Brew day 21/1/07 Cornycopia

[tubby_shaw]

Hopefully a pale type of lager

I am aiming for a starting gravity of 1.045 at 80% efficiency.

3.5 kg lager malt
400g flaked maize
285g flaked rice
300g glucose (boil)
30g Perle 60 minutes boil
10g Saaz 15 minutes boil
1 whirfloc tablet 15 minutes boil
10g Saaz stirred in at end of boil

Ritchie products lager yeast

Mash schedule
55º C 30 minutes 9 litres of mash liquor
64º C 60 minutes 12 lites of mash liquor

Second part of mash is underway
It's time to add some insulation to my boiler

[Orfy]

Sounds nice.
Do you have lagering facilities?

[tubby_shaw]

I have a cold garage and wet towels
Unfortunately I have the worlds stucket stuck mash and can only run off at about 200ml / minute.
I have tried stirring, blowing up the tap and in desparation I have transfered to a grain bag It's just gonna be one of those days

[Orfy]

Oh dear.
What type of mash tun and manifold do you have. Hope it picks up.

[Frothy]

Ah Bad luck TS...
How do you get the different temp's? Still single infusion right but using a different strike temp?

Frothy

[tubby_shaw]

Orfy, I am mashing in an insulated fermenting bin with one of DaaB's false bottoms, its not the equipment as it's worked fine on previous occasions. I believe it's simply a case of a finer crushing of the lager malt that I am using

Frothy,
I start with a thick mash with a lower strike temp, then after 30 minutes slowly stir in boiling water to reach my chosen temperature pretty simple, just like me

[tubby_shaw]

Sod this for a game of soldiers
Three hours of sparging, swearing and kicking the cat And I have got 19 litres in the boiler
So what was supposed to be a 23 litre batch is probably going to end up as 15 litres

[tubby_shaw]

Done.
18 litres Sg 1.050

So as long as it doesn't taste like sh1t it may have been worth the hassle

But, if I mention brewing another lager somebody shoot me

[SteveD]

I have a cold garage and wet towels
Unfortunately I have the worlds stucket stuck mash and can only run off at about 200ml / minute.
I have tried stirring, blowing up the tap and in desparation I have transfered to a grain bag It's just gonna be one of those days

Underlet, dear boy, underlet.....well, next time it happens, if it does at all. Brewers of old often used to run mash liquor into the dry grain from the bottom of the tun, in our case - in through the out tap. Apparently it causes the blockage causing floury (farinaceous, to be flash) material to rise upwards through the mash thus avoiding your false bottom/manifold blocking up.

If it sticks again, flood the bottom of the mash with sparge liquor by hooking up your HLT to the mashtun tap. Worth a try.

Cheers,

[tubby_shaw]

Sounds nice.
Do you have lagering facilities?

I do now
Due to our totally predictable weather the lager has been sat at between 4 & 6 degrees in the garage for past week and of course it being winter in the UK I can guarantee that the temperature won't rise for the next fortnight

[maltman14]

Stuck mash .
Refloat the MT with water from HLT and scrape the false bottom with a flat object (fish slice maybe) then wait for rising bubbles to stop now start the run off very very slowly and very slowly increase .Wish we could get rice hulls in Britain .God I've tried but the deal always fall through
Kelvin

[tubby_shaw]

Rice hulls may not be available but oat husks are
viewtopic.php?t=202&highlight=oat+husks
BTW Cornycopia is sat waiting for an empty Corny, looks like I am going to have to do some drinking
She has turned out well despite all the hassle during brewing.

Nice and pale clean tasting needs some fizz now.
Final gravity is 1.006 giving me 5.9% abv

[tubby_shaw]

Dont mistake it for iodophor

It smells a lot nicer than iodophor

[tubby_shaw]

It looks very poilished Have you tried chilling it to see if there's a protein haze

Thanks no finings either
I will draw another sample and stick it in the fridge, results in an hour

[tubby_shaw]

It's fine no chill haze
But it's bloody difficult to photograph something so cold, as soon as I wiped it I had condensation again


As you can see from the photo it was at -1º C, just about cold enough to be served in a Wetherspoons