Winter Sunrise - 10.01.09

[BrewStew]

Just getting this up to the boil now, and i started at 11am!

Had a few hiccups along the way... i completely misjudged my Strike Temperature because of the cold weather. i was aiming for 66'c and got 64'c. by the end of the 90 min mash, and with continuously recirculating because of the clarity issues i had before, it dropped to 60'c

to top it off i forgot to swap my hop strainer from my 5gal boiler to the big boiler i'm brewing in, and i'd already filled it and turned the boiler on!... so i did something rather dangerous and stupid and put a winter glove on, made sure my arm was covered with my coat, wrapped my arm in two bin bags and dived in with the hop strainer in hand! :shock: it worked and i still have my arm. it wasn't too hot... but hot enough that i couldn't hold my arm in for longer than 10 secs to turn the nut.

anyways here's the recipe...

Winter Sunrise:
85L with a target OG of 1.052
70% efficiency (and yes i reckon i've got the same **** efficiency again even with another sack of malt)

20kg's of grain in total:
16kg Maris Otter
2kg Crystal Malt 120EBC
2kg Wheat Malt 2.5EBC

should be about 21.3 EBC's... a nice golden colour like the winter sky at sunrise

mash at 64'c dropping to 60'c over the 90 mins

60 min boil with 150g of 7.9%AA Northdown hops, added as first wort. should be about 35 IBU's

i hope after all the messing it'll be a goodun.

i guess i'm flying by the seat of my pants doing a recipe i've just thrown together at these volumes

 

[A T]

Jeez that's a lot of grain Stew :shock: Hope it turns out to be a good 'un :thumb:

 

[BrewStew]

it's alot of grain going to waste if it turns out ****... cant see it will though just aslong as the mash temp didn't screw it up :pray:

 

[A T]

Were you recirculating without a heat exchanger Stew? I was afraid to try that, i thought the heat loss would be greater that that but you are working with a bigger volume than me

 

[Wez]

Hope it turns out OK Stew :thumb:

 

[highwayman]

Well Done BS. A Brave but dangerous operation..the things we do for our Beers!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[BrewStew]

thanks guys :thumb:

AT, yeah i've not got a HE although I was tempted to recirc through my IC but without a PID it wouldve needed 100% attention, but as i've got littlern....

the chiller is doin its thing. the sample that's cooling in my trial jar looks as if I might just hit my target! :shock:

i've got my fingers and toes crossed!

i've got some photos of the setup in better light that i'll post when done.

im havin a pint of hedgehog mild as I write this... well deserved I think!

 

[A T]

Enjoy that beer mate you earned it We shall patiently await the piccies

 

[Vossy1]

Glad to see you rescued the Brew...stew :P

 

[BrewStew]

i finished at 8pm. that was the longest brewday i've ever had (9 hours)... i'm absolutely knackered!

i overshot the target OG and hit 1.060 ... bit more of a winter warmer than i bargained for!

i was 10L short of final wort volume. If i'd had something big enough to put it all in at once, i'd have let it down, but as it went into 4 fermenters, i've left it alone. so just(haha i say just, it's still quite alot!) 75L went in the fermenters.

even though i was short, beersmith reckons i've hit 75% efficiency... so i must've had a bad sack cos i only had 4.5 kilos of the last sack in this brew, and i'm using near enough the same amount of maris otter as i did in the rauchbier.

i'm happy now that my efficiency is on the way back up :)

anyway here's the pics as promised:

Liquor just about at temperature

liquor pumped into tun and all doughed in. pump left on to recirc around the mash tun

another shot of the setup

i'm considering buying some antifoam but wonder how that'll affect the final beer :hmm:

and 150g of the freshest hops i've used yet... still nice and green! mmmmm yummy

 

[Jonnyv]

I'm :pray:'ing for the brew after the mishaps

I quite like the ghostly pics of the brewday :thumb:

 

[BrewStew]

i think a proper camera is on the cards for this year. my cameraphone is utter pants

thanks for the :pray:

 

[llannige]

Good recovery BS
I like the look of that grain bill by the way.

 

[BrewStew]

oh! i forgot to mention...

Wez... i had to use protafloc in this one as i ran out of anything else.... NO cauliflower this time!! the hops were covered in this disgusting looking sludge and looked as if it were stuck together with treacle.

i reckon it's got something to do with the amount of hops being used in the boiler (to make a good filter), and also the amount of resting time it's given... it took an hour to chill my full big boiler, but on my 5 gal it takes only 20 mins, so i reckon this stuff needs more time to drop out than the other copper finings on the market.

when it works well, it works bloody well! this is the clearest wort i've had to date, so give it another try when you're using a load of hops and give it a good hour to rest if your chiller can do it in less :thumb:

 

[BrewStew]

I take that back, 2 of the 4 fermenters have got cauliflower :evil:

it's the two that were last out of the boiler that have it

 

[Wez]

Both of the FV's from yesterdays brew have it here too

 

[BrewStew]

there's another thread elsewhere that protofloc was spoken about... lemmie find it....

 

[BrewStew]

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1286&p=16463&hilit=protofloc#p16463

here it is. UserDeleted has the third last post giving more insight into protofloc... i'm keen to read his answer to my question cos this is bugging me now :evil:

 

[Parva]

Have to say that I've only ever used Whirlfloc and from reading various forums anyone that's gone from Irish Moss to Whirlfloc has been utterly amazed at the difference in the wort clarity. In fact my brewing is at a halt at the moment as I await a delivery of Whirlfloc from H&G as Paul at BB only has Protofloc listed on his website. My LHBS stocks Protofloc (and he said "what's Whirlfloc" when I phoned him!) so I'll postpone brewing until I get Whirlfloc.

On one brew I totally forgot to add the Whirlfloc and the brew was like mud. Now I can drink cloudy beer but that one was putrid and went down the sink, the only brew to date that I've lost.

 

[BrewStew]

I've used whirlfloc... H&G were kind enough to send in some samples.

to be honest, the protofloc got it clearer than whirlfloc... infact the wort looked prestine... couldn't get it any clearer. the whirlfloc for me came in a close second... not completely polished, but near as dammit..

however the proof of the pudding was the final product... the whirlfloc brew could've done with finings (if i used them, which i dont) and took a week to clear... the protofloc brews all came out looking as if they'd had a bucket load of finings and it was absolutely crystal clear straight from the FV. the only downside was i lost some beer to the globs of cauliflower floating on the top.

if i can somehow work out how not to get the cauliflower with protofloc, i might stick to it to be honest