First AG Brewday Tim Taylor Landlord

[jdt199]

OK guys having built my DIY AG brewery viewtopic.php?f=6&t=17728 I have all my ingredients ready and tomorrow is the big day. Ill have to get up early.

My first AG will be a TTL clone. Any thoughts on the recepie would be much appreciated. Also thoughts on whether to caramalise first runnings bearing in mind its my first AG. Also what temp should the water be to batch sparge and how long do I leave the water on the grains for each batch sparge?

Brewing Method: All Grain
Yeast: SafeAle SO4
Batch Size: 23 litres
Original Gravity: 1043
Final Gravity: 1011
Alcohol Content: 4.2 %

4,700 golden promise pale malt

Hop Bill:

styrian goldings hops 42gm
fuggles hops 35 gm both at start of boil
last 15 mins
goldings hops 15gm
irish moss 10 gm

Mash Schedule:

90 mins at 66c

[mctoon]

Hi, good luck have fun, brewing a flying herbert as we speak, bit new to this myself, only the 5th brew, i batch at 80C, for 10 mins then recycle the wort till its clear ish

Cheers Mal

[Alcopup]

Given the time and effort you put into your setup post I think you deserve the best brewday ever!

Hope it all goes well

Alco

[delboy]

All the best with the brewday

[Hogarth]

For my first batch I add water at ~85°C, and ~80°C for the second batch. This stage is not so temperature critical, though. I just add the water, stir it around, give it a couple of minutes to settle, then open the tap ... slowly! Recirculate until I get bored (three jugfuls, usually), and run off into the boiler.

Sorry, I realise you're probably halfway through your brew already, so this is a bit irrelevant now. But caramelizing is easy, just put a litre of first runnings in a saucepan and put it on full-heat for twenty minutes or so.

Have fun!

[jdt199]

Cheers for the posts guys. I have the boil on now, I started late as I realised I had no way of measuring the liquor in the boiler which I am also suing as my hlt, so I had to add some measurements with a pen. It seems to be going OK so far. The grain filter seems to be working well (or the pipes have come loose from thier joints during the mash) as the run off was very quick indeed, almost too quick as the wort was quite cloudy. How quick should it be? Also I only collected 30L instead of 31 so something has gone wrong with my batch calculations somewhere (probably my measuring lines I added aren’t that accurate), still it seems to be going OK. I'll keep you posted and add pics later.

[Alcopup]

"the wort was quite cloudy" dont worry - this got me also - clear just means grain free - I batch sparge and mine is normally quite cloudy and I just return the first runnings until I stop getting grain bits in the wort

Alco

[jdt199]

Well Its all done without too many problems. After collecting 1l less from the batch sparge I atually managed 2L over after the boil but the OG was spot on so something must be up with my calculations. The biggest issue I have, but its too late now, is a forgot to add the irish moss. Is this likely to case massive propblems after fermentation? The cooled wort seemed pretty clear but its hard to tell.

[jdt199]

OK here are the pics.

Ingredients


Boilers first outing heating the strike water.


Doughing in


First Runnings, mash temp only lost 1° in 90 mins!


Caramelising the first Runnings


Rolling Boil achieved!. The new boiler is working well.


First Hop additions


CFC cooler in action. It actually worked really well, nearly too well. When the wort first came throught it was cooled to 10deg! I had to ajust the water flow to keep it at around 20deg.



At this point I realised I have forgot to add the irish moss! Probably because I was decided whether to veer from the recepie and add 25g of Styrains at the end to steep for 20 mins. I did in the end but forgot the irish moss. Am I going to have issues with cloudy beer now? What will be the concequenses?

OG SPOT ON!



Pitching



Anyway apart from the irish moss mistake It all went well. The equptment I made was perfect and I had no problems with it (except perhaps the boiler markings I added may be slightly wrong). Any thoughts on what problems the lack of the Irish moss addition may cause me. Will the beer clear after fermentation?

[Horden Hillbilly]

Don't worry about missing the irish moss out. The worst it will do is to leave a slight haze at low serving temperatures. As you achieved a good rolling boil & rapid cooling you will have had an excellent hot & cold break. Also, it will have no effect on the flavour of the brew at all.

Well done on your 1st ag brew as well, nice one!

[WishboneBrewery]

cool...
Hope the TT Landlord clone tastes the part

[jdt199]

Cheers for the reassurance guys. I was getting worried about the irish moss for a while. Just checked on the fermentor and it seems to be going well with a large foamy head formed (which popped the lid on the fermentor). It smells so good. Very hoppy. I guess it was that last minute decision to add loads of styrains to steep at the end.

[jdt199]

OK it been fermenting for 5 days and the gravity reading was 1.13 so it should be nearly done. Its still really cloudy though. I'm regretting forgetting the irish moss. I have put it in a secondary fementor for a couple of days then I will move it to the cold kitchen and leave it a few days more before kegging to try and clear a bit more. Does anyone think its likely to clear?

[yashicamat]

That cloudiness is the yeast still in suspension. I'd personally give it 10 days in total in the FV, then rack it. It will have cleared up slightly by then I would have thought.
My Aurora Golden Ale was brewed 7 days ago and is as cloudy as yours but if I had used Nottingham or SO4 then it would be looking quite clear by comparison. Not to worry, 2 weeks minimum conditioning should see that drop bright.

[The Mighty Badger]

I reckon you'll be fine. I was really bothered that my first AG (mid Nov last year) wasn't clearing or going to clear. I didn't add any finings to the copper. It had ten days in the primary; still cloudy. The it had 3 weeks in a secondary container in our spare fridge at 8 degrees; still cloudy. It tasted OK so I decided to give it more time. The week before Christmas I racked it (still cloudy) into a Corney with a sachet of hydrated gelatin (as picked up on JBK); on Christmas Eve we tried it; first two pints still cloudy but then it was as clear as anything. Interesting when the keg got moved outside for a couple of days (very cold) it became hazey again, but a day back in the pantry (around 16 degrees) it cleared again.

What I learned - it will clear; it just may need some patience, belief and perhaps a bit of rendered cow!