1st Bitter (no name yet)

[Scoggster]

Hi all. Having a brew day today and I'll post how it goes.

Started early (for me) at 8:20, Hot Liquor (Boiler) sanitised. (Do I actually need to do this?)

Gradually added boiling water to get to a 10 gallon amount, which is having a 15 min boil off as I write. Have a mate coming over to "take part on a brew day" later, and he has some surprises in store... Haven't got a recipe yet. That's his forst surprise! (actually, I have an idea, Cascade based, 1039 ish...) Its going to be a batch sparged 5 gallon brew.

More later...

Chris

[floydmeddler]

Don't need to sanitize the boiler. If your brew turns out nice and you decide it's a keeper, you could just call it your 'House Bitter'.

Keep us posted... with photos if poss!

[Scoggster]

Cheers Floyd. Haven't really got a camera to hand at the mo.

Anyone like to comment on this hop schedule I've come up with?

50g Cascade 90min
35g Challenger 45min
25g East Kent Goldings 15min

I've seen lots of recips on here with hops at flame out. What does that do, and should I do that for this bitter? (its going to be an all pale malt brew btw)

Perhaps less Cascase at the start and some at flame out?

Cheers

[floydmeddler]

This beer will be EXTREMELY bitter... too bitter probably. My Beertools program states that it will be 68.

IMO, there isn't really any point in adding hops for 45 mins as it will just add bitterness. If I were you, I would add around 25g of cascade and 25g of EKG for 10 mins as this will release maximum flavour. I would add some Cascade too at flame out for 10 mins. This will give aroma.

[Scoggster]

Thanks Floyd,

Picked up the advice too late to stop the 45 min hop, but had adjusted the others as thought it was a bit OTT.

Boiler is now cooling (don't have a wort chiller yet) and is down to 49c. Will transfer to FV1 tonight if it gets there. Want the cold break to happen in the copper if poss.

Here is the recipe we came up with.

Target OG 1039

Malt.
4300 kg pale malt.
Batch sparged mash.

3g at 71c (66c) 90 min gave 2.3g at 1068
2.5g at 81c (73c) 10 min gave 2.7g at 1039
2.5g at 82 (76c) 10 min gave 2.25g at 1016
Combined 7.25g at 1034.5 pre boil

Hops
Cascade 35g 90 min.
Challenger 20g 45 min.
EK Goldings 10g at 15 min.
Cascade 15g at flame out.

1 t/s Irish Moss at 15 min.

Post boil OG measured and temp corrected. 6g at 1041.

So far so good. SO4 awaits...

[vacant]

I have this amongst my notes: "hop bitterness balance guide: grams = 5 x (OG - 1000)/aa%"

e.g something like challenger for bittering, alpha acid = 7% and I'm aiming for OG 1040 then 5x40/7= 28g of bittering hops. I'd use about 10g first wort hops and 20g @90 mins.

Only a guide, I guess anywhere from 20 to 40g would be acceptable for most people, depending on your taste you might extend that range.

[floydmeddler]

Good stuff man. Keep us posted when you taste it.

[Scoggster]

Thanks for the support people.

Its now in the FV. Got about 5.5G in the end. OG on pitch was 1041.5, which putting into the old program says that the brew kit is actually 80% efficient. This I guess is good.

Must get a wort chiller. The one from Hop and Grape looks the best seeings as I have their 10g kit. Any thought anyone? Also, i have a question - should the wort be chilled in the boiler before run off, or in the FV after the run off? There seems to be 2 different schools of thought on this one...

Got some bottling to do later for one of the strong ones...

[Parva]

Wort is cooled in the boiler as you put the IC into the boil 15 minutes from the end to sanitise it then cool it once the boil is over. This also means that most of your cold break material is filtered out of the wort by the hop strainer.

[Duncndisorderly]

i put me chiller in the FV aws its the first time i've used it and having just read the post above im now feeling ever so slightly foolish anyway ref the Hop and Grape chiller, its a cracker for the price but the length of pipe that hooks over the boiler could do with lengthening as if your not doin a full 10 gallon the chiller wont make contact with the brew which leaves you having to immerse the whole thing, which is what i did

[AlexCricket]

i put me chiller in the FV aws its the first time i've used it and having just read the post above im now feeling ever so slightly foolish anyway ref the Hop and Grape chiller, its a cracker for the price but the length of pipe that hooks over the boiler could do with lengthening as if your not doin a full 10 gallon the chiller wont make contact with the brew which leaves you having to immerse the whole thing, which is what i did

Do you have the long reach chiller or the short one - I thought at just £2 extra for the longer length then that was probably the better option.

[Spin]

I bought the long legged wort chiller from Hop & Grape. It looks very small to me. I was previously looking online about how to make one myself but decided to just buy one. It looks much smaller than I was expecting after seeing other peoples creations.

[delboy]

Go for the long-legged version to match the H&G 10G setup, when i got mine they only did the ones desiged to hang on a 5G bucket, fortunately commonsense prevailed and you can now get a chiller that suits the setup they sell.