Home Brew Forum

“No Place Like Home” Bitter

Well this ones been 4 months in the planning, so it SHOULD go like clockwork. I will be using a lot of new kit, I hope this will not be my achilles heel. It will also be the first time I have used salts and CRS.
This one is to self-celebrate my return with a bit of brewing. It should become my stock bitter, if its any good.
This evening was prep. Tomorrow is brewday.

Recipe:
Fermentable Colour lb: oz Grams Ratio
Crystal Malt 130 EBC 0 lbs. 10.5 oz 300 grams 4.2%
Pale Malt 5 EBC 14 lbs. 5.2 oz 6500 grams 90.3%
Wheat Malt 3.5 EBC 0 lbs. 12.3 oz 350 grams 4.9%
Chocolate Malt 1050 EBC 0 lbs. 1.8 oz 50 grams 0.7%

Hop Variety Type Alpha Time lb: oz grams Ratio
East Kent Golding Whole 5.7 % 90 mins 0 lbs. 2.5 oz 70 grams 35%
East Kent Golding Whole 5.7 % 15 mins 0 lbs. 2.1 oz 60 grams 30%
East Kent Golding Whole 5.7 % 10 mins 0 lbs. 1.4 oz 40 grams 20%
East Kent Golding Whole 5.7 % 0 mins 0 lbs. 1.1 oz 30 grams 15%

Final Volume: 36 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.043
Final Gravity: 1.010
Alcohol Content: 4.2% ABV
Total Liquor: 49.8 Litres
Mash Liquor: 18 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 71 %
Bitterness: 46.6 EBU
Colour: 25 EBC

The Plan:
Mash at around 66C, 90mins.
8 Litres by WYeast 1214 Belgian Abbey, 14 Litres fermented by SO4 and 14 Litres fermented by SO5. All Bottled!

Water Treatment: Bitter
CRS: 34.5ml per 50L
Gypsum: 10.03g per 50L (one level tea spoon to the mash, one level teaspoon to the sparge water and one level teaspoon to the boil)
Calcium Chloride: 3.64g per 50L (half a level teaspoon to the mash, half to sparge water)

The Pictures:

The grain, salts and odds n sods all weighed out.


My mash tun. Unproven...


The yeasties. May have slighly botched the 1214. We'll see. I accidently made a wort starter of 1070 rather than 1040. Only found out when I took a hydrometer to some off shoots.


My boiler courtesy of Mmmmbeer. Thanks Mmmmbeer, I'll let you know how it goes. The IC is set up for transfering the water to the water butt, or if I have enough energy, watering the garden.


New Foker burner and new bottle.


The axis of evil.

More tomorrow.

interesting idea with the 3 yeasts...
I'd like to make something full bodied, fruity and Yeasty, so trying a few yeasts out like this is an idea worthy of trying

How big is that coolbox?

Abbey yeast in a bitter, that will be interesting.

Are you dissolving the salts before you add them to your sparge water ?

Dogs fed. Mash slowly starting, the HLT (bruheat boiler finally gave up on life, time for a tescos special, so filling tun by kettle). Going for the grain to water for the first time since retiring the old bruheat bitter method.

The 1214 yeast should be interesting, but my eyes are on the bigger prize of a big tripel in a week or two. Hopefully no infections, although T58 is on standby! Gone for the three yeasts on this one as I want to compare my favourite yeast wth others in a similar brew. Which is my favourite yeast? SO4 of course ! It seems to have fallen out of fashion on JBK recently.


The salts after much thought (probably wrong) are going half in to the mash tun and half in to the boil. Was thinking about the sparge water, but I remember reading about some salts coming out of solution. So was worried about the sparge filtering them out. Advice please!

More photos to follow.

Well mash on 0620. Having changed my process there are a few learning points for me to remember for next time....

1. Trust the mash liquor figures on Beer engine. It would have saved me some time.
2. Trust the high strike temp. It will drop! (I heated up for the last few degrees)
3. Mash tun is 38L probably capable of a 8kg mash. Although if I was to ever batch sparge then it would probably have to go down to 5kg.


67C hopefully it should drop a couple of degrees.


Wrapped up in two of the missuses dressing gowns. Well shes away for the weekend!

