2nd All Grain

[Doingatun]

Well my second AG brewed - McEWAN 80/- Ale - (cost me 160/- ) went well ish now fermenting nicely with Safle s-04 yeast at 19-20c.

Most of lessons learnt on my first brew seemed to follow the steam out of the window despited planning and preparation, firstly over dosed sparge and mash water with campden tabs started again, forgot to heat sparge to 80c water early and later thought I’d switched boiler on a soon as element was covered with mash runnings, waited ages for a boil to find I hadn’t flicked the switch on, lastly added the sugar and Whirlfloc tablet (trying sample from H & G) forgot last hops…added and extended boil .

Good bits

Improved immersion cooler efficiency with raising coils to just below wort surface cooled volume down quicker to desired temp, last brew rested on element, cooled lower half top remained hot.

New Hong Kong refractometer proved it’s worth measuring mash runnings…a lot easier than using hydrometer until I dropped and stood on pippet .

Ended up with exactly 23L in the fv with an SG1.045 3 points above recipe target…using Wheelers extraction figures an efficiency of 82.3% up on last brew .

Got a few questions about fining later .

Cheers

[oblivious]

Why did you add campden tabs to your water?

[guildofevil]

Campden tabs are sodium metabisulfite, which is used to remove chlorine from your brew water.

[Doingatun]

Hi Oblivious, I added 1/2 campden tablet - 25 L of sparge water an 1/4 to 10L mash water to knock out the chlorine? is this a bad idea.

[Scooby]

I use 2.5ml 10% sodium metabisulphite in 23l water.

[PieOPah]

I have done 5 AG brews so far (I am sure it is 5, could be 6) and so far every brew I have encountered problems.

Each problem I encounter is a learning curve. On too many occasions I have forgotten to turn the socket on at the wall meaning my water hasn't come up to temperature or I am left with a wort that is cooling rather than heating. This is now something I double check EVERY time I want to use the boiler.

I am still working on my technique and this will be adjusted as many times as it takes to get it consistently right.

The most important thing is that you do learn from your mistakes and enjoy the process more next time when you see the benefits from learning.

It would seem that you haven't done anything too bad if you are getting an efficiency in excess of 80% (my last accurate efficiency was about 67%)

[SteveD]

DAT the quantites aren't critical, any excess will help combat hotside aeration (if that happened to be a problem for homebrewers). I beleive the boil will drive off any remaining sulphur dioxide.Out of interest, I poured filled a jug of water from my(recently replaced) POU filter and let it stand for several hours, when I tasted it the chlorine flavour has reappeared Shocked I think campden tabs etc are the only reliable way to remove all chlorine and chloramines

Well said sir! I ususally chuck in a campden tab per 5 gallons of liquor. Also, a teaspoon of lactic acid...knocks out the bicarbonate. At that point I might add Gypsum (calcium sulphate) while the water's cold, Epsom Salt (magnesium sulphate) and salt (sodium chloride) in the quantites of 4 tsp, 1/2 tsp, and 1tsp, (20ml/2.5ml/5ml) if I'm brewing bitter/pale ale. With my mains supply that gives me a ph in the low 5's.

Gyp doesn't dissolve quickly so you need to give it a good stir, and make sure the water's cold. Solubility is better in cold water, apparently.

Make sure you treat ALL the liquor you use, ie mash liquor,sparge liquor, and as far as chlorine goes, vitally, your topping up liquor. Yeast and chlorine are not good friends, and you'll taste the result of their punch-up.

I'm thinking of trying out the CRS/DLS system soon, for a change. I suppose I better get the water co. to send me an analysis. make the B'stards work for their money!

[PieOPah]

I bought some gypsum and have never used it. Still not sure why I bought it to be honest (I probably just saw it on a shelf!).

Campden tablets are probably as far as I am willing to go for water chemistry. I have never had a problem with the water I use so don't see why I should change it!

[steve_flack]

I've seen some suggestion of deliberately adding metabisulfate (campden tabs) to mash water to prevent oxidation in the mash and to preserve malt flavor.

http://www.draymans.com/articles/arts/14.html - see part 7

[SteveD]

I bought some gypsum and have never used it. Still not sure why I bought it to be honest (I probably just saw it on a shelf!).

Campden tablets are probably as far as I am willing to go for water chemistry. I have never had a problem with the water I use so don't see why I should change it!

Fair enough. I like to mess with the liquor because 'burtonising' is said to benefit pale ales and bitters by improving malt extraction, hop extraction, and clarity. It's not that there's anything wrong that needs fixing, more like a performance tweak. Wether it actually works..I dunno. I've never done a test. I only do it for those types of beer, for the rest I don't bother, just knock out the chlorine and bicarbonate.

[bitter_dave]

I bought some gypsum and have never used it. Still not sure why I bought it to be honest (I probably just saw it on a shelf!).

Your house must be full of utterly random purchases PoP

[PieOPah]

I think it was likely to be a 'I might need that' purchase....

[SteveD]

You would come under Southern Water wouldn't you SteveD?

http://www.southernwater.co.uk/

fill in your post code on the left and tick the water quality box for a water report (all you need is total alkalinity in ppm).

Three Valleys Water.

CALCIUM 110 mg/l
Calcium is the principal constituent of hardness.
TOTAL HARDNESS 275 mg/l
Total hardness is usually expressed in terms of calcium carbonate and is measured in milligrammes per litre (mg/l) or parts per million (ppm). The recognised classification scheme we are using is: 0-75 soft, 76-150 moderately hard, 151-300 hard, 300+ very hard. Your water is hard.
Degrees English (or Clarke) 19

so that's 275ppm total hardness, as an approximation.

[bitter_dave]

I think it was likely to be a 'I might need that' purchase....

I'm the complete opposite. I buy the bare minimum and have to go back to the homebrew shop every time I brew, usually to buy something tiny (for example, recently I needed 15g of hops because I didn't plan ahead )