Home Brew Forum

I have my very "Green" brewday tomorrow, Green from several points of view, all new equipment (never been used - hot side) and my own green hops + want to play around with the colour to see if I get finally great a good "red" looking ale so more than likely quite a bit that could go wrong

I`ve got 20.5kg of Pale Malt that needs to be used up
1.50kg of Wheat.
0.5kg of Carafa 3 Special

So a grain bill of 22.50kg looking to make a batch of slightly less than 95 litres
Boil time will be 90mins - 60mins 60g of Magnum and then the last 10mins the green hops (still on the plant as I type - no idea what the harvest yield will be - hoping for 400g).

The interesting part is I`ve no idea / cant remember what the 4 types of plant I have so another unknown.... if I have some left over I`ll be willing to post them on to someone using a next day service (if I know you) as I`m not drying anything this year, I would however prefer if someone was local to collect them.

Got to use up some packet yeast (6) packs.....

Progress tonight, just weighed out the grain, everything is ready to go (even made another hose to underlet with). Will get up tomorrow to go hop picking

The grain bill


The setup ready to go


Testing the scales on the boiler to make sure they don't switch off

Pictures

That's an awful lot of grain, hops and yeast for a trial!
Best of luck, hope it works out!

Brewery looking superb Clive hope all goes well with the Maiden brew day, should think you will be like a kid on Christmas eve tonight .

Good luck with the brew Clive!

What makes the big red light on top of the control box go off? (pic 2)

Awesome looking setup you've got there

Good luck for tomorrow!

MB

What makes the big red light on top of the control box go off? (pic 2) 

Think its the "pint glass empty "alarm

jimp2003 wrote:Good luck with the brew Clive!

What makes the big red light on top of the control box go off? (pic 2)

Its the timer / temp reach light (alarm) its only there because it can be

As for the brewday yep looking forward to it + will be taking my time, it the process takes 8hrs plus who cares, got to say the control panel with pids is going to make things alot easier, rather than the frantic OMG its up to temp go go go brewday. With everything already plumbed in and ready to go it should be a breeze mind you on the 4th pint of Ditch stout at the moment so my judgement might be a little clouded

BTW if anyone hasn`t guessed I`m not really one for convention when it comes to brewing - as long as I like the end product I couldnt give a **** what institutions may think, from water profile to recipe / tasting notes, not to say I`m right but I`m the one drinking it, not convention

Cheers

Fantastic setup... huuuuuuge cave envy from me here

I`m having a very relax brewday so far...

Tested the alkalinity with both the salifert and Hanna Meters around the 271 mark. Treated the water with 2.5m sulphuric acid, calibrated the PH meter and doubled checked it against a 10, double checked both thermometers although will be using the Hanna throughout, got my mango bucket of "dip" starsan and spray bottle ready, changed the hose configuration over to underlet, boiled my rehydration water for the yeast

Just about to go and pick a few hops, then I`ll start mashing

You've just made me very bored at work

I'm toying with making a green hop beer on my next batch but i've never had one before, i'm unsure if i'll like it .

Might have to rethink the RIMS plumbing / pump, things began to get stuck with the temp raise from 50 to 67 so quite a bit of stirring was required to free things up a little.

One question for you RIMs people out there is I have a PT100 probe directly after the element / controlling the element, what temp do you set yours at?

Anyway things are resting in the MT at 66c ish ready for the next step.

A few more pictures.......

wots with the tape labels on your panel? Thought you had some posh engraved jobies

I do but until I`ve brewed with the setup they aren't going on, just encase I need to change something

Managed after some effort of tap adjustment and post pump restriction to finally get the recirculation of the RIMS working correctly, the setting also seemed to work well the sparge a bit of a steep learning curve - PITA the first time of using the equipment.

Managed to trip over the lead powering the scales on the boiler which reset them so resulted to using the good old dip stick, achieved a volume of 112 litres in the pot.

Anyway had my evening meal whilst it was getting up to temperature, at 5.30pm a nice rolling boil is being achieved with 2 elements fully on.

Conical fully cleaned / sealed and ready to go, also switched the maxi on earlier to get the thing cold just encase I encounter plate chiller issues later.

So far apart from the trip a very enjoyable day, wish I had more green hops but one plant wasn't ready.

barneey wrote:...The interesting part is I`ve no idea / cant remember what the 4 types of plant I have so another unknown...

Do you mean you can't remember which is which, or you really don't remember any of the four varieties? Do you have any old reciepts or emails, etc, from the time of purchase?

Sure does sound like a fun open-ended experiment. Best of luck!