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AG#1 - Essex Pale Ale 16/03/13

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 10:59 am
by Monkeybrew
Essex Pale Ale
Batch Size (L): 23.0
Total Grain (kg): 4.500
Total Hops (g): 65.0
Estimated Original Gravity (OG): 1.044
Estimated Final Gravity (FG): 1.011
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 4.40 %
Colour (EBC): 12.0
Bitterness (IBU): 33.0 (Tinseth)
Estimated Mash Efficiency (%): 75
Boil Time (Minutes): 60
Mash (Minutes): 90 @66C
Mash Liquor (L): 11.25

Grain Bill
4.000 kg Maris Otter Pale Malt 5.0 EBC (88.90%)
0.300 kg Caramalt 50 EBC (6.70%)
0.200 kg Torrefied Wheat 4.0 EBC (4.40%)

Hop Bill
20.0 g Challenger Whole 7.70%AA @ 60 Minutes
20.0 g East Kent Goldings Pellet 5.90%AA @ 60 Minutes
25.0 g Celeia (Styrian Goldings) Whole 4.20%AA @ 10 Minutes

Misc Bill
1 tsp Irish Moss @ 10 Minutes (Boil)

Yeast
Safale S-04 @20C

I have finally brewed my first 3 vessel AG brew, and I have to say that it felt as though it went quite well. All of my homemade pieces of equipment worked well with no leaks or drama's, ideally I could do with more space in the Brew-shed and it would be nice to be able to have my kit permenantly set up, but other than that I'm happy :)

I was planning to brew GW's Black Sheep Ale but decided that I wanted to brew something more pale for the Spring/Summer, so I have created my own recipe as above. Why Essex Pale Ale? Well it's brewed in Essex and it's a pale ale :wink: After much discussion on JBK I only treated my water with a crushed Campden tablet the night before and will see how this first brew tastes. When I thought about it, that is all that I had done with my small-scale BIAB's.

As my HLT can only hold 30L, I heated up about 15L of liquor for my strike water which only took about 25mins to heat to 80C. I preheated my MT with 1 kettle full of boiling water about 10 mins before I wanted to add the strike liquor. After tipping out the pre-heating water I drained just over 11L of strike liquor into my MT and let it settle at 74C before adding my grains. Thanks to the calculator on JBK, my mash measured between 66-67C depending on what part of the mash I checked, so I'm calling it 66.5C. On went the lid followed by a piece of Cellotex and a clean dust sheet that was to hand. I now filled my HLT up to 29L and switched it back on to heat up the sparge liquor while the mash was doing it's thing. After 90mins I had only lost 1C which I was quite happy with TBH, considering the ambient temp in my shed was only 10C.

I recirculated about 4L of wort before it got less murky. Now I put my sparge manifold in place and started the fly-sparge. My liqour was between 85C-87C during the sparge before it left the HLT. It took just over an hour to collect the 28L of wort that I estimated that I needed for my 23L brew. As I was sparging quite slowly, I waited until there was 10L of wort in my boiler before switching on the first element. After I had collected 28L of wort I took a gravity reading and had a pre-boil gravity of 1.036. I then switched on the second element and I had a vigourous boil and a good hot break within 10mins (4.8kw of power clearly kicks ass!). Once the foam had died down I added my 60min bittering hops and switched back to one element and had a nice rolling boil. After 30mins of boiling I notiched that I had lost 2L of wort already, and as I had only estimated losing 3L over 60mins, I added another 1L of wort that I had continued to collect while the boil was going on. I added my chiller with 15 mins to go and switched the second element back on to compensate for the cold copper cooling down the wort. Finally I added my 10min hops and Irish Moss. It took 1h10mins to cool my 25L of wort to 24C before I drained it off into my FV. I ended up with 22L of wort in my FV, so lost 3L of wort to hops, trub and boiler deadspace.

My FG was 1.046, so I must have done something right :=P

Brewday Pic's -

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A big thanks to everyone on JBK who has helped me get to this point in my brewing =D>

MB

Re: AG#1 - Essex Pale Ale 16/03/13

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 11:11 am
by Lugsy
Congratulations on your first 3V brew! =D>

Sounds like it all went pretty smoothly, looks like a nice recipe too. Keeps us posted on how it progresses :D

Re: AG#1 - Essex Pale Ale 16/03/13

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 11:11 am
by Manx Guy
Hi MB!

