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NPi

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Hello

I am sure this has been asked a number of times, or is so basic it barely worth the thought, but for a SMaSH brew do I need additional fermentables, and how much would I need to prime post brew?

I am attempting Clibits recipe as below (10l version). If it helps I have some light spray malt and caster sugar available.

Thanks all
Cheers
Nick acheers.

If you've made a few kits and/or extract brews, why not have a go at a simple AG brew, to see the difference it makes? A small batch of AG beer is not difficult and you will discover the difference and feel the joy and pride of making it from scratch. All you need for 5 litres is 1kg of Maris Otter, or other pale malt, a packet of hops, and a sachet of yeast. You just need a thermometer, a decent sized pan and something to strain the grain from the wort. A big sieve, or a piece of cloth in a colander. A bag that fills the pan and,drapes over the sides and holds the grains, made from muslin or voile, is ideal. You also need a hydrometer to check the gravity before and after fermentation.

Recipe:

  • 1kg Maris Otter (about £1.50)
  • One packet of hops (any you like - EKG, Citra, Amarillo, Galaxy, Fuggles, First gold etc) (About £3-4, but you will only use 15g of the 100g, so cost is around 50p)
  • One packet of yeast, 3g dried yeast is enough. (50p ish)

Method:

1. Heat 3 litres of water to 75C in big pan.
2. Pour in the pale malt while stirring - get rid of lumps.
3. Check temp is 65-70C - adjust if necessary with cold or boiling water.
4. Wrap a thick towel round the pot and leave alone for one hour.
5. Strain into a bucket or other vessel through sieve, or colander lined with cloth.
6. Heat another 4 litres of water to 80C and add the grains back to it. Leave 10 mins, stir, and strain the liquid to your bucket. You should have about 6 litres, which will reduce when you boil it for an hour.
7. Dispose of grains, add wort to pan and bring to boil.
8. Add 5 grams of hops when boiling point is reached.
9. 55 Mins later add 5 to 10g of hops, depending on your hoppiness requirements, boil another 5 mins and switch off.
10. Cool the wort in sink, with lid on, add to sterilised FV/demijohn via sterilised sieve to catch hops, and top up the level to 5 litres if necessary. Pitch yeast at around 18 - 20C.

[Measure the amount of water added if you top up the FV, and add this amount to the sparge water next time you brew]

You should get 8 or 9 x 500ml bottles of lovely beer for about £2.50. It takes me about 3 hours start to finish, making 10 litre batches in this way (see below).

10 Litre option: You can just double all the quantities and make 10 Litres, which is what I do most of the time, it's a good amount of beer. About 18x500ml bottles, or 27x330ml bottles. You just need a 15ish litre pot.

If you've never made an all grain beer it's really worth giving this a go.
 
Thanks all.

@MyQul is there any odd choices for priming that you may recommend? I am playing it safe on the brew with light spray malt, but keen to try out different combinations.

Cheers
Nick acheers.
 
Thanks all.

@MyQul is there any odd choices for priming that you may recommend? I am playing it safe on the brew with light spray malt, but keen to try out different combinations.

Cheers
Nick acheers.


I like brewing sugar for priming because unlike table sugar you dont have to melt it in a pan in hot water because brewing sugar is much finer. I just add a small amount of tap water to the brewing sugar in a cup and give it a stir before pouring it into the wort and gently stirring to distribute it evenly in the wort
 
I use sugar cubes to prime in the bottle. They're called "Domino's Dots". Equal to a half teaspoon of sugar each.

They dissolve just fine in the bottle. Easy to handle also.
 
What are you from @dwhite60 ? They don't seem to sell them in the UK. I have seen Coopers carbonation drops used, but not used them myself.

I have always batch primed when doing kits, which has worked well so far. I bottle having primed in the PB so anything I can't fit in the bottles stays in for a quick swig whilst the bottles mature. The last batch of Cwtch came out great, if not far better once matured in the bottles.

Thanks again all. I am keeping this thread open for any more questions I encounter, hopefully it will be of use to some.

Cheers
Nick acheers.
 
What are you from @dwhite60 ? They don't seem to sell them in the UK. I have seen Coopers carbonation drops used, but not used them myself.

I have always batch primed when doing kits, which has worked well so far. I bottle having primed in the PB so anything I can't fit in the bottles stays in for a quick swig whilst the bottles mature. The last batch of Cwtch came out great, if not far better once matured in the bottles.

Thanks again all. I am keeping this thread open for any more questions I encounter, hopefully it will be of use to some.

Cheers
Nick acheers.

Looking at dwhite's profile he's from the US.
 
As promised, I thought I would give some feedback on how my first AG brew day went... All in all not bad.

Colour of my wort - post brew my wort was a creamy soup colour, which was not what I was expecting, but this cleared and darkened when it cooled. However, after syphoning to my FV it was back to the soup. Should I have syphoned off all the liquid, or left the settled parts, as you would the trub when decanting to PB/Bottles?

Volume - having added the amount of liquid specified, I actually ended up with over 10l into the FV, is this right. I can only think this is because I only used a single pot to mash and boil in?

Comet - in my SMaSH mix I chose comet, this was partly at random and partly picked as I thought the AA% would mean it would be more potent, not bitter (doh!).

Would it be worth adding another hop to complement? I'm tempted to leave as it is and ride the experiment out, who knows I may like it more bitter than I thought.

Having realised the brew may be more bitter than first intended I used the bulk of my hops at the boil, and only held a few for the last 5 minutes, was this right?

Finally (for now at least), when I measured the SG on a sample (before I strained the wort again through another bag and before I pitched the yeast, the reading looked to be 1050? Is this right? It seems to be higher than any brew I have done before. What sort of FG should I be expecting?

