AG3 - great big bucket of Lager

[MMBrewing]

stocks of AG2 depeleted- It was time for affirmative action.....




and so to work. I scaled up the previous recipe using the wonderfully free beer engine (thanks GW) and armed with strike heat, water treatment,batch sparge calculators from Jims Beer Kit I embarked upon the big one - featuring my 50L stock pot and big burner of propane for the first time in anger

water in, added to the grains : much stirring and (you'll have to take my word for it) the thermometer showed 67 deg c.. a good start !



running off/batch sparge action featuring ss colander from pound shop



rolling rolling boil , this burner can handle WAY more than 5 gallon batches- need a bigger mash tun though !



left overnight to cool and then painstakingly jugged into a FV via the pound shop colander.

so...as we are all supposed to do at work... what went well etc...

+Boil- easy to get a rolling boil, fast heat up times.
-tricky to balance heat input to get a stable temp for strike. I can see MAYBE a HLT in the near future (its made but i would add 1x kettle element and thermal control )

+Hops where vac packing has remained intact and have been in freezer are still fresh after a long long time
+CRS / gypsum brought the OG in on the nose

-jugging the wort out of the copper is a bad idea. I will make a hop strainer. this also means i want the copper up higher: gravity is free.

bottling 40+ pints may be a PITA but it sure saves the hassle of gas and regs !

AG4 will be an ale ... promise.... and i'll resize those pics soon as well !

[Spud395]

Looking good on the burner and boiler.
Do you have details on the burner?
You'll either get used to bottling 40+ bottles or get a kegging system, I normally bottle that number every 3-4 weeks and it does geta pain after a while. Maybe one day I'll stump up for a few kegs

[MMBrewing]

The burner is here : (although its widely available elsewhere as well)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/LARGE-BOILING-RIN ... 27b1280cda

note that it only requires a low pressure reg - I am running it from a bullfinch variable regulator and its wound out to its lowest setting. I like the steel frame it comes with as its nice and sturdy but not cast iron heavy.

The stock pot is good value too.good thickwalled aluminium- not as shiny as ss but a helluva lot easier to drill if you go that route ...

[MMBrewing]

This was at 1.020 last night so the mahoosive starter is doing its job ok, I'll bulk prime and bottle it at the weekend , assuming it gets down to 1.010 in time- again it will have a fair whack of sugar in the boiled water as befits the lager-ish nature of this beer . Its developed a complex almost honey like sweetness which balances the hops nicely, this won't be heading for a long conditioning period. If theres time at the weekend will kick off AG4 which, as promised, will be an ale. I have promised myself I'll do my homage to Abbot from BYOBRA. The copper will be getting a hop filter and a tap as a result of my experiences with this brew, I'm holding off on the HLT for now so tonight its sanitising and making the starter up.