Home Brew Forum

So I've been planning this for a few weeks since the missus is away this weekend - got the last of my supplies delivered yesterday afternoon. Thanks to Daab's excellent mini mash article I thought I'd give it ago and document my success (or failure!). This is my first AG experience, so any encouragement is welcomed

Yesterday I set about creating my lauter tun using two 5L fermenters...

Using my particularly cheap crap drill...


I set about making lots of 2mm holes in the lauter tun...


Then using my W shaped drill bit (I forget the name of it) I added the tap to the second 5L fementing bucket...


Putting the whole lauter tun together....


In preparation for today I got my equipment chemicals and ingredients ready...






Today, brew day, I started about 12:30 weighing the ingredients out....



Preheated the oven to 65 degrees, and mixed my 72degree strike water with my grains, doughing in...



That's as far as I've got today, the mash is in the oven and has 25 minutes left to go so I'll post more pics shortly

what are you brewing Jonny?

Oops probably should have said - I'm following http://www.18000feet.com/minimash/page1.htm Daab's recipe so....

1.1kg Pale Malt
50g Crystal Malt
16g Fuggles (full boil)
4g Fuggles (late copper hops/last 15mins)
Pinch of Irish Moss, (last 15 mins)

Great pics, what is you recipe?

The boil is on, just about to get the pics off my camera.

Couple of problems so far though...

My run offs never got down to 1006, they were more like 1010 and I've ended up with rather a lot more than 5L.

Also my hob is having a bit of trouble getting a really good boil going on, it's more of a rolling simmer which I think might be inhibiting the hot break? It's an electric hob so maybe it's not up to the job?

Jonny

Great pictures, j. Hope you enjoyed the day

More pics

Sparging (I wasn't terribly successful with this)...


Running off...


Into the stock pot it goes


Lauter tun


It's boiling, get the hops in


Boil over, attempting to cool with bottles of ice


Checking the gravity


Oops, forgot to turn off a FV tap :\


Spent hops - not terribly appetising!


Murky, leaving to settle before racking again


Looking a tad less murky, and my rehydrating yeast


Urgh - what had settled to the bottom of the DJ


Finally racked back into the DJ, looking still cloudy but better


Into the brewing cupboard, next to some strawberry wine and orange mead.


A good day in all, not too many mistakes/mishaps but I've certainly learnt a lot today! 12.30 to 19.00, quite a long day for only ending up with 4.5l of beer! Hopefully the effort will show in the final product

Cheers for everyone's help/comments

Well done, i'm sure your gonna love the taste of your first AG.

Nice one!

Putting the tinfoil inside the lauter tun when recirculating would be easier

Thanks for the tip - I'll be sure to try that next time... I think smaller and more holes would have worked better too since the recirculated water seemed to form craters in the grain bed :\

Well done on the minimash, you do realise it's a slippery slope from here on in

jonnyv wrote: Oops, forgot to turn off a FV tap :\

You're not a proper brewer if you don't do that occasionally

Thats a great brewday thread and great pics, keep us updated so we can see how it turns out.

Good work

Suggestion on the lauter tun. Cut the bottom of the 'inner' FV leaving about 1 inch of the side attached to the bottom . . . It fits much more snuggly into the bottom of the outer bucket, reducing the amount of void space under the false bottom, while still resting on/above the tap

Excellent talk through jonnyv, very inspirational. As you say, it's a lot of work for a gallon of beer, but it's a good way of trying new recipes

Thanks for all the tips and comments, it's encouraging... so much so that I think I might do another mini mash this evening

I've made the adjustments to my lauter tun and may construct/bodge something together to help with the sparging.

I picked up a Bruheat 5 gallon boiler from a freecycler a while ago and thought it was too knackered to be used, but after descaling the element and replacing the tap and hop strainer, it's looking as good as new.

So I may use this for the boil instead of the hob. It's only got one element though so might have to add another further down the line.

Now it's only a matter of time before I get a proper mash tun and do some bigger AG brews