Growling Dog Brewery - First Brew - piccies

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GrowlingDogBeer
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Growling Dog Brewery - First Brew - piccies

Post by GrowlingDogBeer » Sun Apr 10, 2011 4:11 pm

So, after lots of effort in the garage the Brewery is finally ready.

See the link in my signature incase you missed it.

Time for a brew

I'm aiming for 46 Litres, which I will ferment in 2 seperate fermenters, one with S-04 and one with US-05

Captains Log Ale

Original Gravity (OG): 1.051 (°P): 12.6
Final Gravity (FG): 1.013 (°P): 3.3
Colour (SRM): 5.8 (EBC): 11.4
Bitterness (IBU): 43.5 (Average)

91.84% Golden Promise Malt
5.1% Caramalt
3.06% Wheat Malt

1.1 g/L Amarillo (9.6% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)
0.7 g/L Amarillo (10.7% Alpha) @ 30 Minutes (Boil)
0.5 g/L Amarillo (10.7% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)
0.6 g/L Cascade (7.8% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)
0.7 g/L Amarillo (10.7% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Aroma)


Single step Infusion at 66°C for 60 Minutes. Boil for 60 Minutes

I haven't really tested how much water I will need so I am starting with 70 litres total

Treated with 58ml CRS, 2 tsp Gypsum in the Mash, and 2tsp in the boil, along with 2tsp Epsom Salts in the boil.

I have mashed and sparged now and collected 58 Litres in the boiler. The boil commenced at 15:55.

Piccys will follow later
Last edited by GrowlingDogBeer on Mon Apr 11, 2011 11:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Dennis King
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Re: Growling Dog Brewery - First Brew

Post by Dennis King » Sun Apr 10, 2011 6:52 pm

Intresting to see your water treatment Steve. I use simular amounts for 1/2 as much liquor. Would have thought the water profile would be close as it comes from Hanningfield reservoir.

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Re: Growling Dog Brewery - First Brew

Post by GrowlingDogBeer » Sun Apr 10, 2011 9:19 pm

Dennis King wrote:Intresting to see your water treatment Steve. I use simular amounts for 1/2 as much liquor. Would have thought the water profile would be close as it comes from Hanningfield reservoir.
It is of course possible I have done my maths wrong.

I think I have the alkalinity right, I tested this morning and got 3.65 meg/l, which equates to 182.5. I wanted to get to 30 so added 58 ml to my 70 L of water.

The rest is a bit of guesswork really, I haven't got the full details off the waterboard yet, must get around to it.

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Re: Growling Dog Brewery - First Brew

Post by Kev888 » Sun Apr 10, 2011 10:08 pm

Hope its going/gone well! My first run of the latest setup went okay but was very different with the temperatures, I felt like an amateur again, piddling around for ages getting the right strike temperature.

Best of Luck,

Cheers,
Kev
Kev

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Re: Growling Dog Brewery - First Brew

Post by Dennis King » Sun Apr 10, 2011 10:17 pm

I got a report from Essex and Suffolk water plus the results from an alkalinity test kit and put it all into Grahams calculator and the recomended treatment was, for 23lts, 30mls CRS 1tsp Gypsum into mash + 1tsp Gypsum added to boil. Did you take a PH reading, mine yeasterday was 5.5

Spud395

Re: Growling Dog Brewery - First Brew

Post by Spud395 » Mon Apr 11, 2011 10:19 am

Whats this all about to build up the suspence, come on with the pics..........:)

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Re: Growling Dog Brewery - First Brew

Post by GrowlingDogBeer » Mon Apr 11, 2011 10:37 am

Getting there, just doing the right up now, had a bit of a hectic day yesterday.

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Re: Growling Dog Brewery - First Brew - piccies

Post by GrowlingDogBeer » Mon Apr 11, 2011 11:50 am

I didn't over plan this brew, it was a trial run on the brewery, I had a recipe which I thought could cope with being a bit weaker or stronger than expected so I wasn't over worried as to how much I ended up with.

I started with my HLT full with 70 Litres of treated Liquor.

I tested the alkalinity so knew how much CRS to add, as for the gypsum and Epsom Salts I just added double what a used to add, so 2 tsp everywhere instead of 1.

I had preheated the Mash Tun as I had left some hot water in there from the previous night, so as soon as the HLT was up to temperature 78C I was away.

I had the grains all ready.

Image

I put 25 Litres of Liquor in the Mash Tun and let it settle for a couple of minutes then checked the temp, expecting it to be too high as the Mash Tun was already warm

Image

65C :? Where have I lost all that temperature. My thoughts are that I took the temperature of the HLT from the top, and this was taken from the bottom, is there really that much difference. No worries, first real use of the pump, I pumped it all out of the Mash Tun back to the HLT for further heating.

A little while later, after stirring the HLT we were back up to temperature. I re filled the Mash Tun with 25 Litres of Liquor. Re tested the temp and it was 72C. :)

Mashing in was a challenge, my long plastic spoon can't quite cope with mixing 10Kg of grain, I think I need one of them stainless paddles ;)

I tested the pH of the Mash, somewhere between 5.5 and 5.7.

Time to sit back and sample the fruits of my last brew.

