Home Brew Forum

Hi. After 18 months of kits, I took the plunge a few days ago. Recipe was from this forum: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=53322

I've always enjoyed looking at brewday galleries so I thought I'd reciprocate...

Maris Otter


Black Malt and hops (East Kent and Styrian)



7:30am water on to boil - took about 50 minutes to reach 74 deg celsius.

Made the bag from some polyester voile net curtain bought in Wilkos. I actually sewed the drawstring hem myself, took hours!



Grain in for the 90 minute mash. Temp was about 68 degrees when all in and stirred.



Good use of a very fashionable fleece top.

90 minutes later, it had only dropped down to 66 degrees.

That was VERY heavy but manageable. Long-term will be getting a calor gas boiler to do it at floor level in the garage.



Bag gets a selfie while I lift it out of the pot.



This clip was very handy. I'm please that the bag held up fine and was easy to strain out.

Lovely liquor on for the boil.



Took about 50 minutes to get up to boiling point.



In with the bittering hops.

Aroma hops and Irish moss for the last 15 minutes.



90 minutes after the boil started, it goes in the no-chill cube.

Bizarrely I ended up with 20 litres not the 25 I had planned for. I probably wasn't paying attention lol.

Gravity was 1.042.

The cube was put away at 1:30, so it took about 6 hours in total, but I enjoyed it and found it a lot simpler than I had thought it would be.

Pitched Mangrove Jack Burton Union M79 yeast the next morning, this took about 48 hours wo develop anything you'd call a krausen. 3 days later its bubbling away fine.

Great job and great photos well done Daf, here starts the slippery slope!!

£6.25 for a bag of hops though

I know, bonkers. Same pack is £3.35 at The Malt Miller....

£2.25 at Worcester Hopshop, although The Malt Miller is awesome obv!

Nice first all grain brewday and nice pics!

Thanks! Really enjoyed it and I'm planning the next one, a raspberry wheat beer....

Ta. Would it be safe to top this FV up to 23 or 25 litres with water? I ended up with 20 litres.

daf wrote:Ta. Would it be safe to top this FV up to 23 or 25 litres with water? I ended up with 20 litres.

Yes, make sure it's been boiled first and check hydrometer readings to ensure you end up with correct gravity