first AG blonde brewday ...

[leewink]

Heres my first efforts, great day today, the recipe was -

(with a massive thanks to hop and grape, leyland home brew, alex at beercraft and all you guys)

for a 19l batch

1.35 kg maris otter
1.35 kg lager malt
150 g wheat malt
150 g Brupaks CARAPILS MALT (Germ.)

33 g sazz (czech hop) start of boil
25 g Hallertauer Hersbrucker = last 10 mins of boil (german hop)

60 min boil last 15 = whirlfloc, servo, nutrients.

yeast - WLP008















































cheers all, lee

[Garth]

nice pics and good work Lee, this is where it becomes addictive......

[leewink]

yep, thats why i ordered 2 fermenters, blonde into the second one next week, with a wash out, IPA will soon take its place in the primary.

I have the trial jar in front of me now, with the sample I made the first gravity read from, looks beautiful and light

[leewink]

.... A little update, 12.30am now, bubbling away in under 6 hours of serving the yeast, start grav. was 1.033, has a temperature (heated) stabled at about 25.5 degrees and looking good

My trial jar has almost settled to see the colour, very lager'y if thats a description, just as i hoped and planned for the first brew, well chuffed

[WishboneBrewery]

Good going with the first one It sounds like a tasty one.

[leewink]

Thanks, hoping for 3% or just over on the ABV, she's bubbling every minute so a nice steady ferment, temp has settled today to just under 24, I had envisaged temp swings with ferment, but when i dumped the heater in it i did wonder what id set it on, cos last night it hit over 26

[leewink]

Turned out today that the heater wasnt even on, I have a second one I'm going to use in the secondary, so used that as test in a jug of water, electrim heaters dont have any marks of temp on them, just a twistable adjuster, and the heater in the primary now, was so "un-tuned" it was way under temp and not doing anything.

I found that as I looked at the top of the heater, as per instructions and taking the cord exit as 12 oclock, the cable comes out horizontally as you look at it, I twisted the pointer to just level with the right hand side of the cable, and it heated my jug water to just over 20.3 or so then cut off, then started at about 19.6 or so again to heat, good enough

I pulled the one out of the fermenter carefully, wiped the crud off the top, and re-adjusted this one to the same as the jugs one, spot on.

A little annoyance though, I have the opaque look fermenters with the twin handles and the screw cap, and when you place the heater in correctly, obviously you cant see the light on it, shame the homebrew market cant design an in line light that could trip with power surges (on and off), like on the heater itself, great for a clear fishtank, not much cop to us though

Also, today, the smell of the released co2 from the bubbler is starting to resemble beer now, and not so malty like the start, so i'm happy that its all going to plan so far.

Thanks for reading, happy brewing, lee

[leewink]

Cheers Mr. Beercraft

Seems I may have it sussed now, I remember the marine fish days, every 0.1 degree counted, we're somewhere near now.

Doesn't help that the house is half 1900 and half 1970 odd, the beers in the 1970 odd part, where nowadays we have no clue on ideal temps for homes, the 1900 part stays cool in summer and warm winter, the other is the reverse, and the said "beer room" is used by the family to, so fluctuations are expected

It's all fun,

Lee

(edit) - the dog gets cold without its fleece blanket joking, we have several of 'em, blankets and dogs

[leewink]

This is my trial jar after 4 days, fermentation peaked in two days, and now there is very little movement in the bubbler, swapping to secondary later.

The graduations on the trial jar in red, thats through the beer you can see, they are on the back of it as you look at it, so she's really cleared fast.

Shame I cant get "smelly monitor vision" or scratch and sniff, cos it smells superb already and only after this tiny amount of time.

[leewink]

I sneaked a smidge out of the fermenter earlier, being day 8, and it seems to have lost most of its nasty niffs now, and tastes like a foreign lagery-pilsener if thats a description.

Very slight aftertaste left there, but fading fast, for a flat / unfinished / unbottled beer, it was good, and presumably can only get better fingers x'd.

Brewed an IPA earlier, just over 19ltr and spot on guesstimate, and have been toying over the idea of adding oak chips to the secondary, only 7g of medium mind you, dont want it to oak'y, what do you think ? yay / nay ?

[leewink]

Today i've bottled the blonde, run a hydrometer read for the final G. and got a calculation of 3.7% ABV.

Lovely jubbly