Home Brew Forum

Hi Everyone,

Well planned to do my first all grain brew last sunday, here's how it went.

Aiming for a 19 liter brew so popped 8.5 liters in the boiler for the mash while I weighed out the grain and hops.

Boiler on..


Ingredients (picked these up on Saturday from Andy at ColchesterHomeBrew, thanks for putting them aside for me)

Pale Malt
White Sugar
Crystal Malt
Black Malt
Target Hops (Start of boil)
Styrian Hops (post-boil)
(Delia would be proud )

All OK so far, Water at 80c (well was too hot and had to let it cool) and added to mash tun, left for a
couple of minutes to warm, then grain added.

Stirred mash temp now 66c, so lid on, covered with a towel and left for 90 mins.

Put remaining 18.2 liters into boiler and bring it up to 80c (over shot again slightly so had to let it cool a bit)
now time to start the sparging, here's how it looked half way through

Sparged till it dropped below 1008 (ended up with about 25 liters), added hop strainer to boiler, poured wort in
and started the boil, here's a pic of the scum just before it fell back in to the rolling boil

and here it is boiling away with the Targer hops now added

and now one about 75 mins later when I added the protofloc

boiled for the last 15mins, let it cool to 80c then stirred in the Styrian hops and left it for
10mins. Connected up the counter flow chiller, ran wort though chiller to fv (and a sieve to catch anything
that escaped the hop strainer and for aeration) came out a bit warm to start with (30c) but then fiddled with water
and wort flow rates and got it down to 18c when made up for the initial 30c. ended up with a fv containing just
under 19 liters of wort at 21, heres a pic of some in the trials jar with a gravity of 1044 (had aimed for 1046)
so a tad low but will do for first go.

Could have got more out but was worried about getting too much trud into fv.
Sprinkled on a packet of Safale-04, and it's now bubbling away to itself.

Well just got to wait a few weeks now to see if I've succeeded... fingers crossed.
End time was about 7pm, hmmm longer than I thought but was good.

Good stuff!

Looks like it all went quite smoothly.

Bring on the addiction!! (to brewing, not alcohol)

Good write-up and great pictures, looks like it all went to plan

Congratulations - looks like you had a nice, smooth brewday!

I bet you'll like the beer once it's ready.

Thanks guys,
did go better than expected, just need to watch boiler closer next time and the CFC was a tad leaky where the cold water came in so needs a few tweeks.

Planning next one already

Stephen - will appoint you as head of quality control when it's ready.

I love the cask version of this. I was shocked when I read the recipes in GWs and DL book and it had no dry hops. Also I assumed it had a load of late fuggles too.

Shows how much I know.... Let us know how close it is to the original please! Cheers. Could even swap a bottle or two, just down the road in Wivenhoe.

Well done on your 1st ag brew, looks like you have cracked it straight away.

Wish my early brewdays went as smoothly as that! Can't even bear to think of the horrors I used to endure....

simple one - no extra fuggles just the ones mentioned, but did taste very hopie. I guess only time will tell am planning to get a bottle of real Directors and do a taste test when it's ready. Will let you know how it goes

Did seem to go quite well (but only time will tell for sure), had read load of postes before hand on here to get it staight in my head.
Am putting this first one down to beginers luck, am guessing the next one will be a total mare....but hopefully not

Hi Grunt

As has already been, it looks as though it all went swimmingly.

I'd obviously put it down to the quality ingredients and equipment you used.... (Unless it goes hideously wrong and then it was nothing to do with me and was obviously poor technique rather than indifferent ingredients !!)

Can't wait for the bottle you promised me - but perhaps I should have mentioned that Directors is my ALL TIME favourite beer, so you've got a LOT to live up to...

Andy

Looks like you ticked all the boxes there fella, enjoy your first AG brew, you won't look back