Home Brew Forum

The boiler is on and bringing 8 gallons up to 180F. I've scaled down the Briar's Best Bitter recipe to 5 gallons. Photos to follow.

BRIARS BEST

23 litres OG 1.052 ABV 5.1%
MARIS OTTER PALE MALT 4000gms
CRYSTAL MALT 470gms

HOPS Boil time 90 minutes
CHALLENGER 38gms

19gms of challenger added in the last 15 minutes

Safale S-04 salvaged from Sunday's bobek flavoured golden bitter after kegging it.

One hour in, dropped 3 gallons at 180F into the mash tun. Left to warm through for 5 mins and drop to strike temp of 170F (the grain is a bit cold this morning). Mashed in and hit 155F. Happy with that, wrapped it in a blanket and stood it in the sunshine. Time to do some housework. and have a coffee.

3 hours in. Mash and sparge complete. 6.5 gallons sweet wort on the way to a 90 min boil.

5.5 hours in. Late hops, protofloc and immersion cooler in.

6 hours in. 5 gallons into FV, aereate. Let it stand a while, off to the shop, then take hydrometer reading and pitch yeast.

OG = 1052 Very happy with that as it matches the recipe.

Rest of day, wrestle with photobucket and cook dinner. Leg of lamb out of the fridge to relax.

http://s762.photobucket.com/albums/xx26 ... onLad/AG2/

You should be able to view this as a slideshow.

Good stuff Interesting sparging, what are the holes in the sides for?

Just experimenting, my first idea was to suspend the ice cream boxes inside the mash tun, but they wouldn't play ball because they're a touch too small and swing around. I'm looking for a single tray that will sit inside the top, but can't bring myself to drill lots of holes in a perfectly serviceable grill pan