31st August 2008 - Effin Premium Bitter

[Aleman]

Well I shall be brewing this tomorrow
Effin Premium Bitter ~20L @ ~ 1.042 and ~ 1.038 IBU

Why the ~ (Approx) well when I tell you the grain bill was

10 x 1L Jugs of Pale malt (Warmister Maris Otter)
700ml Warminster Crystal Malt
67g Chocolate malt
Some flaked stuff

Hops I havent decided yet, but I'll investigate the freezer tomorrow.

I can't be arsed sorting out the full kit for brewing tomorrow, so I'm going really lo tech, It will be a no sparge brew, so I will dilute off whatever wort is taken to from the boiler to hit my desired OG in the Fermenter.

So Piccies So far

Grain Bill

First use of my Barley crusher

Crystal Malt going through

Grist about to go into the airing cupboard for retorrification

[Alton_Bee]

Quick question for you...

If you can weigh out your speciality grains - why cant you weigh out your pale malt ???

Personally I weigh my base grains out in kilo batches as needed...

[jonnyv]

retorrification

Retorrification?

[jonnyv]

I'll learn to use Google next time... But for anyone else that wanted to know...

Retorrification - Heating of the grist prior to mashing in in order to lessen the loss of heat in the mash liquor.

[Aleman]

Quick question for you...

If you can weigh out your speciality grains - why cant you weigh out your pale malt ???

Well I keep all my malt in the loft, and hauling 25Kg sacks of malt up and down the ladder is a PITA. Its easy to grab the bags of specialty malt and throw them into the FV on top of the base malt and weigh them out when I get downstairs. With the jug I was using 1L of malt is about 500g so 10 jugs ~5Kg . . . Remember that in the old days when malt was measured in quarters and bushels they are actually volume measurements not measurements of weight

Well up at 6:30, and filled the boiler - Using Jugs, none of this pipe malarky 19L brought up to strike heat in short order . . . I'm surprised at just how effective the old electric boiler really is, as it got the temperature up before I was ready to mash in.

Still measured the alkalinity of the brewing liquor and found that as usual it was 24 mg/l, so certainly some mineral addition required . . . decided on adding 8g of gypsum to the tun . . . If I find the Calcium chloride I'll throw a gram or so of that into the boil

The Mash


Mash temp

Slightly below where I wanted it, (65C) but close enough . . . . Like my digital elbow?

Just under an hour left of the mash to go, So I had better go and sort out the hops, and work out how to fit a strainer to the old boiler :hmm:

[Buzz]

Jeez, I'm still half asleep. Good work Aleman

Never seen a no sparge before. Be interested to see how it comes out.

[booldawg]

Hope alls going well today. What else is there to do on a wet Sunday?

[Aleman]

One benefit of going down the lo tech approach is that there are so fewer things that can go wrong. And a big benefit of only brewing 20L is that I can throw all the vessels about. No sparge means I have no need for a HLT of three tiers or pumps . . . I'm just hoping my fettled hop filter works for this kettle . . . . . It always has in the past



Which required some thinking about as I only had one of the Scrubbies that I used to place around the pickup tubes. So I cut a bit off it and shoved it up inside one of the arms. Then placed the rest around the pickup tube as a doughnut Sorted

and run off the 'First Wort', its sitting at around 80C as I am topping it up to my desired pre boil volume . . .


All the hops have been weighed out

From Bottom to top

First Wort Hops (Mystery Ones)
10g Challenger (8%) 90 Minutes
15g Goldings (4.5%) Steep
15g Goldings (4.5%) Dry Hop

First wort hops added


I ran off 14.5L of wort at 18 Brix (1.0711) which if I dilute with 13.25L of water will give me my preboil gravity of 1.037 which I then boil down to get my Desired OG of 1.043 once all losses are taken into account.

My estimate of 50% mash efficiency looks as though it was almost spot on as I was reckoning on getting 13.5L out of the mash tun.

Time to get it boiling

[Jim]

Looking good, Aleman.

Nice choice of shoes, by the way.

[steve_flack]

Nice shoes in the second pic down Tony...anything you haven't told us?

[Andy]

I did a double take on the shoes also "Toni" (at the weekends only?)

[Aleman]

Guy's, One really has to make an effort when one is brewing

Mad a mess up with the dilution calculator, I actually need 28L of wort at 1.037 . . . So looks as though my 50% estimate was well off means I will end up with more wort than planned . . . shame

[Bru4u]

Brilliant, keep it up with the photos, the colour suits your skin tone BTW

[MartialAnt]

and run off the 'First Wort', its sitting at around 80C as I am topping it up to my desired pre boil volume . . .

Now i know why you brew so early in the morning. Your a secret tranny. You like to prance around in your back garden in pink shoes & pedal pushers berfore the neighbours get up.

Each to there own

[Aleman]

What do you expect in Blackpool