First Ever Brewday - TT Landlord (pics brew to pint)

[phatboytall]

My first ever brew day, huge thanks to all those on here have helped me with stupid questions, your time spent answering is really helpful to us newbies.

First brew, i thought i would cut out the kits and jump to DME, then once i had a few under my belt i'd go the whole hog!

This is my attempt at Timothy Taylor's Landlord from GW's excellent book. I got all my supplies from thethrifyshopper, great service.

I couldn't get any Styrian Goldings so i used Bobeck instead (are they different?! Is this going to work?!)
I also opted for a bit of Amber spray malt to give it a bit of colour....don't really sure why, i guess i didn't want a pint of larger coloured TT.
I also scaled the recipe down to 12 litres incase i ended up pouring it down the sink.

Here goes! (apologies for the sideways pics, dam photobucket! can't figure out why they show different on here to the album)
Ingredients.....


My 15 litre Stock pan, i rescued this from down the dump for £3, cleaned up beautifully!


DME going in


Hops going in, i was very impressed with how nice hops smelt...


Nice rolling boil


Final 10min hops


Hydrated yeast at the ready, just SA-04 for now


Now trying to cool a giant metal stock pot


Ah ha! but i have a secret weapon lined up, frozen ice blocks....yep these lasted a whole 20 seconds!!


Finally cooled, took ages to get below 30c


Nice clean pot, i was amazed


Hydrometer reading was 1.043, just over GW's 1.042, that would be due to the extra 100g of DME i added by accident


Lid on, with a nicely cut whole for the airlock until it has a head formed


After 12hours


After 24hours


Thats it for now! Will post as it develops.

Thoughts? Any mistakes spotted? Cheers!

[roger the dog]

Well done that man, looks like you did a pretty good job to me

You might want to get a sample jar for the hydrometer, that 's quite a large sample to lose from a small-ish batch (I'm assuming you didn't pour it back in the FV after taking the reading).

Nice pictures too, love the action shot of you adding the DME

[phatboytall]

Cheers!

"I'm assuming you didn't pour it back in the FV after taking the reading"
no of course not....

er yes, but the glass was sterilised imeadiately before in a bin sodium metachloride, then gently washed with water before putting in.

On the more postive front, i bought a trial jar today! the one bit of kit i forgot!

[paulcav]

Reminds me of my first foray beyonds kits. Well done that man!

[pantsmachine]

Nicely done and you KNOW its going to be a better pint than TT. If possible make yourself leave 6 of the bottles(if you are bottling) for a few months, you'll be blown away by how much a beer changes for the better given time. There's many a batch we all regret blitzing too soon as the last and best bottle goes down the hatch!

Its ok to listen to the devil on your shoulder telling you to go full AG Go on go on go on.

[phatboytall]

Thanks for the feedback.

I plan to put 8litres in a 10litre mini keg i have (from a Harvey's brewery i believe), the rest i was going to bottle in old Fullers bottles that i have.

How long should each be left? I was planning 28days for the keg and probably 2 months for the bottles.

Good job i have my next batch of ingredients waiting! Exmoor Gold next, was going to try a Windsor Yeast with it.

Ed

[danbrew]

Well done that man! You have time on your side so a good two months in the bottles and you'll be very impressed.

One question about your stock pot. It looks very similar to one I have just bought from ebay. Mine is very thin metal and feels a bit like a biscuit tin (Buckingham is the brand I believe)! I was getting worried about using it and potentially burning my wort... Is yours similar and did you have any problems?

Great effort. Listen to the AG Devil.

[JontyR]

Great minds thin alike phatboytall!! I've got a keg of landlord conditionaing in my garage which was my 1st Extract brew and I'm still debating whether its the Exmore Gold or Summer lightning for my second. I also did somethig vey similar with the cooling with frozen bottles of water, they soon dissapear don't they! Next construction has definately got to be an immersion chiller.

[crafty john]

Well done that man! You have time on your side so a good two months in the bottles and you'll be very impressed.

One question about your stock pot. It looks very similar to one I have just bought from ebay. Mine is very thin metal and feels a bit like a biscuit tin (Buckingham is the brand I believe)! I was getting worried about using it and potentially burning my wort... Is yours similar and did you have any problems?

Great effort. Listen to the AG Devil.

I use a buckingham stock pot and it's fine, they do feel thin though.

[Tony01]

Extra 100g of DME ... good man. Excellent pics too.

Go on..... AG is just a few steps away

[phatboytall]

"Mine is very thin metal and feels a bit like a biscuit tin (Buckingham is the brand I believe)! I was getting worried about using it and potentially burning my wort... Is yours similar and did you have any problems?"

Yep mine is just the same, i looked at the ones on ebay for £15, then had a stroke of luck finding this down the dump when getting rid of my bathroom.

Its very thin metal, but did the job perfectly, you can see how little i had to clean it afterwards, no burning or marks whatsoever.

The extra DME came around because i measured the OG just after i had mixed the DME at 40c (pre boiling), i panicked that the OG wasn't high enough so dumped the extra hundred in which i was keeping to try and have a go at cultivating a Fullers yeast........i realised shortly after that of course the OG would be low, i hadn't boiled the DME yet to get the sweetness out of it!! doh! a valuable lesson learned!

Cheers for the encouragement!
Ed

[Jolum]

Go on..... AG is just a few steps away

Yep, you're down the slippery slope to AG now. Good luck with it, hope the brew tastes good

[phatboytall]

So its been a week since my first brew day, here is the next installment.

I left the brew to ferment for 6 days in the FV, i didn't get to test the OG through the week as i was waiting on my new trial jar, which sadly arrived broken in the post! doh! Back to the sanitised pint glass then!

I've discovered my larder is exactly 20c all week!
Here is the brew after i've cleared a bit of the head/yeast off it


So after 6 days the OG appeared to be pretty much nothing! i didn't take an exact reading as i figured there wasn't anything to read!


Vessels ready for conditioning, i've only done a small brew of 12litres so i planned to put 8litres in the keg and 4 in the polypin for bottling later


100g of sugar for each for priming, figured they probably needed less sugar as they were only small vessels but the excess gas would be let off by me.


The two vessels back in the larder


So, problem, i thoguht i had done 12 litres, bbut it would have all easily fit in my keg which has 10 litres marked on it! either that or my youngs FV is a liar! I reckon its the youngs! Lesson learnt!

So i put probably 2 litres in a polypin so i can have a go at bottling this weekend. I want to make my mistakes with small batches!

It didn't just smell and taste like beer, it smelt like TT Landlord!! One wiff and i was whisked off to my local where they serve it perfectly! The wife had to put up with me shouting from the kitchen "this smells like the bloody beer its meant to be!!"

A nice surprise.

Bottling this wknd, the poly pin is filling up with gas nicely which i'm letting off.
The keg, well that will be drunk in August, as will i hopefully.

Ed

[bigdave]

I would guess that you've ended up with 10ltrs rather than 12ltrs due to an oversight/miscalculation in the amount of liquid loss to hops. They can soak up a good few litres over a 60 min boil!

[phatboytall]

Yeah i lost a fair bit from the boil as you can see from the pics, but i ended up with a high OG at the end of the boil so added 1.5litres of boiled and cooled water to top it up to the 12litres mark on the FV. Ah well, good lessons.

I assume there is no downside to boiling with the lid on? More gas efficient, i won't "sweat" the hops or anything will it?

Ed