Home Brew Forum

Hi all,

Based on this recipe with the grain bill boosted slightly for my 70% efficiency, some torrified wheat added and hop schedule adjusted to what I had in the freezer.

Used pH strips to measure the mash pH for the first time - came out at (I think) 5.2

Mashed at 66C and used US-05 yeast.

Went well - I got 23L at 1047. I do need to get a bigger boiler though - 70L nordic optical perhaps.

Full writeup with photos is now up on my site.

Cheers

Great pictures! I've never seen aerating like that!

Looks like it went pretty well
If I'm dry sprinkling my yeast I tend to sprinkle, leave for 15mins to soak and start sinking then aerate well.

Looks good, let us know how it tastes/turns out.

I presume you dont stir when cooling? Ive yet to use my IC!

escapizm wrote:Looks good, let us know how it tastes/turns out.

I presume you dont stir when cooling? Ive yet to use my IC!

I don't stir when cooling but I do lift the IC and move it around a bit to try to cool the centre and top half of the wort. I could do with a secondary smaller coil in the middle but I seem to get decent enough results with the single coil.

I'm drinking my Chinook Ale now. Very tasty, the hoppiness is rather moreish! Can't wait for my Centennial Ale to be ready . . . even more aroma hops in that one!

By the way, noticed in your write up that you mention a false bottom as a way of increasing efficiency. I was using a H&G coolbox and was achieving 83% efficiency regularly. I always fly sparged (although not with any fancy sprinklers, I simply had a pipe from the HLT into the top of the grain bed, sat inside some perforated foil to act as a diffuser so the liquor didn't channel through the grain) and sparged fairly slowly, about 0.8L a minute. Switching to my false bottom, my efficiency plunged to about 65%! But this was because the run off speed was so much quicker, so I backed it off to about 0.8L a minute again and now can hit 85%.

Do you think that with Fly sparging its less likely to get a sticking mash? (I'm just thinking less stirring than when Batch sparging)

yashicamat wrote:By the way, noticed in your write up that you mention a false bottom as a way of increasing efficiency. I was using a H&G coolbox and was achieving 83% efficiency regularly. I always fly sparged (although not with any fancy sprinklers, I simply had a pipe from the HLT into the top of the grain bed, sat inside some perforated foil to act as a diffuser so the liquor didn't channel through the grain) and sparged fairly slowly, about 0.8L a minute. Switching to my false bottom, my efficiency plunged to about 65%! But this was because the run off speed was so much quicker, so I backed it off to about 0.8L a minute again and now can hit 85%.

I normally run off pretty quick - getting two batches of 15L in around 5 minutes each - so 3 litres a minute if not more. The tubing I use is 3/8th inch I think so if the syphon effect kicks in it will probably do 6-8 litres a minute. Could this fast run off (even 3 litres a minute) be causing my crap efficiency ? I've always thought you just run off as fast as you can when batch sparging.