Deuchars IPA With Pic's

[andysmok]

Had a good brewday yesterday, I think all went well apart from ending up with about 3 litres short at about 1046 which should of been 1038!! I had a bit of a panic for some reason when i did a gravity reading during the sparge. I have never read the gravity when sparging before and thought i,d try (i wont bother in future). I normally just fly sparge until i get my desired amount of boil liquor. never mind i just added 1 1/2 litres of boiled water at the end, so it still should be a bit stronger than the 3.8% GW predicts!!!

I used GW's recipe so i wont write it in this you'll just have to buy his book.

I measured my PH for the first time and i think it was OK. I did add some gypsum and 1/2 a campden tablet for the first time so i'm hoping i'll get a clearer beer as my first 3 AG's have all been a bit hazy.

My grain


PH just before adding the grain about 7.5ish


PH 10 minutes into mash. About 5.5ish. I think this is OK?


The wife hates me!


The boil


Rain or shine!


Oops 1046!!!


About 12 hours later

[MightyMouth]

Looking good.

[Garth]

looking good there Andy, great pics

glad you got sorted and took the plunge

[andysmok]

Cheers garth, i'd still of been dithering about it all if it wasn't for your help

[The Epworth Brewer]

Yes I must say I was excited when I saw Deuchars in the new edition by GW, let us all know what she's like in a few weeks time. Did you take the temperature into account when you took the gravity during sparging? I only ever take my gravity just before pitching the yeast as you can get a false reading if the wort is too hot. Incidentally, until I got the latest edition of BBRAAH I had never thought of doing a double mash i.e refilling the mash tun after running the original wort off. Tried it with my latest brew Cocker Hoop, 15L for 1 1/2 hrs followed by 15L for 30 mins and then sparge a couple of litres. I ended up with 6 gallons at the correct AG and thought I'd cocked up somewhere. Don't know if that was a fluke but will definately use that method next time. Keep up the good work. Got to go, all this talk of the good stuff and the pics have made me thirsty. Time for a Cocker Hoop me thinks !!!

[andysmok]

No i didn't take temp into account and consequently ball's it up! I knew I should of allowed for the temperature but i assumed it wouldn't make too much difference but i was wrong. As the sample cooled sure enough the hydrometer rose until at about 20 degrees it settled at 1010. I probably should of continued to the required amount but as i said i flapped at the time and when i realised that I'd been silly the mash tun was washed away and the boil was on.

Never mind its a very big learning curve this AG malarkey. I used s04 and it fermented really fast, 2 days and not a bubble in sight. I have took a reading and its 1016 which is far to high. It should be 1009. I am now thinking that if i add some more boiled and cooled water to make it the desired 25 litres i was aiming for would this bring the gravity down or ruin it. I'm also twitching to put another packet of s04 in. Apart from that it smells lovely but is defo darker than it should be.

What do you guys think?

[Garth]

you can definately add water if fermentation hasn't started or it just has, I have done it myself and the beer has turned out great.

I suppose if you add the cool boiled very slowly and carefully it should be ok. It's just you may be adding unwanted oxygen in the water which may have an adverse effect on the beer. I'm not sure how much oxygen would be dissolved in water that has been boiled.

[The Epworth Brewer]

I have had this happen to me on a couple of occasions. I cannot explain why the wort did not ferment down to the specified final gravity, but adding a second sachet of yeast made no differnce. If it were my brew I would give it a few more days rather than tinker about with it if you have not already done so. Although the first couple of days does see a rapid drop in gravity it will probably drop a couple more points if you leave it alone for four or five days. To calculate the abv subtract the final gravity from the original gravity and then divide that figure by 7.46 e.g if the original gravity was 1050 and the final gravity 1014 then 1050 - 1014 = 36. 36 divivided by 7.46 = 4.8. So if you do this and the ABV is acceptable don't worry that it is not exactly as the recipe states. You may just end up with a very slightly sweeter tasting brew. On the flip side I have had some brews that just kept on fermenting down to 1002. I don't know why and after all this time I have given up trying to fathom it out. It's just trial and error.
One thing I do know. Once a grain brewer you will never go back to kits. You will be totally hooked. I still get failures once in a while after 20 yrs of grain brewing but that is usually when one of my experiments does not work. If you stick to the recipes of GW or Dave Line for a while you won't go far wrong. " If at first you don't succeed brew brew and brew again "
But I suspect your first attempt will be good enough to convince you.

[The Epworth Brewer]

Sorry Andysmok, I forgot to add that it is better to have a 4 gallon batch at the right ABV than to top up to 5 gallons and end up with cold tea. By far the best time to decide what to do is just before pitching the yeast when the wort is about 16-20degrees c. If at that time you only have four gallons of wort but the OG is about right then go with it. If you have four gallons and the OG is too high you can gradually introduce a little more water until the OG drops to the correct figure. If you try any recipes from Dave Lines' book 'Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy' stick to the all grain recipes rather than those with malt extract as they are better and don't bother to leave the ale in a secondary fermenter for a week as Dave suggests. I found that doing that you ended up with a rather flat beer with a 'soap sud' head on it. Barrelling the ale at the end of primary fermentation gives a much more lively beer with a better head, albeit with more sediment at the bottom of the keg.

[leigh1919]

nice umbrella - that's the spirit!!

[andysmok]

Cheers Epworth, but working a night shift last night got the better of me and i added a packet of yeast when i got in this morning before bo-bo's (i hadn't read you advise).
The good thing is that the airlock is bubbling again

I wonder how this will effect the final taste of the beer having pitched a second packet of yeast?

This beer i'm now treating a an experiment but i have to say it smells delicious so it can't be going to wrong. I'll give it a few days and then take a reading, hopefully it should get down to around 1010.

I find my umbrella a little heavy when on the golf course but seems good for home-brewing!

[andysmok]

Right then, as this brew has been playing on my mind somewhat i decided to have a quick 4 hour kip after my night shift and do this recipe again, this time batch sparging for the first time.

All went very well. I ended up with 1 litre short which i rectified by adding 1 litre of water at the end which gave me a gravity of 1039, 0001 point over. I'll compensate next time for the 1 litre short as i think my estimated loss was short (2 litres).

Any how all looks good and I'll keep you all posted on the 2 Deuchars IPA brews i have on.

[andysmok]

Its been 2 days since i pitched more yeast into my first attempt of this recipe. The gravity has only dropped from 1016 to 1014 so i probably didn't need any new yeast pitching in this. As it stands although it fell a couple of litres short with a higher gravity it looks like it is going to have the right ABV around 3.9% which the recipe suggests. I am expecting a much sweeter taste to this than normal. I must of got a lot more unfermentables in this for some reason.



Here are a couple of pic's of my second attempt. (The one which went well)!!

I don't normally get a cold break like that. Maybe its the campden or gypsum i added done this. Hopefully it will mean i finally get a clear beer


Running off my wort


Woow, I had to take another of the break, It's like something from Star Trek


Sod the oxygen tank!


1 hour after it has been in the FV. Lots of Poo settling at the bottom. I hope this isn't all that break i thought i filterd out of the wort

[Garth]

I wouldn't worry about all the 'poo' at the bottom Andy.

Mine does the same and some of my beers come out crystal without any finings apart from the Whirlfloc in the boil

It will settle out nicely with the yeast etc, some apparently gets eaten by the yeast so it all good...

[arturobandini]

Looks like a winner andy, how much Basmati did you add in the end?

Just kidding, did you do the huge hop steep at 80c? Something like 80g of Super Styrian, Willamette...depending on what recipe it is.