My first all grain brew day: Punk IPA Clone

[DrBrews]

So last night I attempted my first all grain brew with some friends from my brew club and it was really fun, if at times frantic. The whole experience has me hooked but as it was our first time with an all grain setup there were bound to be problems with equipment that we had never used before and so on. The only major let down I felt we faced was the total volume we got out of the brew in the end which I attribute to boil off not being accounted for, bad measurements from one vessel to another(we have no way to really measure how much liquid is in our boil kettle as of yet(we might make a measuring stick or something short term), and a bad recipe conversion(us vs imperial gal). We are going to be buying a pump to complement the setup soon as well. We will also be looking into switching up the connections to tri-clamps as our quick connects lacked a good seal in some situations unless the female barb was upright.

Profile: HomeBrew recipe for an IPA, similar to BrewDog Punk IPA. Bright golden, and medium-bodied with flavors of citrus, grapefruit, and piney hops. Moderate hop bitterness, more in line with an American Pale Ale. 5Gallons (22.73Liters), 5.6% ABV, 45 IBUs

Ingredients:

Malts
11.5lbs (5.216k) Maris Otter Extra Pale Malt

Hops
1/2oz. (14.174g) Chinook 13%a, 60 minutes
1oz. (28.349g) Ahtanum 6%a, 15 minutes
1/2oz. (14.174g) Nelson Sauvin 12%a, 15 minutes
1/2oz (14.174g) Simcoe 13%a, 10 minutes
1/2oz. (14.174g) Chinook 13%a, at flameout
1/2oz. (14.174g) Nelson Sauvin 12%a, at flameout
1/2oz. (14.174g) Simcoe 13%a, at flameout

Total 1oz (28.349g) each of Chinook, Ahtanum, Nelson, Simcoe

Yeast
WLP007 Dry English Ale or Wyeast 1098 British Ale


Instructions:

Mash all grains for 1 hour at 152f (66.6c) degrees.
Sparge at 170f (76.6c) degrees.
One hour boil with hop regimen above.
Ferment at 63-68f (17.2-20c) degrees.
Rack to keg or secondary and age for 4-5 weeks.

The basic Setup

Our HLT getting up to temp(the thermometer went haywire during mashing, resetting its base temp up by 40*, ambient temp in my flat now 61* lol)

Here is our hop and grist line up for the night

The wort boiling away. I forgot to get the mash in pictures as it was one of the things we had a problem with. Had to manual Vaurlof it and grain kept getting stuck under the screen.

All of the spent grain. We need to find a use for this, might go to the local wooded area for the wildlife...

Our heat exchange system cooled the batch of brewed wort down to 20c in 10 minutes.

Our ghetto heat exchange setup. Complete with duct tapped kitchen faucet. We have no idea what size connectors connect to it as 1/2" too small and 3/4" too large. Maybe 5/8"?? Off to b&q to guess and test some more lol.

Since we didn't have a pump, everything was gravity fed. This is the cooled wort going back into our hlt prior to our gravity reading.

Our gravity reading, or well foam... Ill have to snag some of the photos my wife got sans-foam.

 

[CreweBrewer]

That's a great setup! Far from basic.

Your technique will get better and you'll find your own way of going about it. One of the most important lessons I've learned is to maintain the ideal mash temp for the style.

I brew something very similar to what you have done - it actually started out as a Punk clone. You'll discover your own hop preference and will probably end up with something better than Punk.

Well done on your first AG!

Dave

 

[Dads_Ale]

Nice write up and great looking set up.

It is surprising how much you do lose along the way and as you progress you will get a better idea of the loses and adjust the recipe accordingly.

I use a large S/S spoon marked up with a permanent marker to gauge boiler wort volume. I calibrated it with water, using a measuring jug to fill the boiler with a known volume, and the marks just need re-doing every so often. I just use it when I am filling the boiler.

Hope you brew turns out well...

No going back now

 

[TheRedDarren]

Great write up and congrats on your first brew, you'll never turn back now!

