AG #69 278 Day Blonde

[BrewerBen]

278 long days since the last all grain, house renovations meant no brewing as the brewing space was used for storage and got pretty dirty. I did do a couple of kits before i had to stop completely, Coopers stout was pretty good but the English bitter was not.
First brew is a user upper as i ran out of time to get my last planned brew, so with slightly old grains i thought rather than use the Simcoe and Citra i had planned i'd use up the old leaf hops i had in the freezer as i mainly use pellets now.
This is also my first attempt at no sparge with the BM to simplify things and prevent potential trouble by putting a heavy stock pot on a brand new induction hob.
My yeast fridge had also broken so my samples of Gale, WLP002 and WLP400 went down the drain in the summer so bought some Gervin Ale yeast from Wilkos to tide me over.
Everything got stripped down and cleaned so it wast really a brewday but a 3 day cleanathon with a little brewing thrown in at the end.

Blonde Ale
Target Gravity: 1.045
Batch size: 27L
Bitterness:36.5 IBU

Grains
4700g Maris Otter 91.09%
260g Cara Blonde 5.04%
200g Acid Malt 3.88%

Water Additions
15ml CRS
Camden tablet
6g Gypsum

Mash Schedule
Mash in 38L @ 38C
Step 1: 60 mins @68C
Step 2: 10 mins @75C

Hop Schedule
90 Min
Cluster 9.8% - 19.3 IBU
15min
30g UK Cascade - 8.5 IBU
10g CLuster - 4.5 IBU
20g EKG - 4.2 IBU
Steep @ 80C
60g UK Cascade

Yeast
2 Packs Gervin Ale yeast Rehydrated
Fement @ 20C

Grain shot:


Mashed in with water filled to the usual level.


But then topped up with the sparge water which submerges the malt pipe.


Mash complete.


Malt pipe lifting mechanism. Only really needed for the 50L malt pipe but if its there may as well used it.


No sparging but i left the grains to drain as much wort out as i can.


Re-circulating cooling rig in place. Its then siphons out if the BM rather than use the tap.


Not much left in the BM.


In the temp controlled fermentation fridge it goes.


Nice colour and bang on target gravity of 1.045 but with 28.5L of wort rather than 27L.
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[richard080561]

Looks like it should be a good beer. I have never tried poking holes in the spent grain when I leave it to drain. Does that speed up the draining or get more out or do you just like the patter? You have the same fermenter and fridge that I have but I only have the 20l BM, although I usually manage to get 26l batches from it. I keep meaning to mark up my fermenter as you have done....one day....I use the original glass shelf in fridge. I wonder if I am taking too big a risk doing that...

[BrewerBen]

The poking holes is mentioned in the manual but i also used to do it before i had a braumeister in my cool box mash tun. I probably read it on here somewhere originally. It seems like it could be helpful but if not there's no harm in it.
Its a handy size fridge, i've seen a few brewers with it. I didnt really trust the glass shelf though so just used some wood i had around.