Home Brew Forum

This is a clone of Three Floyd's Gumball Head:
BeerSmith Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Spongleshead
Brewer: Skunkworks
Asst Brewer:
Style: American IPA
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 22.71 L
Boil Size: 27.04 L
Estimated OG: 1.055 SG
Estimated Color: 11.2 EBC
Estimated IBU: 24.6 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
3.00 kg Wheat Malt, Bel (3.9 EBC) Grain 52.72 %
2.60 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 45.69 %
0.09 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (118.2 EBC) Grain 1.59 %
15.00 gm Amarillo Gold [9.40 %] (60 min) Hops 14.5 IBU
30.00 gm Amarillo Gold [9.40 %] (Dry Hop 14 days) Hops -
15.00 gm Amarillo Gold [9.40 %] (15 min) Hops 7.2 IBU
15.00 gm Amarillo Gold [9.40 %] (5 min) Hops 2.9 IBU
15.00 gm Amarillo Gold [9.40 %] (0 min) (Aroma HopHops -
1 Pkgs California Ale V (White Labs #WLP051) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Full Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 5.69 kg
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Full Body, Batch Sparge
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Mash In Add 14.85 L of water at 73.8 C 67.2 C

Made a few modifications to my brew gear for this one.
1. The notches cut on the side of my platic brew spoon to guage depth has been replaced with a stainless steel depth guage that hangs on the side of my lidl boiler.
2. The Hot water tank jacket has been replaced with foil wrapped bubble wrap.

The materials for these mods were supplied by Rich from Wines@home.co.uk Cracking ideas.

Anyway, on with the brew. Day started off well as I slept in, but since I forgot about the clocks going back, it turned out I was early to start. MAde the modifications mentioned above (calibrated the depth stick, cut foil to fit).
I think the colder weather has affected my strike water requirement. I'll need to check how beersmith handles that. Anyway, I missed my mash temp by 0.5°C. Oh well. I'll see how it turns out.

The original Setup


The New Setup


As you can see it looks a lot tidier. I'm not convinced that the blanket draped over the top of the coolbox did anything so it has also been removed.
The little orange block on the lid is my thermometer. For now it is a meat thermometer from ARgos, but I hope to replace this with a lince long Type J-thermocouple and a PID controller at some point in the future.
Note theimprovsed flap cut in the side for the temperatre dial.

EDIT: The red thing on top of the coolbox lid is a bung. It's there because in order to inmprove the insulation of the lid (which was previously just a void space), I modified it by:
1. Cutting a hole in the top part (After takin it apart!)
2. Glued it back together
3. Filled the void space with vermiculite insulation
4. Shook to distribute.

The bung is NOT glued in place so that if the insulation gets compressed and needs topped up I can easily do so.

The same process was used for the coolbox itself. The light plastic disk at the front shows where it was filled. The nut that holds the tap on also hold the plastic disk on.

Modifications seemed to have helped a lot. Managed to hit my target SG and nothing fell off or got stuck. Awesome.

Good going, Hope its a good one

Cheers for the mention, and for all your help yesterday

I'll take pics of my next brew..

GumballHead is a great beer. Hope it turned out well.

wouldnt mind hearing how it turns out, my stock of gumballhead is almost gone, a clone recipe could be a good idea!