Home Brew Forum

Hi all,

Had a bit of a break from brewing the past few weeks (been working my way through the last few batchess!) - hoping to get a few brews in before it turns warm...

Tomorrow is St. George's day and all being well, I'm gonna get this one done in the evening - so I'm gonna call this one "Fyrdraca" (more unpronouncable names it means "fire-dragon" in Anglo-Saxon). Gonna use DL's recipe for Harvey's Best (though heard it's nothing like the actual beer!) with the malt/maize upped a bit. So:

3.5kg MO
300g flaked maize
250g light soft brown sugar

Goldings 50g (4.1%) 90min
Northern Brewer 24g (7%) 90min

OG - 1040 (25L) (assuming ~75%)
Safale-04
Treating water (30L) with 30ml CRS, 1 1/2tsp Gypsum and 1/2 tsp Epsom salts (seemed to work well with my AG#02 "Triple Crown" which was/is gorgeous)

May be a bit high on the hops, even after reducing DLs recipe by 20% - not sure whether to bring those down a touch or not

Roll on tomorrow!

DaaB wrote:I come up with 1037 for the OG (based on 75% efficiency)

I think you missed out the Light brown sugar.

DaaB wrote:3.5 x 300/25 = 42
0.3 x 313/25 = 3.7
0.25 x 374/25 = 3.7
= 49.4 x 0.75 = 37.05

Hmm - had brown sugar down as 460 from a table I have laying around, and the maize a bit higher too - maybe that's the difference.

DaaB wrote:Pale Malt 3.5 x 300/25 = 42
Flaked Maize 0.3 x 313/25 = 3.7
Brown Sugar 0.25 x 374/25 = 3.7
= 49.4 x 0.75 = 37.05

(I shouldn't pay too much attention to Beersmith )

Surely the sugar is at 100% efficiency since it all goes in the kettle?

Adds a point or so too.

DaaB wrote:Pale Malt 3.5 x 300/25 = 42
Flaked Maize 0.3 x 313/25 = 3.7
Brown Sugar 0.25 x 374/25 = 3.7
= 49.4 x 0.75 = 37.05

(I shouldn't pay too much attention to Beersmith )

Obviously you use different figures for the Potential extract than Beer Smith. you are using 300 for Pale malt where Beer Smith appears to use 314 and for flaked Maize you use 313 where beer smith uses 333. Now that I look at the figures Beer Smith seems overly optimistic to me.

Edit: BS is using 308 for Flaked maize and 316 for MO. Still The MO figure is too high, it should be somewhere around 305. I would be interested to know where you get your figures DaaB? Are they published somewhere?

OK - mash is on at 19:45 - had a bit of trouble getting the right temp so emergency ice used! Settled for 67C.

I upped the MO to 3.8kg - we'll see how it goes

Time for dinner!

Have a good one Graeme

No pictures unfortunately - bit busy, but think it all went well. Had some strange problems with getting the mash temperature right last night - think my strike temperature may have been a little on the high side, but think it was OK in the end. pH was good in the mash.

Eventually landed up with 23L @ 1041 - so that extra 300g MO did help out Also pulled the Northern Brewer back to 20g (instead of 24g as per recipe) so looks like:

3.8kg MO
300g Flaked Maize
250g Light Soft Brown Sugar

50g EKG 4.1% (90min)
20g Northern Brewer 7% (90min)
Irish Moss at 15min


This was my first run with a refractometer that SWMBO bought for me - it's so much easier than the hydrometer - very pleased with it.

Glad it went well

Not sure entirely what's up with this one, but after going off like the clappers, the ferment suddenly died right down and went very quiet.

I have a feeling that the change from warm weather at the weekend to slightly cooler weather managed to interrupt the ferment (keeping it in the kitchen being careful not to let it get too hot, think I let it cool too much ). Hoping the temperature issues I had with the mash aren't to blame here...

The gravity was 1024 on Mon, so roused and put it somewhere warmer, which didn't do much - so re-pitched and turned on heater on Tues. Seems to have come a bit back to life now - there are bubbles visible coming to the top, and the gravity is dropping by about 3 points a day (1021 last night). Hopefully, I can get this down to something like 1014 without too many more problems...

Smells good though