Image

Once the mash was over it was time to recirculate the first runnings. I had completely forgotten about this in the Brewery Build, my rectangular Tin Foil tray from my coolbox was not going to do the trick here.

It was at this point I made a very bad decision #-o

I decided that I could recirculate by pumping the first runnings back through the Sparging Arm, when I mashed in some grains had escaped under the false bottom in my Mash Tun, these came out of the Mash Tun, through the pump, back up into the Sparging Arm and BLOCKED THE HOLES #-o

Not much I could do now really but just recirculate directly onto the grain bed, which inevitably did disturb the top of it.

Whilst starting to run off the Mash Tun it was time to clean out the Sparging Arm, after lots of blowing and sucking and squirting with the hose pipe it was nearly clear.

I encountered something else when sparging, now I have mounted my Sparge arm in the lid of the Mash Tun I can't see the level in the Tun, and if I lift the lid before turning it off, I get a shower.

Sparging took ages, I think that is down to my Sparging Arm, which was built for a smaller brewery, some larger holes are in order.

Anyway, heres the first runnings going into the boiler

Image

And heres the boiler with 58 Litres of collected runnings.

Image

And the gas ring doing it's job nicely

Image

On cleaning the Mash Tun I discovered there was still loads of liquid still in there, I could have probably collected another 4 litres if I had been more patient, and slowed the speed of the pump down a bit.

After boiling away for an hour the cooker hood has done it's job extremely well, no steam in the garage, no condensation drips from the hood, all in all a great success

Image

Afterwards I took the filters off, which are only really a metal mesh, these were dry and so was the inside of the hood.

Boil done, Immersion Chiller turned on and lots of stirring, ideally I think I need to upgrade the chiller as it took a long time to cool this much wort, however I did collect the water back in the HLT to use for washing up.

Image

Once cooled, I took a sample and tested the Gravity 1.052, which is just up from the 1.051 target. It tasted good though.

I ran off the wort into 2 seperate fermenters and collected 41 Litres in total. I was aiming for 46, but never mind, there was nearly 3 litres left in the boiler. I need to rebuild my hop strainer with soldered joints as it stopped running as soon as it reached the top of one of the elbows, which as much as this is only 18mm from the floor of the boiler, that adds up to 2.8 Litres when you have this much surface area.

The collected wort

Image

One of these will be fermented in the fermenting fridge with US-05, the other will go in my office with S-04.

I have a couple of amendments to make to the brewery, but all in all it went well.

Jobs to do.

Rebuild the hop strainer with soldered joints.
Find a mechanism to recirculate the mash without disturbing the grain bed.
Increase the size of the holes in the Sparging Arm so it runs quicker.
Employ an Alien to stir the HLT. :)
Work out how I can fit another fermenting fridge, plus corny storage in the garage :)

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Re: Growling Dog Brewery - First Brew - piccies

Post by Kev888 » Mon Apr 11, 2011 12:58 pm

Not bad at all for a first run, you must be very pleased!!

I too seem to get a fair difference in temperature at the bottom and top - both in the HLT and when measuring strike temperature in the MT. I kind of expected that but didn't realise how much until yesterday PM; I think that could explain why I've found it difficult to get predictable temperatures. I've seen people use those small solar pump jobbies to recirculate the liquor (or their main pump in a pumped system) if the HLT is too high to stir, so I think that may be worth a try.

Thanks for the feedback on the cooker hood too - really helpful

Cheers
Kev
Last edited by Kev888 on Mon Apr 11, 2011 1:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Kev

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Re: Growling Dog Brewery - First Brew - piccies

Post by Spud395 » Mon Apr 11, 2011 1:31 pm

Nice job, allways good to see the pic's.
2 full FV's at the end of the day is not a bad days work!

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Re: Growling Dog Brewery - First Brew - piccies

Post by GrowlingDogBeer » Mon Apr 11, 2011 2:17 pm

Cheers guys,

Yes it was a pretty successful brew day, well at least I made beer. Overall I am very happy with my nice shiny brewery, it has all worked surprisingly well.

There are a couple of minor things to do but I can sort that out as we go along.

Next major step is learning about cornies, 2 bargain basement cornies, some line, a regulator and a kegerator tap are on their way from Norm. I am hoping to put this brew in them, if I get them set up in time.

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Re: Growling Dog Brewery - First Brew - piccies

Post by Dennis King » Mon Apr 11, 2011 5:45 pm

Good photos Steve =D>

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Re: Growling Dog Brewery - First Brew - piccies

Post by WishboneBrewery » Mon Apr 11, 2011 8:54 pm

Nice! I find I have to keep the window open and the garage roller-shutter door open a crack at the bottom of my Gas burner gives me a headache, I bet with the extractor you won't get that. (Though, I'm natural gas)

196osh

Re: Growling Dog Brewery - First Brew - piccies

Post by 196osh » Mon Apr 11, 2011 11:14 pm

Looks like great fun. Great looking kit you have mate.

Frisfur

Re: Growling Dog Brewery - First Brew - piccies

Post by Frisfur » Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:45 am

Great looking set up Steve

Dont leave the garage unlocked, being a Rayleigh boy I might pop round and nick it!

Chris

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