Simple one, welcome back to Wivenhoe

A early start i see Have a good brew day and i will be interested to so what you think about the water treatments. Whats your PH reading?

simple one wrote:Well mash on 0620. Having changed my process there are a few learning points for me to remember for next time....
3. Mash tun is 38L probably capable of a 8kg mash. Although if I was to ever batch sparge then it would probably have to go down to 5kg.

Not quite sure of your thinking here? A 38 litre mash tun should cope with an 8kg mash easily. I've squeezed 6kg out of 23 litre mash tun.

garwatts wrote:Not quite sure of your thinking here? A 38 litre mash tun should cope with an 8kg mash easily. I've squeezed 6kg out of 23 litre mash tun.

Yes now I have run the mash tun empty, I think I would get away with a couple more Kg. Maybe 10 at a push. During the foamy addition it looked bigger than it was. I would also question the 38L sticker on the side!

sllimeel wrote:Simple one, welcome back to Wivenhoe

A early start i see Have a good brew day and i will be interested to so what you think about the water treatments. Whats your PH reading?

At least jet lag is good for something! I could hear some one else in Wivenhoe firing up a propane burner, wondered if it was you! pH was bang on 5.2. Its the first time the run off from the boiler has been crystal clear since moving from a soft water area. So thanks for the advice. Infact the efficiency is up to, from my usual 71% to 77%, and that was leaving a good chunk behind in the boiler.... (forgot to attach plastic tube to my tap. Lost about a litre or two.

The only other problem was... propane is hot. I was at 1062 with 27L. I had to dilute, this was meant to be a deliberately weaker beer.

Starting sparge.

I think I will start batch sparging. The reason is.... this a great mash tun, with a good manifold, the malt was a good crush. Which all led to a rapid run off. Without my HLT I was lost. I couldn't boil fast enough without closing the tap. I ditched the tin foil method halfway through and went back to my trusty watering can. Smaller mashes from now on will be batch sparged, it just makes sense.


First wort hops in. With so many hops I wanted the softer option. I also changed my hopping and went 60,60,30,30.



All in all, a nice day. With all the prep it was easy and relaxed. Took 6 hours, could have taken 4/5 with a few changes.

simple one wrote: Wrapped up in two of the missuses dressing gowns. Well shes away for the weekend!

So you'll be wearing her stocking and Suspenders then while brewing?! Hope you waxed your legs and plucked your eye brows before brewing!!!

pdtnc wrote:

simple one wrote: Wrapped up in two of the missuses dressing gowns. Well shes away for the weekend!

So you'll be wearing her stocking and Suspenders then while brewing?! Hope you waxed your legs and plucked your eye brows before brewing!!!

Ofcourse! It helps prevents contamination by hair. And the lippy is purely to help destroy bacteria on the lips. No what else to do whilst shes away? A homebrew and led zep dvd I think.

Best make the most of it eh!!

Tucked up in the bath! I would never get away with this normally!!

Unfortuneatly I diluted high on all my worts. Hopefully they don't ferment down to low! I still can't believe how much difference the water treatment has made to my eff. 77% is a very conservative estimate, as I didn't take in to account the temp when I first measured. I never believed that above 75% was possible!!

The 1214 read about 1.052 for 7L on the hydrometer. But I threw the whole starter in, complete with its 1070 wort...! So the true SG is unknown. But Thanks to Mysterio for his advice on the starter, it smells great and its going like the clappers!

The SO4 was at 1.048 and the SO5 was 1.050 both for 14L.

Can't wait to crack the tripel which is going on top of the 1214. One question though.... My problem was thermal loading, and over evaporation. Is there any problems with a too vigorous boil except having to dilute down?

p.s. Thought I best mention, Mmmbeer who supplied the boiler is sending me a spare sight tube........ Mine looks like a banana. Silly boy+propane+abillity to make burner sound like aircraft after burner=profanity. What a good bloke he is.... thanks mmmbeer!

All three going like a rocket. They all smell typical. The 1214 smells solventy/spicy, SO4 bit bready/fruity and SO5 sharp. I think this is going to be a good one.

Forgot to mention, thanks to Paul at BB for the great yeast prices!

The SO4 cleared nice and quick. 1214 sort of cleared once I crash cooled it. SO5 is still chugging away, cloudy as ever.

SO4 sample.


SO4 and 1214 now bottled. And the 1214 yeast in the tripel! The SO4 sample tastes a bit to standard if you know what I mean. Maybe to boring to be a stock bitter recipe. See how it is once it matures.