Home Brew Forum

Hello,

Ingredients
25L, 90min Mash, 60min boil
Amount Item Type % or IBU
4.00 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 100.00 %
35.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.60 %] (90 min) Hops 19.8 IBU
15.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.60 %] (15 min) Hops 3.9 IBU
1 Pkgs SafAle English Ale (DCL Yeast #S-04) Yeast-Ale

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.041 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.011 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 3.89 %
Bitterness: 23.8 IBU
Est Color: 7.6 EBC

Mash is on for 90 mins. Am batch sparging and tried to dough in with 10L to 67deg. Ended up needing 13L to hit this. I don't think a quick splash round of boiling water was sufficient to pre-heat the MT . Very slapdash. After 90 I'll add 8.6 more litres, stir, leave for 5 mins, recirculate 'til clear, then drain. Then fill with 14.1 litres, stir, leave for 5 mins, recirculate, and drain. Hopefully giving me 31.1 ish litres in the boiler. After boiling and the hops absorbing some wort I should have in the FV 25L, and after fermenting that's 10 bottles and 1xcorni - always ish!

Before all this I treated my 40L of tap water to 1xcrushed campden tablet and 60ml of CRS. That should bring down my CaCO3 from 165 to under 50, as suggested on the Brupaks website, for bitters and paler beers. I know the stated analysis figures from water companies are an average but I've got the CRS and the addition moves things in the right direction. I added 1 tablespoon of ph5.2 stabilizer to the dry grist before doughing in.

I'm new to batch sparging. This is the 3rd brew I'm trying it on. The two before were higher OG ones where the MT was full to the brim, my efficiency suffered there I think as I was quite concerned about spillages and making the boil volume, concentrating less on good mixing before each drain. With this smaller brew it's this area I'll concentrate on today. I'll have to 'cos the recipe is formulated to 80% efficiency , I used to get that with fly sparging but 70 has been tops while batching in the 2 previous. We'll see.

Ah, to heck with the CRS thing, what I add seems to make tasty beer, actually maybe what I'm trying to do is reduce the risk of high tannin extraction by acidifying my sparge liquor slightly. I think what I'm doing might achieve this. More research required when I have the time/inclination.

If you like your beer, and for the warm feeling factor I go for other people like your beer, who cares?

I'll do that and note the volume on batch #1, ta for the tip.

I'm using the end of a sack of MO for this, 50/50 with some new. I think the flouriness of the end of the old is slowing up the draining, but it's not stuck so the drains will just be a bit longer. Having recirc'd the wort is particle free though .

15L of 1.059 from batch #1. Have added 17-ish L and and waiting for it to settle before recirc'ing in my translucent concave PP wort transportation recipticle (placcy jug ) and draining hopefully to somewhere around 31.78 (love Beersmith) litres for boiling.

I got 31L @ 1.037

Boil on

Hope it's all going well

It's cooling just now. DFS fizzing away waiting to be introduced to it's mate. Am going to ferment at 18deg C, to try and keep S-04 as clean as it can be.

Looking good Si, where did the yellowbelly bit come from ? Lincolnshire roots by any chance

Round these parts, a yellowbelly is a native of Copthorne. Comes from the smelting that used to go on round here whereby the belly of the smelters apron would become stained yellow over time. The Copthorne football team historically have the nickname 'The Yellowbellies'. I'm born and bred and play for the team (albeit in the 2nds) so the name seemed apt.

In the FV now 26@ at 1.043. Kick On!!! The yeast will have a few hours at 29deg while the fridge it's in brings it down to 18 but hey ho.

Efficiency issues solved

Do any 'yeastmeisters' out there think that my adding my flying starter of S-04 while the wort is at 29deg, and then it taking 8 hours to reach 18deg is particularly detrimental to the flavour or attenuation? I wondered if I should be more particular given with S-04 it could all be over in 48hrs?

Have today bought 20m of 10mm microbore to replace my puny brewpaks IC. Having the H&G 10 Gallon setup means it doesn't reach very far into the boiler and so I feel it struggles to do it's job.

Just drank the sample jar (1.032) about 1.43%ABV It's all in there (plus a load of sugar!) but this is only 12hrs old .

SiHoltye wrote:Just drank the sample jar (1.032) about 1.43%ABV It's all in there (plus a load of sugar!) but this is only 12hrs old .

Surely with all that beer you've got there's better choices of drink?

The Children are the Future.

More willpower than me, that's for sure

The 2 victorian beers aren't matured yet, the Amarillo and Belgian I want to take to Derby which leaves me with only the 80/- to sup now. I'll have to give proper scheduling some more thought, but for now it's the comp that's screwed me. Can't wait for the Derby do though, are you coming or what?