AG#2 underway!

[lancsSteve]

As you say. I'm beginning to feel the high efficiency may be correct, and not a one-off. I'm going to do another brew before long, and base it on 85% efficiency. be interesting to see how it comes out! If those efficiency figures are correct and consistent, it'll save me a fair chunk on grain.

Took me a long time to get my calcs sorted but now find that 25-26 litre brewlengths, and taking the gravity at START of boil are correct at 8% efficiency . I keep extra wort drained into a large pan at the end of sparging once boiler is full and reserve this. i then top up the boiler throughout boil - until last 30 minutes or so. This gives me correct enough calculations for recipe formulation, else if I allow for boil off I hit 90% odd and shorter brewlengths. Works for me and means gravity at start of boil is nigh-on same as at end due to no boil off. This way if I'm under gravity I can allow a little more boil off or if over gravity can water down a bit towards end of boil e.g. for last 15 minutes.

Not sure why efficiencies are so high - maybe malt quality and equipment quality and general know-how are now so much better that standard 75% is conservative...

[RichardG]

Took me a long time to get my calcs sorted but now find that 25-26 litre brewlengths, and taking the gravity at START of boil are correct at 8% efficiency.

8% efficiency seems very low to me! May I assume that's a typo?

As to your general point, I don't think there's anything special about my equipment (ooh ere misses) or brewing technique, thugh you could well be right that general improvements in all these aspects over time may mean that a 'default' efficiency setting may need to be higher. Anyway, once I have a few more brews done I'll be able to get a better handle on it in my case. Cheers!

[lancsSteve]

80% is my calculation in brewpal (iPod / iPhone app, 59p, brilliant!) a typo indeed

The 75% calc seems unchanged since Dave Line era but the amount of info, quality of ingredients and ease of getting information have improved so much since then I'm not surprised efficiencies have improved...

[RichardG]

Well, a week later and the brew has been transferred to secondary for initial conditioning and dry hopping with 40g of goldings for another week.


Here you can see the FV before transfer. I decided shortly after getting the brew in the FV to tip it slightly as the settling trub, break material and yeast was up above the level of the tap, and I wanted as little as possible of this getting into the secondary. In the end, there was so much crap that I must have lost the best part of 3-4Ltrs which I had to discard.


Here we have the sample taken for checking the FG, and


Here also. The FG was 1010, which with an OG of 1050 gives an ABV of some 5.2%. Rather more than I'd planned!

I'm going to fashion myself a hop-stopper, and next time will try an idea I've seen discussed on the forum. I'm proposing to recirculate the brew back through the boiler and let the hops etc act as a form of filter, just as we do when sparging and draining the MT. That may help prevent as much of the crud getting into the FV as possible.

[Deebee]

run a search for HOP stopper by garth ( he was making them for a so\ng too..) i have one and they are absolutely fantastic. recirculate the first couple of litres and its crystal going into the FV

[Russ]

RichardG

I've sent you a PM, let me know if you got it and if it's of any interest.

Cheers

Russ

[RichardG]

Gentlemen, AG#2 is in secondary and has been dry hopping since last Monday evening. I was hoping to bottle this evening but have pulled a late shift and won't get the chance. I'm also on a late tomorrow, then Wednesday see's England crash out of the World Cup etc etc. Way it's going I can see it being this weekend coming before I'll be able to bottle. Does anyone see and issues with this?

[yogester]

No problems on waiting longer for bottling. If anything your beer will be less hazy the longer you leave it in secondary.

Looking forward to hearing how it tastes!

[RichardG]

Well, managed to get this bottled last night. Recovered 38 1/2ltr bottles at a FG of 1008. But my calculations that gives an ABV of 5.4%(Crikey)! Really that's much more than I wanted, as I was aiming for c4.0-ish%. But there you go. I must say, I will have to look into kegging, as I HATE bottling. I began at 9.30pm (kids you know!), and finished at 12.30am. 4 Hours! Still, it does have it's advantges as well, and I only have to do it once a month or so...

I transferred the brew into a bottling bucket and primed with light DME to the tune of 2.5g per ltr. I'd estimated that I'd get 22ltrs, so 55g of DME was pre-boiled before adding to the bottling bucket. It's all now tucked away in the garage for 4 weeks conditioning. This should be ready for drinking on Saturday, 24th July. I'll let you know the results and post pictures.

[RichardG]

Began drinking this last night; bloody marvellous! Pictures later. I really never thought that a brew so simple in it's composition would turn our so well, but there you are. Pale malt & Goldings, what a combination.

[wburgess]

Just a quick tip on your Immersion Chiller.

I found a huge difference in cooling time by stirring the wort about every 5 or so mins, just to ensure that all the liquid is passing between the copper pipes.

This cut my time (100c to 30c) down to 20mins ish from 1 hour!

Also don't run the water through too fast, if the water coming out the end is a lot cooler than the wort temperature, then slow it down. It's a waste of energy otherwise.

Glad the beer has turned out good, will have to try something like that myself!

[leedsbrew]

Cool pics matey. glad it went well!