Thanks again for all your feedback!
Cheers
Nick acheers.
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IMG_20200415_130000.jpgIMG_20200415_090209.jpgIMG_20200415_082517.jpg
 
By way of update, all now in the FV and bubbling away nicely. Still a struggle to find a room cool enough in this nice weather (worse problems to have!). I've still not decided whether I should dry hop, and whether I would use Comet or another hop.
 
Took a sample tonight to check progress ahead of hopefully bottling on Tuesday (2weeks post brew), but found the beer to be very lacking in flavour, unsure as to what has gone wrong. It seems to have no body and the mouth feel of tap water.

There is also far more floculents held in suspension within the fermentor (more than a kit), I would think this is normal, but unsure.

Gravity is down to 1012, so will be remeasuring later to see if its held.

Anyone for feedback, slightly worried its down to bad process.

Cheers, Nick
 
Hey Nick!
Thanks for posting your first AG brew. Don’t panic! At this stage I always find its very hard to really tell what the beer is going to end up like after another 4-6 weeks conditioning. It’s normal (or at least fits with my experience) to get far more trub (gunk) in suspension in your FV with all grain than with a kit. This will settle out once the beer has had some time to condition.
I’m sure it will be very tasty - but I would recommend keeping the bottles somewhere cool and dark once capped for at least four weeks if you can. I’d always try a bottle after two weeks, one at four and one at six, and invariably it would be best after six weeks.
Let me know what it’s like once it‘s conditioned!
 
Last edited:
Forgot to update this thread, beer turned out great, nice body, lovely and clear, with a crisp refreshing taste.

I have since brewed a Sorachi summer ale, which is currently almost 1 week into fermentation. Originally when I brewed it, the recipe did not feature a dry hop, however, having smelt the Sorachi hop I quickly changed my mind. All in all it is looking to be a lovely beer.

Finding myself with a bit of time and some very itchy feet, my attention had turned to what my next brew should be. I finally settled on a raspberry blonde ale, as part of a recipe kit from Worcester Hop Shop. With this I am having the kit and brewing in two batches.

The kit is as below:

https://www.worcesterhopshop.co.uk/product-page/raspberry-blonde-beer-style-recipe-kit
The recipe states it needs 1130g of raspberries added into secondary, however I don't intend to move the brew to a secondary, is there any problem with adding them into the primary? I also intend to use Carte D'Or Raspberry Coulis (Fruit Puree), 1kg instead of the fruit addition. It looks to be near pure fruit with out additives (other than sugar). Would this be suitable?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B07WW9G7Z3/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_1?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1
The kit also asks for both Gelatine and supplies a Protofloc tablet. Is this correct? If so, I'm guessing this should make for some very clear beer!

Once again, thanks for all your advice and feedback, its a great help.

Cheers, Nick IMG_20200511_125245.jpg
Cooling the wort

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The mash

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Serving the SMaSh
 
The first batch of Sorachi is set to be bottles tonight, having been cold crashing for a few days, coming up to 13 days in the fermenter. On first tasting it's rather bitter. Unfortunately I think the dry hop with 50g of the Sorachi may have been a bad idea. It tastes of bitter dill and after taste of lemon.

Rather gutted really as I had such high hopes for this one. I think my second batch of this brew I will skip the dry hop so I can compare them both.

I'm not planning on batch priming this one, as I had poor results with my previous batch primed brew. A number of the bottles came out flat. Unsure as to whether this is because of a leak to the bottles or failure to mix the priming sugar adequately.

I've also invested in a bench capper (having previously used keg/swing tops), so hoping to not have more of the same.

Ahead of my next brew (raspberry blonde) that asks for Gelatin, I thought I would give it a go with the Sorachi brew. However it looks like I have ordered a gelatin/kieselol mix. I have seen this is primarily used in wine fining, not typically beer. Hopefully this won't have any effect on the brews flavour.

Thinking ahead of the next two raspberry blonde brews, I am planning to do a pilzner Saaz Smash. Which I originally planned as a pseudo lager, but now I have the use of a fermentation fridge I plan on using lager yeast. My only problem is that on its lowest setting it only goes as high as 9degrees. Is this going to be too low? I was planning on using a full 11g on the 12l brew to give it a fighting chance. Also, do I lager pre or post bottling? I was planning on lagering pre bottling so my beer had as little trub as possible in the bottle.

As always, I welcome any feedback
Cheers, Nick
 
Bottling went ahead yesterday, but not all as hoped. Couple of issues I ran into range from bottle priming (unsure of how to divide the solution between undetermined amount of bottles), sucking up trub (should have used the hop sock!) and my most importantly my ABV.

Being short on time I left the brew in the FV for two weeks, and didn't take a gravity reading ahead of bottling. Sad to say that my first reading post boil was 1050, with my reading post bottling 1030. Leaving me with little over 2%. I should have taken the 2 readings prior to bottling.

Another possible cause for my low ABV is partly down to my mash temperature. I heated the strike water with grains already in my bag, heating to 70 degrees. Obviously I should have only added my grains when the strike water was at temperature.

Having had one of my bottles vent (possibly due to my terrible experience bottling, another debacle entirely!) I am worried that I have a load of beer with active yeast floating around still fermenting.

Any advice, should I vent all the bottles, or just hope and pray for no bottle bombs.

As a precaution I have moved all the bottles into my off fermentation fridge in the garage, where they will hopefully slowly cool and drop out. To be honest I can live with the low ABV.

Amy advice is greatly received.

Cheers, Nick
acheers.
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When you say the gravity reading was post bottling do you mean you took it after you'd already added the priming sugar?
The added sugar would cause a higher gravity reading and not represent the actual strength of the brew.
 
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