Home Brew Forum

So, today's the day I try my first ever all grain brew. I've a good few kit brews under my belt and a failed infected extract brew but I've been slowly building my all grain kit. A big thanks to all on this forum who recognise their kit that I've copied!!!

I'm hoping this brew will be ready in time for the arrival of our first child, due 8th Jan (hence the name). It's a bit late starting but first kids are always late aren't they? Wife very understanding to let me spend all day brewing

So I decided on a brew of Jim's regular bitter but I can't seem to get hold of crystal malt from my supplier (swiss internet shop) so I went for melanoidin malt instead as I read somewhere this should be similar... we'll see!

The day started late with a lie in, I hope it doesn't go too over time or else there'll be a late night in store!

Not a bad day for a first brew though...



My first set-up was in the garage, but the water tap I'd hoped to use for the liquor and the cooling coil was frozen. Change of plan to the brew-cave!


Fermenter boiler for both the liquor and eventually the wort also. This'll mean an intermediate transfer to the true fermenter (white bucket) between mashing and boiling. I've just noticed the lack of a tap on the fermenter so that's the next job!!


Picnic cooler mash tun with a carefully calculated spacing between the pipes to ensure a good and equal drain. Except I'm going to batch sparge. Oh well, future plans and all....



Ingredients

3500g pale ale malt
250g melanoidin malt

Water untreated swiss alp spring from the tap
strike temp 72deg
mash temp 66deg
90 min mash
approx 9.5l liquor for the mash




The grain weighed out. More volume than I expected hence two bowls!



Strike water ready


Grain doughed in and sitting pretty exactly at 66deg as predicted by Machine_Ale's log sheet. It's been invaluable so far - thankyou sir!!



Now time to fix a swiss plug to my second kettle lead for the boiler, fix a tap to the fermenter and wait for the mash to finish.

Oh, and have lunch.

Welcome to AG brewing,like you I am a newbi to AG and have only done 2 brews to date and found the process is far easier to do than I thought.Only thing is the time my first brew took me about 8 hours to do,got the second one down to about 5 hours.
Just had a sneaky taste of AG#1 Graham Wheelers Timothy Taylor best bitter that has been in the keg for 14 days and I am well pleased,going to give it to new years day and try the first full pint .I am shure that you will be pleased with your brew and will be hooked on AG brewing,good luck and keep us posted on the rest of your brewing day.
FUBAR
P.S the weather here is looking much like it is with you,except everything here just grinds to a complete standstill at the slightest bit of snow.

Well done man, looking good.
I'm on no.8 and still use a very simillar set up to you, HLT and boiler all the same vessel with the FV as an intermediate.
You could well be toasting the baby with this I reckon

Hey welcome to Jims as well

Thanks for the words of support!

The mash finished up at 63.5deg, hope that's not too low.

I didn't manage to check the starch conversion or pH of the mash due to lack of kit - somehting I'll have to get hold of.

First runnings - about 2l - is this a lot? were re-circulated and the lautering continues
First runnings

Lautering - the long copper tube is reduce hot side oxidation, the bugger is I can't see when the wort stops running!


The wort is looking nice and dark which was a relief as the first runnings looked really light.

I'm thinking of a single batch sparge to save a little time. Water already at 80deg so decision time.

So I went with two batch sparges, each of about 9l. I haven't calibrated my vessels so everything's a bit of a guess!

I ended up with 23l of wort at 1.040 gravity. It's boiling away now, first hops are in after 15mins.

Refilling the mash tun with 80deg water for the first sparge - A simple drilled copper pipe will do for a fly sparging device next time, and should save a heap of time. I can't keep doing 2 hr sparges!


The last sparge was at 1.010 so no worries about extracting tannins I hope!


Wort in the boiler with both elements on


Due to the small capacity of my boiler I was worried about boil-over so I put some cold water in the fermenter to cool it down in case of a problem, and also the mash tun (not emptied yet!) underneath to drain some off if needed. In the end a good stir was all it needed to break the foam down before it settled to a nice roilling boil on just on element.





I'm using hop pellets, and they've basically disappeared into the boil. I haven't got a strianer in the boiler so I hope they'll drop out during fermentation.

Is 16deg too cold to ferment an ale? My cave sits at about 16deg and the house at around 22 normally. I'll have to choose where to ferment this brew...

The boil went fine, I lost probalby 3l of wort over the 90 minutes.

I didn't bother with a rest after the boil, I just threw my ccoler in, which much to my great surprise worked first time, no leaks! 25 minutes later and it was down to 22deg.





Testing the gravity yielded 1.045.

I aerated the wort simply by transferring it into the fermenter from a height, splashing it in.



Stirred in the dry yeast (safale-04) and fingers crossed!

All in all a 7 hour brew day, so not too bad for my first time. I can easily save an hour on the sparging if I convert to fly and also don't lauter so slowly.

Two weeks fermentation and I'll keg!

Looks great. Massive well done! Also, those pictures of the snowy landscape are breathtaking. Beautiful part of the world.

If I were you, I'd ferment in the 22c room. Pretty ideal to be honest.

Where in Switzerland are you? I am probably moving to Zug next summer - it will me nice to meet up with some other brewers there.

Nice work there fella! Looks good to me.

good job, welcome to the Dark Side
Cheers
Paul:)

Thanks all, I've left the fermenter in the cold cave for the moment. I'll check it tomorrow to see how it's going.

Alexe, I'm in Sierre, in the Valais region. I haven't met any other homebrewers yet over here but there's a craft brewery in my town. Good beer is a bit hard to come by, and I miss my english pint so I've set out to make my own. Kits have got me so far but paying to get them sent out started to hurt financially!

Switzerland is amazing, at least where we are. The website I order my grain from is http://www.brauundrauchshop.ch/index.php - even not speaking german I can make out how to order.

Good luck with the brew!

I'm in Sierre, in the Valais region

A bit far from Zug...

Switzerland is amazing, at least where we are. The website I order my grain from is http://www.brauundrauchshop.ch/index.php - even not speaking german I can make out how to order.

I also found that website - seems to have a pretty good range of ingredients and kit! I also found this one http://www.sios.ch/ which does stock crystal malt - for AG#2?

Yeah, bit far! Hope you get the chance to come over here,

Thanks for the link - they're a lot more expensive than brauundrauch but will be good for extended choice.

My plan for AG#2 is an exact repeat of this one to test my system for consistency. That is if I like the final product in terms of balace malt/hops etc...

My biggest variable at the moment is fermentation control I think. This batch is showing signs of life eventually this afternoon. It's at 17deg now. My last two kits were brewed in summer and I think they got a bit warm during ferment, 23deg or so, which introduced a "homebrew" flavour to the finished product which I want to avoid.

It'll all come out in the tasting. I'm impatient to keg and taste this one but will leave it two weeks before touching it.

The two weeks waiting for the beer to mature sufficiently are always the hardest...

well done matey! Nice work