Home Brew Forum

After moving i was relgated from the warmth of the kitchen to the cold of the garage.
i upgraded the stockpot with 2 elements to a nice chiney 50 litre marmite pot on gas.

the first brew caused me some hassel ( and although it was ok going into the bottles i will be utterly amazed if it turns out ok). Although i have some heavilly hopped beers planned i thought i would dial in the system with a nice pale ale recipe i have used before. I know how it should taste and the only viables that have changed from previous brews are as follows.

1 i now batch spage 8 should not cause an issue)
2I now crush my own malt freshly ( which may help i don't know)
3I brew on gas not electric which may result in an over zealous or under zealous boil)
4 i am doing a 40 litre this time 8 and i have never domne one that big before.

here is the recipe

6400,00 gm Pale Malt, Maris Otter
500,00 gm Cara-Pils/Dextrine
500,00 gm Wheat,
80,00 gm crystal extra dark
90,00 gm Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L
32,00 gm Target [12,50 %] (60 min) (First Wort Hop) Hops 25,3 IBU
19,00 gm Fuggles [3,80 %] (15 min) Hops 2,3 IBU
19,00 gm Fuggles [3,80 %] (5 min) Hops 0,9 IBU
2 Pkgs SafAle English Ale (DCL Yeast #S-04) Yeast-Ale

i'll try to remember to get some pics tomorrow as i go along and get them uploaded.

Hopefuly it will be a good un for the spring:9

Dave,

Hope everything works ok with the shineys and the brew. Nearly finised the last of my "classic pale ale " so time to brew some more very soon.

VBR

Clive

I forgot about that mate yes.

How did it turn out?
Hopefully pics to follow. Depends on whether i get to the pc to upload during the brew. My new phone has an 8mp camera too so hopefully they will be decent.

The result was superb, one of the "banker" brews, easy drinkable.
Cheers

barneey wrote:The result was superb, one of the "banker" brews, easy drinkable.
Cheers

Good to hear.
My brew was postponed due to the other half getting a migrene. Hopefully this friday will see some shiney action.

Hope Friday goes according to plan for you.

BTW do you remember when i said I wanted a crystal clear pint?



Cheers

Lovely looking pint there Barneey

FatGaz wrote:Lovely looking pint there Barneey

Thanks for the compliment, when I first started brewing again, I had a few problems with clarity, the brews tasted ok by was always cloudy. With help from Deebee and the use of his classic pale ale receipe the brewing is going from strength to strength. So all credit to Deebee

Well this Friday i managed to get the brew on at last.

I learned a lot about the new equipment and the new brewery too which is something I need to remember. It also has shown me that I need to make a smallish investment.

The weather Friday was cold. -3 outside when I put the mash on, so the brewery was just above zero. I used the brewzor calculator and hit mash temperature almost right on 65.9 is not so bad  Then I tucked the Mt up with Rockwool and an old fleece blanket. I have recently used a load of polystyrene isolation plates and gaffer tape to isolate the MT better. After the 90 minute mash I can happily report I had lost 0.1 degree so I am way happy with that. I am thinking of packing the MY in entirely in rockwool and tape. We’ll see.





Lovely hops




The first runnings were a lovely golden colour and were also very rich. I like using two different crystal malts as I feel they add a little something to the brew. I used an out of date packet of yeast in the first wort as a nutrient. A tip I picked up off here I do believe.



The sparge went without incident, once the tap was opened I left the lid on the boiler to reduce heat lass and let it do its thing. After the first batch was run off I turned on the gas hoping to reduce the time taken to bring this up to boiling.






I did find out for sure that the marmite pot, although much larger than the one I had before is not really a 50 litre though. I had 48 litres as preboil and as we can see there is not much room left before run over.



I was a little concerned that I would get boil over when I added the bittering hops but with a lot of stiring and luck I managed to avoid this.



However, I did find out the 5kW under 48 litres takes a long time to boil in the winter, meaning I need to invest in a larger burner. The one that belongs to the stand the boiler is in, is only about 40 quid and is rated at 9,5 kW. I think this would be a better idea. Especially considering that my beers is luckily in demand from my friends and before long a 20 litre brew will just not be enough



Chilling went fast, The hose is run from the other side of the driveway( about 30 metres) and because it was so cold it meant that the water was really cold entering the IC. I cooled the brew down to 27 in about 15 minutes and learned that my cooler is really too small in diameter for a large brew, and that I only got local cooling until I moved it around. I have a couple of choices , either make a new chiller, or get a sterile spoon and whirlpool. I have opted for the spoon!

The run off went fine. I made a new filter from some 15 mm copper pipe, slit like an MT manifold , every 40 cm along its length. Run off was fast and smooth, no sticking and after a couple of litres the wort ran almost clear.



I also used only half a tablet of protofloc and strangely did see the difference with less trub being settled out. I think I’ll go back to the whole tab next time around. I have never had any trouble in the past.



The recipe was based on 40 l @1044, I managed 39 @1046. this gives me about 76% efficiency which is ok.

The 2 twins are now sitting in the washroom where the temp is at around 21 degrees. No massive yeasty head but an even bubbling in the airlock. I guess i’ll take a sample around Wednesday to see how we are doing. Kegging/bottling will likely be Tuesday after easter.



Thanks for reading.

barneey wrote:Hope Friday goes according to plan for you.

BTW do you remember when i said I wanted a crystal clear pint?



Cheers

I just sowed the seed mate. You are the one brewing it.
Drop me a mail sometime.