brew day at torchwood 24.6.07

[torchwood brewery]

well lads it all went well no hick ups at all found room for improvement and came in just 2 points under but still in guidlines.

10 US gallons english ale by jim.

started at 9 am finished all cleaned up by 3 pm.

photos to follow as soon as photo bucket lets me back in.

richard
the night before was the show and tell with wife and she wouldn,t take my photo she said i looked like a gypsey with a 5 oclock shado and smelly cause i cleaned up and got every thing ready. so we had an open fire out side and sat around relaxing after the jobs were done. gee photobucket is slow tonite?
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[torchwood brewery]

ok i will post the photos in a few posts so as to help the flow of the thread,the first few hear show the apprentice and the gear ready for the start the auto timer turned every thing on at 6 am and was ready to mash in at 9 am the dog was the helper he kept the kids away for the day best apprentice and mans best friend IMO.

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[torchwood brewery]

effi i dont know here are the stats though

sg 1048 igot 1044 for 36 litres

first mash water was 20 ltres and i got 12 litres after first wort run off @1084
batchsparge 1 was 18 litres in and 18 litres out @1037
batchsparge 2 was 14 litres in 14 litres out @ 1045

collected 44 litres at 1041 estamated (1040 by beersmith)

boiled 90 mins at end of boil had 32 litres 4 litres shot of target next time might make it a 60 minute boil .

SG was estimated @ 1048 i hit 1044. 4 points short

not sure what happened but it tasted bloody great .
fg is estimated @ 1012 but but the looks of things might pan out at 1008 1010.
so with all this info how would i work out effi i am not to fussed about it . the fermenter running were lovely and clean and the colour was nice the aroma was nice and the bitterness was on the mark and well ballanced at this stage . i didnt worry about protien test at this stage i was very happy with the whole day and it was a learning curve and there is lots of room for improvement .

richard
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[torchwood brewery]

more pics
i will try and get them all on here.[img][/img]

[torchwood brewery]

ok sorry for the long list of threads if DaaB can put them all together would be nice.

here is the rest.
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oh and the apprentice.

richard[/img]

[torchwood brewery]

OK CHRIS HERE IS THE RECIPE

6.250 kg pale malt
.680 kg flaked barley
.400 kg crystal (40l)
.100 kg crystal (60l)

.100 kg fuggels @ 90 min
.050 kg ek golding @ 45 min
.030 kg fuggels dry keg
wyeast 1098 brit ale .

mash water 1 20 litres in 12 litres out first runnings 1084
batchsparge 1 18 litres in 18 litres out second runnings 1037
batchsparge 2 14 litres in 10 litres out third runnings 1045
topped up kettel with 4 litres water to hit 44 .
post boil ended up with 32 litres and had to top up fermenters buy 2 litres each.

lost 4 litres to trub and kettel dead space

no dead space in tun due to bottom dump valve .

what was learnt 1 bottom dump valve needs meshing to stop small grist flow.
2 will batch sparge only once next time (will this be ok?)
3 need to make a better shelf for kettel lifter (thats in the planning now)
4 need to make a bracket for plate chiller *bling*
5 next batch i will do will be only 30 litres as kettel was at capacity (need bigger kettel if greater than 36 litres batches are done ,will stick with 32 litre batches max.


hope that tells you lads everything and if you have any suggestions please feel free to add as i need the feed back .

richard 1 DOWN CAN'T WAIT FOR THE NEXT ONE NOW 2 WEEKS TIME NEED MORE FV,sbetter not tell SWMBO

[DRB]

Do you think you can make the pictures bigger i'm having trouble seeing them.

Glad it went well.

[torchwood brewery]

yes i got it so i batch sparged wrong well i guess that explaines it anyway the result was pretty good.

but i dont have the room for a 2x 23 litre batches so they were 2x 18 litre batches = 9.578 us gallons which is about 7 UK gallons i think i will only be doing 32 ltr batches in future as my gear won,t take a 47 litre boil with out boil over .
what about boil times is 60 minute good or dose it have to be 90 minute,

yes sorry about the size of the pics i should have resized them .

richard

[SteveD]

Great pics. Looks like you had a very enjoyable day. If you do your batch sparge as DaaB suggests you'll get another 10% efficiency no problem.

Great gear as well....envy...envy

Is your plate chiller the 'Mashmaster Chillout' with barbed fittings, available from Craftbrewer in Queensland, and Mashmaster?

Cheers,

Steve

[UserDeleted]

what about boil times is 60 minute good or dose it have to be 90 minute

Its pretty much immaterial whether you boil for 60 minutes or 90 minutes, I prefer to use the term 'boil to secure the hot break'. And I'm talking about the real 'hot break' not the scummy foam that appears on the surface of the wort as it approaches the start of the boil.

Hot break is when the majority of the MMW proteins have coagulated together due to the heat (you get 'matchstitck head' sized fluffy particles rising through the wort and the wort clears significantly), in general this takes between 60 and 90 minutes depending on the ferocity of the boil.

There are occasions you may want to boil longer (To hit a particular gravity or volume, or boil off excess liqour.) Rarely will you want to cut a boil short as you are likely to end up with a hazy 'unstable' beer

[torchwood brewery]

yes steve
it the mashmaster chillout wort in 90 degs C approx and wort out was 20 degs C .IT WORKED A TREAT. flow was not even restricted and cold break was nor noticable .but i am still very green with the gear and i think a 36 litre batch was a bit much for the first attempt but it was very enjoyable .
next batch will be scaled down as the kettel was running at max capacity and was on the verge of boil over several times .so next batch will only be 26 litre and i would only ever go to 30 litre tops.

so i have made lots of notes and changes for the next batch . and i will be doing a LONDON PRIDE next time.

now back to read DaaB post.

[ColinKeb]

looks really good torchwood, I love your gear ! looks very proffessional especially in comparison with the motley collection of stained buckets ive got you wont regret the london pride either

[delboy]

Edit...i've just seen the problem, you ran off the mash before adding your sparge water, I thought this is what you had to do originally, you dont.

You mash, then top up with sparge water before running off to make up your first batch volume in the tun, then you run off batch one, then add more sparge water to the tun and run off batch 2.

You only collect 2 lots of wort from the mash tun.

So when you made the suggestion that you will sparge just the once you are quite right, although I have been refering to the 2 run offs as batches which may have confused the issues, basically you are incorporating the first batch sparge in with the initial run off

I never knew that, must give that a bash on my next session.

[SteveD]

yes steve
it the mashmaster chillout wort in 90 degs C approx and wort out was 20 degs C .IT WORKED A TREAT.

Excellent, because I ordered one about a week ago from Ross of Craftbrewer. Should get here any day now. Works out at about £60 and, having barbed fittings, doesn't require any extra expenditure on connectors. The Morebeer one is the same size, but 11 plates instead of 20.

As part of my plan to cut down the length of the post-boil brewday, the chiller, combined with O2 aeration, should get me from end of boil to pitching the yeast in about 15-20 mins I might make a hopback to counteract less steeping time. Either that or dry hop more.

[torchwood brewery]

the plate chiller is great but it really needs a set of brackets made up or a cradle to hold is as once all the hose are fitted it a pain to keep in a stable position .but iam working on that one at the moment too.

you won,t regreat the purchase its alot easier IMO than those emmersion coils .

richard