AG#1 - Ridley's IPA

[Texy]

Hi,
after many years of wine making (although not for a while now ), this is my first forway into any type of beer making. I thought I,d dive
straight in with AG, so no kit making experience for me, but with the amount of help available, what could possibly go wrong
After contemplating various options and pricing everything up, I decided on building the boiler/HLT, but bought a ready made mash tun.
The day after I placed the order for the mash tun, it turns out that there was a very good deal for a 32L thermos coolbox from Amazon that
could of prompted me to build the MT as well, but ah well.
I got the house to my self, at least until gone 12, so I got up early and made a start about 8AM. I had'nt done any pre-weighing etc as this was to
take place in the back garden and the weather was a factor. As it turned out, we had a pretty good day, a bit cold to start with (5'C), but at
least it was dry all day.

Grain weighed out.


Boiler and Mash Tun in garden


Grain in the MT


Boiler on!


The Mash


Hops weighed out whilst MT does its thing for 90 minutes.


Sparging


Draining the MT


Spent grains in MT


Nice rolling boil !


After adding the IC


Yeast starter


Aeriating the wort into the FV


OG at 1032 at 26'C - should be 1034, so not bad!

Even with a checklist in front of me, I managed to forget a few things, but nothing major.
Some things took longer than I expected - like draining the first sparge, it took over an hour.
The second sparge (at a higher temperature) took a lot less time thankfully. Also it only took the
IC ~18mins to cool from boil to 29'C, which was faster than I expected.
So all in all a good day (I finished about 3.30), although I,ve yet to taste any beer yet, but it wont be far off as the yeast is
doing its stuff vigorously already.

Cheers,
Texy

[Texy]

...after temperature adjustment, the OG is actually 1034, so spot on!!

Texy

[Dennis King]

How I miss Ridleys, the IPA was my favorite session beer. Is this norms repcipe, if so its a decent pint. Brewed it several times, plan to do it again soon.

[Texy]

Yes it is Norm's aparently. I,ve no idea who Norm is though Chosen because it's meant to be close to Sharps Doombar, my favourite tipple.

Texy

[Dennis King]

Only drank Doombar once and never thought it was like Ridleys.

[L2wis]

great blog of your brew day!

[Bobba]

Looks like you've dived right in with a double back flip! Nice one Texy

[Texy]

Thanks for the kind words guys
Unfortunately the FV has to be in our utility room which is pretty cold - it is currently 12'c at 5.30 in the afternoon. I was/am planning on using an aquarium heater, but thats on a very slow boat from China - I was hoping it would be here by now. Apart from the longer fermentation period (if it doesn't get stuck), will there be any side effects to the brew? I,m using Safeale04 yeast, which was rehydrate using some wort pre-boil and was very active in its little bottle prior to adding to the FV. As you can see, nice dark yeast here :


Texy

[Bobba]

Looks good at the moment. If I'm write from what you wrote, you pitched the yeast at quite a warm temperature, so the fermenting beer will take quite a while to drop. The yeast will also give out heat over the first few days as they do their stuff. However, things could go quite pair-shaped if it drops to 12C too quick, as the yeast will give up and you'll have a stalled fermentation. Keep an eye on the temperature of the beer (it's the beer that matters, not the room temp), and maybe move it to somewhere warmer once the explosion of activity dies down after a couple of days

[Texy]

Sorry for the late follow up to this brew.
In the end I got a cheap ebay aquarium heater and got the brew temp up to around 20 degrees. After a few days it had fermented out and the FG was bang on the expected nose - 1006
I left it in the original FV until the weekend before last, probably a bit longer than most, but this was due to not having a spare FV at the time to rack it.
However I then got another FV for my birthday So it was racked and left until last weekend to finally prime and bottle. This shot shows the brew without
any conditioning :


It already tastes very good, and can only get better after conditioning.
Onward to AG#2 - Fullers ESB.

Texy

[L2wis]

looks very good! did you add any irish moss or protofloc? its looking very clear!

[Texy]

I only added half protofloc tablet during the boil.
The mistake I made was not letting it do it's stuff after cooling. Once it had got down to 30 degrees I drained the wort straight into the primary fv. Once the boiler was emptied there was only hops in the bottom, none of the usual fluffy stuff you see in the photos. However when I racked the primary there was a LOT of sediment left over.
Anyway it tastes good and as you say is quite clear so I'm deeming it a success!

Cheers
Texy

[L2wis]

i'm yet to master the use of protofloc too, I brought some for the last brew but didn't dare use it. Both my brews without any in have turned out very tasty but they are very slow to clear and if u put them in the fridge they get that chill haze whatever it's called.

[Texy]

Bottled up !

[L2wis]

fantastic labels!!! they beat my little black and white ones!!!