Steve’s Brewday

[StJayJay]

Today was my first brew using my new igloo type mash tun, all my previous brews have been BIAB. I wanted to make an easy drinking summer ale, fairly low abv (3.5-4.5) light in colour and balanced in flavour. The recipe I settled on was as follows:

4.5kg pilsner
300g Vienna
250g Flaked Wheat
200g Carapils

Mash 65oC/60mins
Boil 60mins

Citra (13%) 5g/60min 5g/30 min 20g/10min, 20g after flame out (temp at 80oC)

Wyeast West Yorkshire 1469

Target volume 23l
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[StJayJay]

Everything started off ok, water treated and in HLT on the stove. Mashed in at about 75oC and it was quickly down to 65. Lid on and then checked after 30 mins, temperature was holding ok. After an hour, I drained the tun and recirculated the run off a few times before adding the sparge water. I wasn’t too organised with the sparge water and miscalculated with less water than I wanted. I also fluctuated between a sort of continuous sparge and batch sparging. I feel I rushed this part and need to refine in future brews. Pre-boil gravity was 1.032 @ 20oC, lower than I was expecting.

 

[StJayJay]

The boil was uneventful; while that was getting going, I racked my IPA into a corny after a week of cold crashing and a bit of gelatin, it cleared a treat. I also checked the Helles I had on the go, was ready for crashing so that went in the keezer down to just above zero.

 

[StJayJay]

Boil done, brought the wort down to pitching temperature. After years of running a hose feeding my chiller coil from outside, I found a spare cold water point under the sink which took a hoselock spur, happy days!
When I decanted the wort to the FV, I only had just about 19l, quite disappointed and down to aforementioned miscalculation with sparge volume. Final gravity was 1.042, so if the yeast work as expected, should be about 3.8%.

 

[StJayJay]

On reflection, using the full all-grain was interesting, I was reminded of when I made my first ever brew and did not know what I was doing. I’ve never been too concerned with efficiency, rather reliability, but I would like to up efficiency from today as I was quite far below where I was with BIAB. I definitely need to pay attention to water volumes more than anything so I have a decent batch to work with!

 

[cushyno]

Everything feels frantic and rushed when you change process. Having to adapt on the fly and check in your mind against how you envisaged it always seems like a compromise is being made somewhere until you get used to the new process.

Does your Igloo cooler have a bottom tap? If so that'll make it nice and easy to recirculate and vorlauf. I use a fine mesh bag inside my coolbox, mash inside that. I'm really not fussed about getting ultra clear wort and just accept that it will be cloudy going into the boiler. Having that acceptance, I have no qualms about lifting the bag and giving it a good squeeze both before sparging and after. With a 20 minutes batch sparge I and bag squeezing I get better efficiency than doing a fly sparge while trying to maintain a compact grain bed. The choice seems to be clear wort Vs efficiency Vs time spent recirculating.

Now you have your Igloo you can try plenty of different options for the sparge.

Another tip for improved efficiency, stir that igloo thoroughly every 20 minutes.

 

[StJayJay]

Everything feels frantic and rushed when you change process. Having to adapt on the fly and check in your mind against how you envisaged it always seems like a compromise is being made somewhere until you get used to the new process.

Does your Igloo cooler have a bottom tap? If so that'll make it nice and easy to recirculate and vorlauf. I use a fine mesh bag inside my coolbox, mash inside that. I'm really not fussed about getting ultra clear wort and just accept that it will be cloudy going into the boiler. Having that acceptance, I have no qualms about lifting the bag and giving it a good squeeze both before sparging and after. With a 20 minutes batch sparge I and bag squeezing I get better efficiency than doing a fly sparge while trying to maintain a compact grain bed. The choice seems to be clear wort Vs efficiency Vs time spent recirculating.

Now you have your Igloo you can try plenty of different options for the sparge.

Another tip for improved efficiency, stir that igloo thoroughly every 20 minutes.

Cheers Cushyno, that’s some helpful advice for the next time I brew. The cooler has a bottom tap, yep, and it’s attached to a metal mesh false bottom. Using the grain bag is a good call, the one I have for BIAB fits nicely in the igloo.

 

[StJayJay]

I have just took a day 7 sample before dry hopping and gravity has dropped to 1.004. First thought was it was infected as I’ve never managed a final gravity below 1.008-1.01. Tasted it and whilst it is a little dryer that expected, it’s pleasant and balanced.