Hi All,
Here it is, my first go at the AG brew. After making several successful batches of extract and partial mash, I decided with my brewing buddy to assemble the equipment and try AG brew following the basics of AG we found on this great forum and youtube.
Here is how my brew day went and some of the questions I would like to ask the more experience brews for further advise.
My equipment (quite basic at the minute):
* Mash tun - converted Coleman Cooler box 36qt.
* 15L SS boiling pot
* Immersion copper coil chiller
Recipe - Punk IPA - BrewDog DIY (sized for 10L batch size)
2.65 kg Extra Pale Maris Otter (100%)
Ahtanum - 8.7g 60 mins
Chinook - 7.5g 60 mins
Crystal- 8.7g 30 mins
Chinook - 8.7g 30 mins
Ahtanum - 8.7g 5 mins
Chinook - 13.8g 5 mins
Crystal - 8.7g 5 mins
Motueka - 8.7g 5 mins
Irish Moss - 3g 15 mins
Yeast - S05 - 6.5 g , I decided to use dry yeast rather than the liquid as was in the recipe. With more experience, i will start using liquid in the future. I hope the result won't be that different.
Mash - 60 mins at 65C (as per the recipe)
I've used an online calculator to estimate the strike water volume of 8L at 72C. I put the strike water into the mash tun and added the grain bill. The mash temperature was slightly under target 63.8C , so I added another 1.2L of boiling water. This increased the temperature to 65C. However I think i spent too much time trying to stir the grains to remove some dough balls.
Then during the mashing I opened the box a few times to stir the grains, which I'm not sure if it is the best practice.
Anyhow, after 60 min the mash was completed and temperature was 63.5 C, which I believe could have been affected by my stirring and opening the box. Otherwise, I was not expecting to lose any heat. Then I did the iodine test, and it was all good.
Next step, vorlauf the first few jugs of wort back on top of the grains. I think this worked OK, as the wort was getting cleaner after re-circulating each jug of wort.
Next step, heat up the sparge water 7.3 L to get to pre-boil volume of about 14.00L. The temperature of the sparge water was 75-78C and i tried to fly sparge with a colander.
All went well, the wort was collected in the boiling kettle and of to the boil. It took awhile to bring to boil as I was using the gas hop in the kitchen but once up to temperature it was all good.
One thing to mention is that there was loads of protein in the wort after boiling, I don't think I've seen this on many videos I've watch. I wonder if this is something wrong ?
Cooling of the wort with the copper coil was very good, about 5 mins to get to 19C where I pitched the S05 yeast (6.5 g)
Gravity readings where as follows :
Before Sparge - 1.062
After Sparge (end runnings from the mash tun) - 1.032
Pre-boil - 1.038 (the online calculator shown only 62% efficiency)
OG - 1.047
Questions:
1.) I found my efficiency was much lower than expected but I guess I didn't manage to keep the mash temperature well?
2.) The online calculator shown at 62% for that batch volume the OG should have been 1.052, but mine was 5 points lower, why is that ?
3.) Do I have to stir the grains during mashing?
4.) Is it wrong to have too much protein after the boil? In the kettle where was quite a bit.
Here are some pictures from the brew day.
Thanks for reading.
Here it is, my first go at the AG brew. After making several successful batches of extract and partial mash, I decided with my brewing buddy to assemble the equipment and try AG brew following the basics of AG we found on this great forum and youtube.
Here is how my brew day went and some of the questions I would like to ask the more experience brews for further advise.
My equipment (quite basic at the minute):
* Mash tun - converted Coleman Cooler box 36qt.
* 15L SS boiling pot
* Immersion copper coil chiller
Recipe - Punk IPA - BrewDog DIY (sized for 10L batch size)
2.65 kg Extra Pale Maris Otter (100%)
Ahtanum - 8.7g 60 mins
Chinook - 7.5g 60 mins
Crystal- 8.7g 30 mins
Chinook - 8.7g 30 mins
Ahtanum - 8.7g 5 mins
Chinook - 13.8g 5 mins
Crystal - 8.7g 5 mins
Motueka - 8.7g 5 mins
Irish Moss - 3g 15 mins
Yeast - S05 - 6.5 g , I decided to use dry yeast rather than the liquid as was in the recipe. With more experience, i will start using liquid in the future. I hope the result won't be that different.
Mash - 60 mins at 65C (as per the recipe)
I've used an online calculator to estimate the strike water volume of 8L at 72C. I put the strike water into the mash tun and added the grain bill. The mash temperature was slightly under target 63.8C , so I added another 1.2L of boiling water. This increased the temperature to 65C. However I think i spent too much time trying to stir the grains to remove some dough balls.
Then during the mashing I opened the box a few times to stir the grains, which I'm not sure if it is the best practice.
Anyhow, after 60 min the mash was completed and temperature was 63.5 C, which I believe could have been affected by my stirring and opening the box. Otherwise, I was not expecting to lose any heat. Then I did the iodine test, and it was all good.
Next step, vorlauf the first few jugs of wort back on top of the grains. I think this worked OK, as the wort was getting cleaner after re-circulating each jug of wort.
Next step, heat up the sparge water 7.3 L to get to pre-boil volume of about 14.00L. The temperature of the sparge water was 75-78C and i tried to fly sparge with a colander.
All went well, the wort was collected in the boiling kettle and of to the boil. It took awhile to bring to boil as I was using the gas hop in the kitchen but once up to temperature it was all good.
One thing to mention is that there was loads of protein in the wort after boiling, I don't think I've seen this on many videos I've watch. I wonder if this is something wrong ?
Cooling of the wort with the copper coil was very good, about 5 mins to get to 19C where I pitched the S05 yeast (6.5 g)
Gravity readings where as follows :
Before Sparge - 1.062
After Sparge (end runnings from the mash tun) - 1.032
Pre-boil - 1.038 (the online calculator shown only 62% efficiency)
OG - 1.047
Questions:
1.) I found my efficiency was much lower than expected but I guess I didn't manage to keep the mash temperature well?
2.) The online calculator shown at 62% for that batch volume the OG should have been 1.052, but mine was 5 points lower, why is that ?
3.) Do I have to stir the grains during mashing?
4.) Is it wrong to have too much protein after the boil? In the kettle where was quite a bit.
Here are some pictures from the brew day.
Thanks for reading.