless. I had to angle the 90° elbow as shown in the picture and attach this Socket onto the end of the 90° elbow. This also allows you to get more liquid out. The spring then simply screws into the socket

 

[jayk34]

Final stats for AG#4 First Gold Smash

Bottled today

• OG 1.046 (Target 1.943)
• FG 1.011 (Target 1.011)
• ABV 4.2%
• 33x 500ml bottles primed with 1/2 tsp of sugar.
• Final beer pH 4.18
• Mash efficiency 72.8%
• Nice golden colour with a bit of haze and quite pleasant light taste from the fermenter. Looking forward to it chilled on a nice summers day.

Electricity usage:

Brew Day - Burco

• Strike Temp 1.72kwh
• Bringing to boil + 60 minutes boil = 3.57kwh
• TOTAL burco = 5.29kwh

Kettle to make up sparge

• 6 kettles @ 3 minutes per boil at 2.2kw (10 litres) = 0.66kwh

Fermentation

• 1.47kwh

TOTAL = 6.76 kwh
TOTAL Electricity cost = 6.76 x 16.602p = £1.12

Ingredients

• Ingredient cost from brewfather £5.39 (reduced costs due to the kindness of @DocAnna sending on the hops for this one and reuse of yeast slurry from previous batch)

TOTAL COST (excluding equipment costs) £6.52
Cost per bottle 19p

 

[jayk34]

AG#5 West Indies Porter Clone

Planning this either tomorrow or Sunday.

Water
Mash Water: 16.01 L
Sparge Water: 14.16 L
Total Water: 30.17 L
Boil Volume: 26.7 L
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.049

Vitals
Original Gravity: 1.063
Final Gravity: 1.017
IBU (Tinseth): 45
BU/GU: 0.71
Colour: 65.5 EBC


Mash
Temperature — 67 °C — 60 min

Malts (5.672 kg)
3 kg (52.9%) — Crisp Finest Maris Otter® Ale Malt — Grain — 6.5 EBC
1.3 kg (22.9%) — Crisp Flaked Torrefied Barley — Grain — 4 EBC
700 g (12.3%) — Crisp Light Munich Malt — Grain — 22 EBC
336 g (5.9%) — Crisp Medium Crystal 240 — Grain — 265 EBC
224 g (4%) — Crisp Roast Barley — Grain — 1375 EBC
112 g (2%) — Weyermann Acidulated — Grain — 3.5 EBC

Hops (78.3 g)
46.4 g (29 IBU) — Fuggle (t90) 5% — Boil — 60 min
31.9 g (15 IBU) — East Kent Goldings (EKG) 5% — Boil — 30 min

Yeast
1 pkg — White Labs WLP004 Irish Ale Yeast 74%


Brewday 3/7/21 @ 7am

Prep (previous night)

• prepared the 27 litres of water in burco with half Campden and 10 litres top up water in barrel with 1/4 Campden.
• Water additions 1.6g bicarb and 2.4g calcium chloride for mash. 2.25g calcium chloride ans 2ml CRS for sparge
• Weighed out grain bill

Brew stats

• Mash pH after 10 minutes 5.84
• Post mash pH 5.51
• Post boil pH 5.35
• Pre boil gravity 1.046 (target 1.049)
• Post boil gravity 1.050 (target 1.063)
• 19 litres into fermenter.
• Topped up with one litre of cooled boiled water to bring OG down to 1.048 (to allow pitching of liquid yeast).
• Pitched one pure pitch pack of white labs Irish Ale 20°C

 

[jayk34]

AG #6 Greg Hughes Dry Stout V2

Was due to do an American IPA but decided against it and decided to try the dry stout recipe again as my last batch is almost gone.

Some minor changes to the Greg Hughes recipe.

• Increased the chocolate malt to 150g
• Reduced boil from 70 minutes to 60 minutes (increased hops to account for reduced boil).
• Instead on Nottingham, used White Labs Irish Ale Yeast from starter made from slurry from previous batch of West Indies porter Clone.

Measurements

• Mashed at 67°C and after 60 minutes was still at 67°C.
• Mash pH 5.45
• Boil volume of 27 litres, Pre boil gravity target 1.043 and actually hit 1.044
• Original gravity target 1.050. Hit 1.051 OG
• Post boil pH 5.18
• Just over 21 litres into fermenter leaving about 1 litre in kettle
• Pitched Yeast starter and set target temp for 18°C

 

[jayk34]

AG #6 Final Stats

• FG was a bit high at 1.016 with target of 1.013 but putting that down to me having a starting OG of 2 points higher than the recipe ?
• 38 bottles

 

[jayk34]

AG #7 American IPA GH - 23 litre batch

Same as Greg Hughes recipe except that I had to use US-05 For the yeast as I didn't have the suggested over in the recipe.

What started out as a nice organised day ended up with a few mental lapses. Forgot to put the 10 minute citra additions. Not sure how this happened but found them at the end cleaning up. Only got 17.5 litres into the fermenter as I knocked a sponge into the kettle when I was attempting to tip it up to transfer the wort in the deadspace under the tap. Decided not to transfer anymore.

