Home Brew Forum

OK, I know it's a late start and I'll probably finish at midnight. But the HLT is fired up. The Ringwood yeast starter has been bubbling away for 4 days and I'm away with this..

Brew length 40 litres (I'm running short of beer and I reckoned it was just as much work for 20 litres as it is for 40.)

Horden Hillbilly's House bitter..more or less.

Type All grain

Pale Malt (Marris otter) 6.8kg
Crystal malt 455g
WGW Hops 36IBU added at start of boil
Goldings hops 30g added last 15 mins of boil
Goldings Hops 12g added at end of boil (30min soak)

Estimated OG 1044

First time out I'm batch sparging

Wort required for boil 53litres.
Two batches of 26.5 litres of wort (from DaaBs batch sparge calculator)

First batch 36.3 litres and it's a 38.5 litre mash tun, so might be interesting.

I'm going for a 90 minute mash and a 90 minute boil.

I should add. Everything I know about brewing has been learnt from "Jim's beer kit forums" My equipment was modelled from here. So there is a good chance I have got a few things wrong. If I have Please tell me, I wont be hurt and I want to brew good beer.

cheers

Oggy'bar

Good luck with your brew Oggy Bar, hope all goes well. Keep your taps tight and don't forget the finings

Matt

Bugger..first problem..Noticed a smell of fish earlier, thought it was the epoxy resin that I'd stuck the element socket shrouds on with curing...Turned out it was a switched spur melting...Didn't notice until I realised the HLT was taking an age to get warm...Some of the wiring in my house needs a good sort out.

Luckily The Kellet (Old quarry) brewery is on wheels, so I've wheeled it to another socket and we're back in business.

Good luck Oggy Bar

Hope it goes well Oggy

Hope it goes ok for you Oggy, keep us posted about your brewday progress & enjoy it!

I hope my house bitter is to your taste!

If rolling your brewery to another socket is your biggest problem your already well ahead of the curve - enjoy!

Well, I didn't leave any valves open..and everything went according to plan

Though I do have a little concern about the end result. Here's the pictures.


The grain bill. Pale Maris otter, Crystal malt and Torrified wheat:




The Kellet(Old quarry) Brewery raises steam.





Doughing in at 69C..was aiming for 70 but decided to leave it.



90 minute mash underway:



Time's up..Mash complete.




Underletting batch 2.



Recircing first drawings from 2nd batch into Mash tun.



Wort pumped to boiler and boil underway.



Start of hot break (I think)



Rolling boil begins.



Ventillation system in operation Brewery moved to door and door opened
(This is the laundry room and the current smell is rather malty )



Bittering hops added.



Managed to find time for a well earned pint before the flavour hops go in.



SG1044...Spot on, and I managed to get 40litres of wort.



But here's the problem. If you look closely at the wort in the Hydrometer jar, you will see that it is not clear. It has fine particulate material floating in it. This material does settle out quite rapidly. But what have I done wrong.

I left the wort to cool naturally for about 20mins

The brewery has a CFC attached to it, but I recirced the wort through the CFC and back to the boiler until about 30C was attained and then it was taking too long, so I pumped direct to the fermenters through the CFC. final temp 21C.

There was a nice bed of hops in the bottom of the copper and this seemed to have effectively filtered out some quite fine material but nonetheless there is quite a lot of floating material in the finished wort.

The second and most important question is....Is this likely to affect the finished product

I did use whirflock in the last 10 minutes of the boil (2 tabs) and you are correct, I do not think I did allow the boil to progress vigourously for long enough.

Fingers crossed then...or I might regret doing such a large batch...first time.

Great pictures OB Sure the brew will turn out fine

I wouldn't worry, I've had a few like that. I tend to leave the wort in kettle for a bit longer now after chilling - more like an hour rather than half before running off into the FV. It seems to filter more out and, as the guys say, using a whirlfloc helps massively.

That said, I've seen some argue that a bit more cold break material in the FV helps with the fermentation, so it's likely the beer will be just fine.

Well 8 hours later, it's definitely started to ferment...so that's promising.