I had planned to make a mash tun and HLT myself but pressure of work and decorating duties meant I had to buy or I'd never get round to it. I decided buy from H&G.
The delivery arrives:
I wanted to brew something I never would have been able to with extract and also something that my special lady friend might like:
Cream Ale
25Litres
4500g Lower Colour Maris Otter
500g Flaked Rice
and some hops that were lurking in the freezer:
33g Challenger 6.5% AA 60mins
23g Fuggle 4.1% AA 5mins
Yeast : WLP028
Mashed as per H&G's instructions.
WLP028 starter on home made stir-plate:
The grain bill:
I got off to a late start due to much faffing about over the water treatment - the alkalinity and calcium are very low so all that was required was to add calcium. Heating the water was very quick using both elements especially as I'd filled the HLT with water from the combi-boiler (something I'd never thought of doing until reading here that it is ok). I had trouble hitting the mash temperature and had to adjust with boiling water even though I'd pre-heated the mash tun. I'll need to fix that for the next brew.
pH seemed to be about 5.4, although I'm not convinced as that's right on the boundary of two sets of narrow range papers.
Sparging commences:
I can't describe how satisfying it was doughing-in, or the sense of amazement at how sweet the first runnings were; this stuff actually works! I think I'm hooked. I collected my 27 litres and measured the OG - 1050. I had been aiming for 1040 with an estimated efficiency of 75%, so either I've messed up somewhere or I got 93%. All my beer tends to be about 1050 anyway. I seem to have aversion to going lower.
The boil nears the end, the chiller is in:
Chiller on, time to go prepare the FV:
Filling the FV - my lightest coloured wort ever.
It was a long but thoroughly enjoyable day.
My only mistake, or oversight was possibly over sparging. I just sparged until I collected my required volume without testing or tasting. In fact I got so worked up about it after re-reading these forums I managed to convince myself that what I'd tasted earlier as just being a potential case of over-hopping due to there being little malt to balance was in fact tannin astringency; I had to get out of bed and have another taste. It tastes fine, so I think I got away with it.
One I'd made earlier:
Cheers!
