Home Brew Forum

Yesterday I had this urge to brew something and it had to be something with Cascade hops or Bobek (Styrian Golding)...thanks Paul.

Because that was all I had.

I quite fancied having a go at a Fiddlers elbow, but then again a nice IPA would go down well..Dilemna, Dilemna ...... hang on I could do both

So, figuring that 2 brews in tandem was easier than 2 brews weeks apart... Townes IPA and Fiddlers Elbow it was.

My version of Townes. (with the help of Beersmith)

All grain
Pale Malt (Maris otter) 4.1kg
Torrified wheat 0.18kg
Crystal Malt 0.15kg
Cascade hops (60 min) 28 IBU
Cascade hops (15 min) 8.6 IBU
Cascade hops (0 mins) 30g
Whirflock tab

90 min mash (batch sparged)
60 min boil

Yeast Ringwood

OG 1.045

---------------------------------

and Fiddlers Elbow

Pale malt (Maris Otter) 3.5kg
Crystal malt 1.25kg
Torrified wheat 0.25kg
Bobek hops 26.1 IBU (60min)
Bobek hops 6.5 IBU (15min)
Bobek hops 20g (0min)
Whirflock tab

90 Min mash (batch sparge)
60 min boil

Ringwood yeast.

Original gravity 1.048

So how did it go?

Preparation is all..so I prepared the grain bill and the hops for both brews right at the start and I filled the HLT with 65litres of water...enough for both brews and waited for it to heat up....which took longer than I expected.

Mashed the first brew Townes IPA and set to work cutting the lawn & preparing my car for its MOT. returned right on the bell and sparged the wort to the copper...started the boil and chucked in the first batch of Bobek hops

Ah well they were only bittering hops..probably wont make much difference the AA was about the same.

Meanwhile i emptied most of the grist from the mash tun and put in the second lot of grain for the Fiddlers elbow..The end of the 90 minute mash would co-incide with the end of the 60 minute boil and all was going according to plan.

The boil finished, I pumped the wort through the CFC directly into FV, cleaned out most of the hops from the copper and pumped in the 2nd lot od wort.....Piece of pi55 this 2 brew malarky.

at the end of the 60 minutes, switched off the elements and threw in the last hops...but hang on whats this ...a whirflock tablet

I quickly brought the wort back to the boil, chucked in the whirflock tab, gave it a 5 minute boil and left it to cool down for 10 minutes.....its now 01:00 hours and I started at 6 o clock...and I'm knackered.

Finally pumped the wort to the FV and pitched the yeast.

So I have a Townes IPA with Styrian bittering hops and a Fiddlers Elbow with steeped hops which were boiled for 5 minutes...so if that's all that goes wrong I'll be quite pleased.

I spent 3 hours tonight tidying up....so my experience is that doing 2 brews at once is strangely no quicker than doing 2 individual brews.

A few Photos of the nights work:

Grain Bill 1 Townes IPA



Grain bill 2 Fiddlers Elbow.



Mash underway (cant remember which one)


1st lot of grist removed from mash tun..no need to clean it just put next lot on top.


The Fiddlers elbow mashing in the foreground and the Townes boiling in the background.



Tonight..The Townes.


and the Fiddlers Elbow.


Strange that the Krausen should be so different...same yeast.

DaaB,

My system has 2 flojets. 1 for pumping wort from mash tun to copper and 1 for pumping from copper to FV via CFC.

The Mash tun one obviously pumps liquids at up to 70c but the copper flojet usually only sees up to 30c.

Both pumps can be used to recirc the wort either through the mash or through the hops.

I know they are only rated at up to 40c (60 according to Hop & grape) but I thought I would see how they go on....up to now fine.

I run them on filtered compressed air. My other hobby is classic cars, so I already have a compressor...oh and I have a couple of spare pumps just in case.

I guess if I fail to become adquately expert at judging sparge and strike temperatures and have to resort to a RIMS or HERMS, then I might have to look at another type of pump as I doubt the seals on the flojet will be up to pumping at 100c

By the way, I find the noise quite satisfying, like a milking parlour...or a heart beat

DaaB wrote:(and flojets are a pain to reassemble from what I can remember.

DaaB, That is an understatement...you really wouldn't want to strip one down regularly..I did , just to see what the seals were like...I wont be doing it again.

Having said that though, they are extensively used in the trade for pumping beer and soft drinks and only ever sanitised by pumping fluid through them.

Buggah now I've said that, I'm bound to get an infected beer