AG#1 - Black Sheep Ale

[Chucky77]

AG#1 is finally in the FV, and it feels good!

Went for the Black sheep Ale from Graham Wheeler's - BYOBRA
Brew length 23 Litres
Yeast - Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale Yeast
No water treatment other that half a campden tablet.

A bit of a hectic day so realize i've missed taking snaps of a couple of stages.

The grain....


Flung this into the mash tun, and topped up with a little extra water from the kettle to bring the temp up to 65.5C


90 minutes later and 0.5C heat loss later...


Batch spraging...


Was a little wary to not over fill the boiler which ultimately left me slightly short on the amount collected in the FV. Hops in at start of boil, and more with 10-15 mins to go (along with Irish Moss


Collected around 20.5 litres of wort with OG1.050, topped up with 2.5 litres tap water to give me 23 litres OG1.045, close enough to the target 1.046 to keep me happy.
There seemed to be a fair bit of break material in what I was transferring to the FV. Is that normal, does it just settle out of get gobbled up by the yeast?
Yeast pitched and 36 hours later all seems to be progressing well...


Plan is to transfer to second FV when the fermentation seems about done, add finings, leave for a couple of days and then bottle. Anything glaring wrong with that plan?
Really enjoyed the process, and far easier than i'd convinced myself it was going to be (just time consuming), and the smell was flipping fantastic. I fear i may be hooked. Will post an update when I know how it tastes.

[jimp2003]

Nice job chucky!!

That Black Sheep Ale recipe is one I am considering for my next brew - that or the Timothy Taylor Landlord.

I would be interested to hear how you get on with that yeast as I bought some during the week but have since heard mixed reports about its performance.

Jim

[Horatio]

Looking good!

To minimise break material going into the FV you need to leave the wort to settle for a while (20 mins +) before running off. What type of hop filter are you using and do you cool in the boiler?

Break material in the FV doesn't seem to be a problem as a lot of brewers, both commercial and craft/home brewers, use counterflow or plater chillers and all the break ends up in the FV with them.

Good luck.

[Chucky77]

Hi,

I cooled in the boiler, not sure how long that took, maybe an hour, so it had good settling time. Is it better to cool in FV or boiler? Boiler is a Brupaks one with a sainless steel mesh hop strainer like this one..


Do I need a better hop strainer? I filled a sample tube at the same time as I transferred across to my FV and the break material in there all seems to have settled to leave a clear wort, so i'm not so worried now.

Will let you know how I get on with the yeast Jim (I also bought this, and then read the mixed reviews afterwards!), although in the past i've only done kits and just used the supplied dried yeasts so i'm not fully clear on how liquid yeasts are supposed to act compared to the dried varieties. With dried yeasts (most of my kits have been Woodfordes ones), I have had a head of maybe 3" thick form in about 24hrs, before decreasing to nothing for the rest of the ferment. So far the Wyeast I am using took 24hrs before any activity seemed to start and now the head that has formed on top is probably only 1cm thick. I guess this means it's fermenting more slowly? I didn't produce a starter days in advance, just activated the 'smack pack' about 4 hours before i needed it. Anyway i'll let you know how it goes. I've not taken a gravity reading as yet.

Cheers,
James

[Horatio]

Hi,

I cooled in the boiler, not sure how long that took, maybe an hour, so it had good settling time. Is it better to cool in FV or boiler? Boiler is a Brupaks one with a sainless steel mesh hop strainer like this one..


Do I need a better hop strainer? I filled a sample tube at the same time as I transferred across to my FV and the break material in there all seems to have settled to leave a clear wort, so i'm not so worried now.

That hop strainer should be more than up to the job! I find cooling in the boiler easier as I can sterilise my cooler in the last 15 mins of the boil and leave the break behind. Not sure why you get so much break into the FV though? But as you said, it all settles out in the end so should not be any bother.

Good luck.