• Mash pH 5.74
• Pre boil pH 5.78
• Pre boil gravity 1.055 (target 1.054)
• Post boil gravity 1.064 (Target 1.060)
• Volume into fermenter 17.5l, liquored back with 1.5l to get to 1.059
• Pitched 1 packet of us-05

 

[jayk34]

AG #7 update

Dry hopped with 50g of citra and 50g of Simcoe into a SS hop tube on day 11.

FG of 1.012 making it a 6.3% ABV. Bottled this morning into 34 bottles. The aroma from the fv was amazing and the taste from the trial jar was also promising.


Next brew day on Thursday and waiting on delivery of hops for either milk or oatmeal stout.

 

[jayk34]

AG #8 Oatmeal Stout GH - 23 litre batch

Trying to get stock built up for Christmas as I have a long break from work coming up due to the fact that I have a lot of leave built up from being furloughed last year. Demand is currently outstripping supply at the minute and my waist line is expanding, so trying to cut down beer intake for a while.

This is Greg Hughes recipe except that I used llalemand Windsor for the yeast as I didn't have the suggested over in the recipe. Had considered using starter from Irish Ale Yeast.

Uneventful brew day for once

Flicked the boiler on at about 7am to get the 27 litres of water up to strike temperature (75°C) and went and took dog out to play in the garden and then got breakfast.

I used to extract the sparge water from the tap on the burco with a 1 litre jug and noted down how many had taken on a bit a paper. My new method which saves a bit of time is to use a set of scales. I put the cooler box onto the scales and extracted 14 litres into the cool box (topped up to 19 litres with a normal kettle with campden treated water) !
Mash, sparge and boil went ok. Cooled to 21°C and transferred 20.5litres to fermenter and pitched lallemand Windsor and put in ispindle and or into fermentation fridge set for 20.

The boil off on my burco is ridiculous, with this batch working out at just under 7 litres ! Was going to build one of the regulators described by someone on here but instead have decided to go with the Digimash. This is the kegland Digiboil with mash pipe upgrade and just got an email last night that it's due to be delivered on October 5th. When that arrives, I will use the burco as an HLT. Did not liquor back as I did not have cooled boiled water available and couldn't be arsed waiting.

4 hrs start to finish and probably 1 hrs prep the previous night.

Mash pH 5.83
Pre boil pH 5.77
Pre boil gravity 1.046 (target 1.042)
Post boil gravity 1.052 (Target 1.050)
Post boil pH 5.70

 

[jayk34]

AG #9 Milk Stout - Greg Hughes 23 litre

Early start today and using new setup. Had been using burco as kettle and a cooler to store the sparge water heated in a cheap Tesco kettle. Bought a Digimash (Digiboil with malt pipe upgrade) and now using burco as HLT.

Prepped water in both boilers last night. 23 litres of mash water with half campden and 10 litres sparge water with 1/4 campden. Weighed out grain, hops, water additions and lactose.

Started the Digimash with strike temperature of 72°C to get the target 67°C mash temp and went into house for sausage and egg sandwich and coffee.

Started mashing in at 08:10 when the first error occurred. I hadn't changed the target temperature on the Digimash from 72°C to 67°C and was wondering why it was still sitting at 71 after doughing in A quick flap about the garage before calmness was restored and realised the issue, changed target temp and started recirculating with jug. Didn't have any treated cold water available so will just have to see how it turns out. I did settle out to 67°C after about 8 minutes but the damage may already have been done.

Started the burco with the sparge water and went to put the hosing onto the burco tap to allow the sparging but realised that I had forgot to change the tap and had the original burco tap and the hosing wouldn't fit. Must have a chat with Hazelwood to see what connections I need for the pump and fittings

Final stats

• Mash pH 5.67
• Mash pH (preboil) 5.7
• Mash pH (postboil) 5.52
• Pre-boil gravity target 1.046, actual 1.046
• OG target 1.053, actual 1.054
• Volume into fermenter 22litres (left 1.5 litres behind)

Overall thoughts on setup

Fairly happy with the digimash and the issues that cropped up were not due to it but rather user error.

Pros

• seems to hold Mash temperature pretty well but will know better during the next brew as with this one I had forgot to set target temperature back to desired Mash temperature after hitting the strike temperature. This meant that the digimash was maintaining the strike temperature as I was adding the grain.
• Liking the mash pipe so far as it's allowing for easier sparging.
• Temperature display allows me to see at a distance the current temp during cooling.
• The 1900W and 500W elements are great for mash and boil. 500W to maintain Mash, both to bring to boil and 1900W to maintain rolling boil.
• Boil off for digimash was approx 3.5litres per hour which meant that for the first time I got the correct volume into fermenter compared to burco.

Cons/issues

• Will not be using helix spring again as the transfer via the tap stopped. Had to constantly push the spring with long handled spoon to get transfer going.
• Minor issue, but forgot about the deadspqce in the burco. The next time I'm using it to heat the sparge water, I will include the deadspace in the volume so that I don't have to tip the boiler to get all of the sparge water out. Will also fit the ball lock valve back to burco so that I can transfer via gravity using a hose.