Regarding the duct taped tap - I had this problem with my cooler. B&Q do a 24mm tap to hose barb. You just have to unscrew the diffuser inside the tap and screw the adaptor in.

Keep us informed with how the beer tastes in five weeks dude.

 

[clibit]

How much did you end up with?

 

[DrBrews]

How much did you end up with?

The recipe above has the proper conversion now which is 22.7l but we had converted wrongly before giving us a 18 point something liter goal. We ended up a gallon short at 13.5-14l, far off the intended 22.7. I've been looking around and depending on the boil intensity, we should be expecting a gallon boil off per hour. I thought I had accounted for that but apparently I didn't laughter enough wort into the boiling kettle.

How much do you guys usually lose in 60mins of boiling and what differences can I expect with a vastly reduced quantity compared to the original recipe, a higher alcohol percentage?

 

[clibit]

The amount that people lose to boil off varies a fair bit, dependent on the strength of the boil, the surface are of the liquid in the boiler, and the amount of liquid being boiled. For people making 23 litres, a starting volume of 27 litres is typical, though. So nearly 20%. For smaller volumes, the percentage increases.

Your beer will be stronger and more bitter than it would have been if you had used more water. A lot of people 'liquor back' to their target volume, meaning add water, in these circumstances, and some people deliberately brew a concentrated brew and then dilute it - so you could add water. Water can be added before, during or after fermentation. I think the best idea would be to taste the beer at bottling/kegging time and add water if you think that water would improve it, by reducing the ABV and hop intensity. You may decide you like it as it is. Or you may decide to dilute it a little, or a lot.

Having made one brew, and discovered how much has been transferred to the FV, you are in a position to adjust the amount of water needed in future brews reasonably accurately. Things don't vary that much from brew to brew. I use Brewmate software, and I have adjusted the losses to grain absorption, trub and boil off so that i hit my targets, pretty much, every time now.

 

[DrBrews]

Thanks for that clibit, I think we will do a bit of a taste test at bottling to see if we need to add more water. I wasn't aware we could do that without really negatively impacting the beer. Thats some weight off my shoulders.

We have taken notes on everything that happened so we can prepare for our next brew this weekend, a raspberry wheat beer(only way i could get my wife into brewing). I'll be changing brew kettles in the next week or so to a 50l with the standard fittings and a site glass/thermometer so i won't have to use my clubs bewkettle(which is flimsy and not the greatest quality kit they club owns), that is right after we get a 809 pump(got to convince the wife to sell a kidney first).

 

[DrBrews]

Wow I haven't been back here in ages and totally forgot about adding another post to update you guys after the bottling and taste tests. We ended up adding water to the beer after fermentation to get us to the right volume and then bottled for 5 weeks. The beer was surprisingly very good and tasted fantastic. Very close to what a Punk IPA tastes like. The beer had quite a bit of sediment in the bottom of the bottle but we have bought a Culligan water filter to hopefully take care of that. One thought i had that i was hoping someone would be able to fill me in on is whether or not the new filter will effect our carbonation. We add DME after fermentation to the beer prior to bottling. This filter should not filter out this new sugar right? I mean its my understanding if its completely diluted into the beer and mixed well we should be fine. If anyone is using a filter in a similar setup please let us know your opinion.

Final note, we will be making a few more brews in the upcoming weeks(with some exciting equipment upgrades) as I get ingredients in. Ill me making similar write ups if anyone is interested. We will be brewing a Russian Imperial Stout, a Japanese Rice lager, and a Belgian Patersbier.

 

[clibit]

The filter won't remove the dme, no.

You can reduce the sediment significantly by leaving the beer in the FV for around three weeks, and putting it somewhere cold for the last few days. This encourages the sediment to fall to the bottom, so you bottle much clearer beer.

 

[spook123_uk]

I did very much a similar recipe. added a bit of medium spray malt (didn't have any light!) before the boil to beef up the weak mash I had.

This is how it turned out.