Bobeck Surprise - no pics :(

[Parva]

Well this is my 2nd AG brew and I've absolutely no idea what I'm going to end up with! First brew was a combination of M.O., Progress and Amarillo and turned out nice. Armed with a 25Kg bag of M.O. and various bags of hops this recipe was a total homebrew stab in the dark! 23L was the final target.

5Kg M.O. mashed 90 mins
Batch sparged in two lots, final runnings measured at 1.006, phew, too close!

Hops (60 minute boil)

50Gm Boadicea at boil
25Gm Progress 15 mins remaining
20Gm Bobeck 15 mins remaining
Whirlfloc and IC in 15 mins remaining
10Gm Bobeck 1 min remaining

O.G. measured at 1.050, S-04 added, going like crazy today! Tasted nice (very sweet of course though) and colour was what I expected (golden).

Lesson learned, the H&G boiler strainer needs modification as mentioned in another thread, I shall be fixing this with a 3ml drill bit prior to my next brew, 1 hour to run off into the FV isn't much fun, nor is seeing the clouds of crap I got everytime I had to shake the boiler to make it start running off again.

I'm also going to run this one off to a secondary FV after 4 days after problems clearing my first AG brew in the cornie. My first AG tastes great and is a fantastic brew let down by its cloudiness. I'm a little worried at the chance of risking infection by racking to secondary but I need to try it to see if I can get a much brighter beer this time.

[ChrisG]

Sounds a good one, I cant wait to try all grain for the first time.

[Matt]

By my calcs you got 73% brewhouse efficiency so you done good

What were your AA %ages on your hops? If they were

Boadacia 7.6
Bobek 3.9
Progress 6

I get 59 IBU on your brew.

Matt

[maxashton]

Don't be TOO worried about racking to secondary. Loads of brewers do it without issues. If your sanitation is good, and its under an airlock, it will probably be OK!

What are you using for sanitation? Iodophor? Bleach?

[adm]

Lesson learned, the H&G boiler strainer needs modification as mentioned in another thread, I shall be fixing this with a 3ml drill bit prior to my next brew, 1 hour to run off into the FV isn't much fun, nor is seeing the clouds of crap I got everytime I had to shake the boiler to make it start running off again.

I'm also going to run this one off to a secondary FV after 4 days after problems clearing my first AG brew in the cornie. My first AG tastes great and is a fantastic brew let down by its cloudiness. I'm a little worried at the chance of risking infection by racking to secondary but I need to try it to see if I can get a much brighter beer this time.

The recipe sounds good to me! Should be a nice hoppy golden ale. Yummy.

I feel your pain on the hop strainer issue - although drilling the holes fixed it for me....

I found that if you do get a slow runoff, as long as it isn't totally stuck, just leave it and go do something else - even if it takes an hour! It will get there in the end and the wort will come out clear. I just runoff from my boiler through a pipe into the bung hole in my FV lid so there's little worry about infection as it's all pretty sealed. The pipe is cut to about 1 inch below the lid so I still get a god splash for aeration.

Also - on the secondary issue, you'll probably be fine, as by this time you'll have 5%+ alcohol in the beer to kill off any nasties, plus the remaining yeast is emitting CO2, plus you have the antiseptci quality of the hops.....all in all, it should be a fairly hostile environment for bugs by that time!

[Buzz]

Well done Parva, not used Boadicea before, be interested to see what you think. If Matt has the %'s right, that will be one hoppy brew

[Parva]

According to Beersmith I get a rating of 46.9 IBU's. The hops yielded the following :-

Progress 6%
Boadicea 7.6%
Bobeck 3%

You were pretty close there Matt. Must admit I panicked a bit when I checked the SG of the final runnings and it had hit 1.006 (temperature compensated), would rather stay nearer the 1.010 mark for safety but having tasted the results I'm happy.

Just tested the SG and it's 1.018 already! That S04 is just mad! 48 hours and it's not far off fermented out! Had to have a taste too of course, can't return the sample jar back to the FV, tastes great. I'm amazed that I can just chuck pretty much anything in and come up with stuff like this!

I'm using Videne for sanitization Max, even back in my kit days sanitization was always a big problem I had. I just couldn't be bothered to do it right like I should have and even now I'm bone idle when it comes to scrubbing up but the Videne has made my life so much easier now.

[Matt]

Good stuff Parva, once you've tasted the dark side you never look back

Have to admit I didn't work the IBU's out with a pen and pencil, that was with BeerAlchemy and using Tinseth.

Enjoy your brew

[Parva]

Yeah I know what you mean Matt. The recipe I used wasn't formulated or concocted from any other recipe, it was just a total stab in the dark and from what I'm tasting so far, it's gone well. Next venture will likely involve some Brewers Gold which I've had sitting around since I bought all my gear from H&G. It's all a billion miles away from the 'Geordie' beer kits I used to brew and ten times more satisfying.