So, first brew day log (23 Jan 2022).
Sorry for the ramble......
First job was to get the tap water on to heat for mashing.
Water heating and treatment
My current set up is a Powell Brewing stockpot heated by a non-rusting Anvil forge floor standing propane burner that has gone, well, rusty. Consequently it burns a bit yellow and I end up with soot on the base of my kettle. Note to self: Job 1 - service my burner. This is filled with water through food grade hose. Then I add a campden tab.
While that is heating I move on to water treatment. I routinely measure alkalinity and calcium using the Salifert kits. I use my water report from my supplier to give me an idea of sulphate and chloride. At the moment, these are the only parameters I bother with. The table below shows my base and corrected profiles:
Parameter | Baseline | Adjusted | Target/Notes |
Alkalinity (ppm CaCo3) | 171.5 | 62.5 | 40-120 |
Following addition of CRS | | | |
Alkalinity | 62.5 | | |
Calcium (ppm) | 80 | 125.6 | 100-150 (increase from Calcium chloride addition |
Chloride (ppm) | 68.5* | 185.6 | 150-300 |
Sulphate (ppm) | 89.2* | 99.3 | 75-150 |
Magnesium (ppm) | Unknown | 2.6 | adjusted refers to amount added only (as MgSO4) |
Sodium (ppm) | Unknown | 22.9 | adjusted refers to amount added only (as NaCl) |
*includes contribution from CRS
There is a ton of articles on the web on water chemistry of NEIPAs and I went to some extent with what I felt was consensus. There seemed to be reasonable agreement on Calcium levels but Chloride:Sulphate ratios varied from 3:1 to 1:1. I went with approx. 2:1 as this worked for me previously and I got the mouthfeel I wanted from the beer.
I added the water chemistry salts in two steps. First addition was to the mash and 2nd addition is to the boil. I generally don't add salts to the sparge water.
Mash and Sparge
Next step is to get together the grain bill. For this recipe I used
2.4 Kg Pale Malt (Maris Otter)
2.4 Kg Pilsner Malt
0.65 Kg Flaked Oats
0.65 Kg Flaked Wheat
0.3 Kg Cara-pils
0.3 Kg Amber Malt
0.3 Kg Rice Hulls
This is for a 20.5 L batch. (I reduced batch size from 23 L when I started kegging - I can't be bothered to bottle the leftover from the bigger batch size).
(I always add rice hulls to my brews as I suffer from a stuck mash with every brew. I think I have traced the root cause to grains crushed by a particular LHBS. My last 2 brews have been fine, but I need further brew days to confirm).
I also added the mash salts for water chemistry adjustment.
3.39 g CaCl
1.18 g NaCl
0.53 g MgSO4
Mash was at 68C for 90 minutes with about 20.25 L water (because that time fits my brewday).
Mash pH 5.51
I hit my mash temp. beautifully (see picture below). I generally find I need to mash in my grains with water 10C higher than my intend mash temp to hit my numbers. Note to self: Job 2 - re-do the volume measurements on my stock pot to reduce guesswork). At the end of the mash, temperature had dropped to 67.3C. A <1C drop is typical for my Igloo cooler mash tun set up. I always find my mash pH is between 5.5 and 5.6.
Batch sparge was in two steps. First step was addition of 2.5 L water at 75.6C, stir and then leave for 10 mins to set the grain bed. Following collection of the first run off, I added 15.5L water at 75.6C and repeated the sparge process. I ended up with 29.5 L wort with and SG of 1.051. This was a few points down on the 1.056 predicted by Beersmith but hey ho
Wort volume 29.5L
Post mash Gravity 1.051
Mash efficiency 75.3 (down on my usual 80-85%)
Boil/Whirpool hops and Cool
I added my first wort hops and the sparge water salts and brought the wort to the boil (see picture). Boil length for all my beers is 60 minutes. 30 minutes in I installed my immersion chiller and with 10 minutes to go I added half a protofloc. At flameout I started my whirlpool using my ridiculously over engineered system (see picture) and immersion chiller. I use a 10 gal SS Brew Kettle Brewmaster edition that has a tangential whirlpool built in with a March May pump to flow wort and create the whirlpool. Once the wort had reached 80C I stopped the chiller and added my whirlpool hops. After 20 minutes hop whirlpool, I re-started the chill.
20 g Columbus First wort hops
45 g Citra 80C whirlpool for 20 minutes
45 g Mosaic 80C whirlpool for 20 minutes
45 g Galaxy 80C Whirlpool for 20 minutes
Sparge water salts added at the start of the boil were
3.02 g CaCl
1.05 g NaCl
0.47 g MgSO4
Fermentation
Maiden voyage of the Fermzilla all-rounder. I ummed and ahhed about whether to use a standardblow off tube or go straight to spunding valve. I decided on the latter. After checking there were no gross leaks, I pressurised the vessel and set the spunding valve to about 2 psi. I Transferred the wort to the fermentation vessel and pitched the yeast. I should have checked the all rounder fits in my fermentation fridge. I found that my temperature probe doesn't reach my nicely put together thermowell so I had to tape to the side of the vessel. Note to self - Job 3. Sort my inkbird out so the probe reaches my all rounder thermowell.
Wort volume 20.5 L (target 20.5)
OG 1.068 (target 1.068)
Overall brew house efficiency 69.8%
Fermentation temp. set to 20C
Spunding valve set to 2 psi
Other parameters (according to Beersmith)
Colour 11 ish EBC
Bitterness 58 ish IBU
I pitched with London Ale III (Wyeast #1318).
Overall a successful brew day with a few jobs to do. I switched on my HLT at 9.45 AM and was doing my final clean up at 5.30 pm.