Nice looking recipe and set up there!

Congrats on your first AG!

Where did you get the FV from?
I'm after a couple of new ones and the supplier i got mine from no longer stocks them.

Cheers!

Guy
8)

Re: AG#1 - Essex Pale Ale 16/03/13

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 11:48 am
by Monkeybrew
Manx Guy wrote:
Where did you get the FV from?
I'm after a couple of new ones and the supplier i got mine from no longer stocks them.

Cheers!

Guy
8)
From my LHBS here - http://www.colchesterhomebrew.co.uk/col ... d-lid.html

Give Andy a ring if you're interested.

Cheers

MB

Re: AG#1 - Essex Pale Ale 16/03/13

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 11:49 am
by barney
I am continually surprised at the level of organisation displayed by some on their first AG brewing attempts.

Congratulations. :)

Re: AG#1 - Essex Pale Ale 16/03/13

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 2:39 pm
by orlando
Manx Guy wrote:Hi MB!

Nice looking recipe and set up there!

Congrats on your first AG!

Where did you get the FV from?
I'm after a couple of new ones and the supplier i got mine from no longer stocks them.

Cheers!

Guy
8)
Try here really impressed with quality and price.

Re: AG#1 - Essex Pale Ale 16/03/13

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 2:40 pm
by orlando
WOWIE TOWIE BEER =D>

Re: AG#1 - Essex Pale Ale 16/03/13

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 2:41 pm
by orlando
barney wrote:I am continually surprised at the level of organisation displayed by some on their first AG brewing attempts.

Congratulations. :)
The forum triumphs again.

Re: AG#1 - Essex Pale Ale 16/03/13

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 5:54 pm
by Monkeybrew
orlando wrote:
barney wrote:I am continually surprised at the level of organisation displayed by some on their first AG brewing attempts.

Congratulations. :)
The forum triumphs again.
It certainly does orlando, the forum is stacked full of knowledge.

I've been reading, building and planning this first brew since December last year to try and be as organised as possible.

What to brew next??

MB

Re: AG#1 - Essex Pale Ale 16/03/13

Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 5:57 pm
by orlando
Monkeybrew wrote:
orlando wrote:
barney wrote:I am continually surprised at the level of organisation displayed by some on their first AG brewing attempts.

Congratulations. :)
The forum triumphs again.
It certainly does orlando, the forum is stacked full of knowledge.

I've been reading, building and planning this first brew since December last year to try and be as organised as possible.

What to brew next??

MB
The beauty and the dilemma of All Grain in a sentence. The answer of course, whatever you like. :D

Re: AG#1 - Essex Pale Ale 16/03/13

Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 1:54 pm
by Stomach
Superbly written and described! It looks great and a great inspiration!

After the success of a Seymour partial extract, BIAB is the obvious next step before the mighty AG begins! :D

Well done!

Re: AG#1 - Essex Pale Ale 16/03/13

Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 7:51 pm
by jaberry
Small niggle stomach but it does annoy somewhat. BIAB is AG.

Re: AG#1 - Essex Pale Ale 16/03/13

Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 9:30 pm
by Stomach
jaberry wrote:Small niggle stomach but it does annoy somewhat. BIAB is AG.
I know, I was meaning equipment/size wise etc. :D

Re: AG#1 - Essex Pale Ale 16/03/13

Posted: Tue Mar 19, 2013 4:44 pm
by jaberry
No worries Stomach :thumbs

Re: AG#1 - Essex Pale Ale 16/03/13

Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2013 1:38 pm
by Monkeybrew
I feel as though I have gone back to square one with the whole brewing patience thing :roll:

I keep wondering if my brew is ok out there in the brewfridge in my shed, is it lonely or scared, should I go and check on it and keep it company?

:twisted: <-- He keeps saying " go and lift the FV lid to have a look and a sniff" "check the gravity why don't you?"

I must leave it be and plan AG#2 instead :wink:

MB