Home Brew Forum

Well all i have finally completed my first AG brew day recipe i ended up with 3.5k OPTIC, 130g dark malt (no idea what supplied by micro brewery as .34) 75g Torrified Wheat 90min mash which gave me just over 20Lt (only got a small boiler so 16Lt run) no probs there Boiled with 32g Brambling cross 90 mins and 16g Brambling Cross last 15mins.

All good to this stage bit of messing around tweaking stuff etc cooled with wort chiller ok left it 30m then started to run, well no not actually this is where the problem started. I opened the tap on the boiler NOTHIN ! big panic, not having time to post i thought i would blow up a short tube i attached to the tap Bingo off it went collected just over 16Lt and pitched with Nottingham all wrapped up nice and cuddly under the stairs now and has started to bubble.
Perhaps someone can shed light onto why no run from boiler initially and what the potential problems of blowing into it will cause ?

A big thank you for the recipe deviser and step by step guide supplied you know who you are from now on i shall simply call you "The teacher" (sent you a PM by the way sat in the out box dont know why)

Its the start of a really enjoyable slippery slope

Well done on your first AG

pdtnc wrote:Its the start of a really enjoyable slippery slope

Never a truer word spoken (written)

Nice work that man!

The lack of runoff from the boiler is probably due to not having a hop filter???? The hops and trub from the boil will settle at the bottom of the boiler and can clog up the output tap. Do a search on "hop strainer", "hop stopper" or similar for future brews.

As for blowing up the pipe......the technical answer is that you've probably infected the beer with bacteria from your mouth. However, in reality you will probably be fine - especially as it has started bubbling already which indicates the yeast is off and running. The yeast is a pretty powerful organism and will compete aggressively with most bacteria - and in most cases it will win. Also, it's busy converting sugars to alcohol - which will kill most bacteria and microorganisms anyway. So the short answer is it will probably be fine!

Wait and see.....but your chances are very good indeed that it isn't infected.

Well done

The non start to the run off was probably just hops settle on and around your filter. As for blowing through the tap ...all those germs ...dirty breath .....bacteria ..................well I have done it in the past NO problems unless you are unlucky

My shadow beat me to it

Good job to you And I hope that this is just the first of many more good brews for you

Cheers

I had a hop filter fitted 15MM copper shaped into rectangle with three rows of 3mm holes on the underside sooo i dont really know why it didnt run all the holes couldnt be blocked could they ??? I will have to wait and see about the infection, fingers crossed

Would using a bicycle pump be a better idea - not perfect (unless sanitised) but better than blowing?

crh75 wrote:Would using a bicycle pump be a better idea - not perfect (unless sanitised) but better than blowing?

Probably but avoiding the problem in the first place would be a far better option. Once the problem is known it can be fixed for the next attempt.

Yep the idea is to find out what the problem was, to that end i will be boiling a smallish amount of water and a few hops to try and visibly see the cause.