Henry the Eighth Ale -- with pics

[Hogarth]

There was a play on the radio about Henry VIII a bit earlier, which seemed a good name for this evening's brew. Though a stout would have been more appropriate, thinking about it.

Anyway...

23litres
Target OG: 1050

4.71kg Maris Otter
234g Crystal Malt
454g Golden Syrup

90 minute hops:
29g EKG 4% - 12 IBU
15g Challenger 6.5% - 10 IBU
16g Styrian 4.7% - 8 IBU

10 minute hops:
30g Styrians 4.6% - 5 IBU

Steep at 80°C
More Styrians



Filling the HLT:




Power on:


Filling the mash tun:




A new gadget: a floating kettle element to keep the strike water in the mash tun at an exact temperature while I'm faffing around with the grain. It's in the prototype stage and not very Health and Safety yet:




But it works quite well -- keeping the water at the right temp and also preheating the mash tun. It's controlled via a PID, with the probe dangled in the mash tun:


The additions. Some posh sea salt from my hols in France last summer...


Grains


I used Andy's strike water calculator for the first time. I admit I was sceptical ... but when I asked it to give me a mash temp of 67°C I got this ... not bad at all!


Lids on:




PH seems about right:


90 minutes later ... it was one of those strange mashes that actually gets hotter.

Recirculating:




Running off:


The boil begins as soon as the first batch is in ... taking care to keep the plastic pipe off the element.




More to come...

[arturobandini]

Love the floating Kettle Hogarth. Your setup is so mad it's brilliant.

[SiHoltye]

Floating element in a kwik clip box For the love of god RCD that Otherwise looks nice, wish I was that neat and tidy, though do have the go ahead for brew yard consolidation to take place (new roof basically)

[Hogarth]

Thanks chaps. Yeah, my brewery is RCD'd to the hilt -- for obvious reasons.

The sanitation routine ... I quite like this misty photo, though it's not exactly informative. It's me tipping a bottle of Iodophor solution into a funnel, which goes through the CFC ...


... then out the other end (obviously) and into the fermenter:


Getting the wort down to 80°C for the steeping hops:


Then the run-off. I bought this long pt100 probe on ebay for a song and it's terrific ... does everything:


OG spot-on at 1050, not that you can tell from this crappy photo:


It's amazing what a difference running the wort over a probe makes in terms of how much foam you get. Does this also mean it's aerated? Anyway, since I'm using Safeale04 this is as much as it's getting:


Into the cabinet at 21°C. PID set for 19°C.


And next weekend, if all goes well, I'll bottle it up. Cheers!

[Bornagain]

Hi Hogarth - what a great set up. May I just ask what 'source' do you use as the heating element in your fermenting cupboard?!

[Hogarth]

Thanks Bornagain. The heat source is nothing very hi-tech ... a couple of 40w candle bulbs inside a couple of Red Bull tins. These days I control them with a PID and SSR with a probe directly in the wort, rather than this room thermometer.

[adm]

Nice work Hogarth. That recipe sounds like it will be a cracker.

I particularly like the socket that says "This does nothing"!

[Hogarth]

I particularly like the socket that says "This does nothing"!

Only until I can think of another gadget

[Dennis King]

great photos

[yashicamat]

I particularly like the socket that says "This does nothing"!

Yeah, I found that amusing too!

[subsub]

Kooky setup there dude, glad to see you had a good brew day. I've been watching Mind Of A Tyrant and would probably go for a 1080+ brew myself

[WishboneBrewery]

Your Floating Kettle looks like some sort of jelly Fish!!