AG#1 - Summer Lightning Clone

[MarkA]

I chose this recipe after reading about 'Demon Valley' brewery's first all grain brew day and, seeing as the ingredients are fairly straight forward, decided it would also be my first brew.

Ingredients;

•5kg Pale Ale Malt
•46g Challenger Hops @ 90 minutes
•15g Goldings Hops @ 15 minutes
•9g Goldings Hops @ Flameout/Poweroff
•Safale S-o4 yeast

I set my alarm for 0700 this morning but was awoken early by a bad dream, in which my boiler wouldn't boil and kept cutting out (see how this brewing lark affects you?).

I got out of bed and measured out 16 litres of water.

0700 - The water goes into the boiler to be heated to 71.6 degrees for mashing.

The most important step in brewing is, of course, sterilising everything to avoid infection. But is it?


Surely this is the most important first step?








My instructions/steps for the day, in case I forget anything;



Everything ready and prepared



And ingredients





07:25 - The water reaches 71.6 degrees and is now added to the mash tun




The mash temperature I am aiming for is 66 degrees



I now mash at this temperature for 90 minutes which, I'm pleased to say, my new mash tun has managed without dropping a degree.

Meanwhile, I heat up 20.86 litres of water to 75.9 degrees for sparging.

0900 - Time to sparge. My 'technique' employs a collander, which I hold close to the grain, and gently add water to. I'm not sure if this is ok, but it seemed to work alright



The first runnings



And clearer



Pre-boil gravity is 1.032

10:00 - The wort is now transferred into the boiler for 90 minutes.

10:50 - The wort is finally boiling so 46g of Challenger hops are added




12:05 - More hops are added, 15g of East Kent Goldings



12:20 - Time to cool the wort



12:40 - Just 20 minutes to cool 26 litres down to pitching temperature. I'm happy with that!

The wort is now transferred to a fermenting vessel and the yeast is pitched



Original Gravity is 1.052



13:30 - Everything cleaned and tidied away



Problems: The only problems I noted were the fact that my OG should have been approx. 1.043 whereas the actual OG is 1.052. I'm not sure if this is down to a dodgy hydrometer, or something else! Can anyone help?

The other problem was that hops got stuck in the tap, blocking it, when transferring from the boiler to the FV. I had thought this might happen so prepared by sterilising a sieve and jug to transfer manually.

The hop weights might be slightly out due to only having scales that work in 25g increments, and aren't that accurate (now remedied with a set of Salter digital scales purchased this afternoon from Tesco )

So, there it is. 6 and a half hours and 23 litres in the fermenting bin, but only time will tell if it was worth it! Still, I thoroughly enjoyed the morning and can't wait to do it all over again!!

[jaroporter]

nice work! sounds like you were well prepared and it all went smoothly enough. many things can cause dodgy hydrometer readings, but most cause lower than expected readings. if you hit all your target volumes as intended i'd guess that the high OG is because you got a higher mash efficiency than the recipe planned for. if that's the case, next time you can either use less malt, or my personal choice - dilute before the boil to the SG you want, add more hops and BREW MORE BEER!

[MarkA]

Thanks jaroporter, that sounds good to me

[MarkA]

This is what it looked like this morning.......



Also, it smells lovely! Sort of spicy and fruity. If it tastes anywhere near as good as it smells, I'll be chuffed

[DeGarre]

That looks like a big bucket of tiramisu.

[Deebee]

Well done.

make yourself a hop filter, simple enough with a bit of copper pipe sealed at one end then slotted like that in the mashtun.

Well done on the efficiency. you have obviously done something very right. I moved away from fly sparging 8 the method you use) due to the amount of time it took. Basd om that most homebrewers brew batches of 20-25 litres i moved to batch sparging. I save around 2 or more hours on my brewday and have an efficiency of near on 80 %. You should theoretically get more soarging the way you do, but for the little extra grain it takes... batch sparging saves me lots of time.

I have brewed the same recpe and it is a cracker. the longer you leave it, the better it will be.

[MarkA]

Thanks Deebee, I'm looking into making a hop filter before my next brew, but I'll probably have to change the Buffalo boiler tap first

I have brewed the same recipe and it is a cracker. the longer you leave it, the better it will be.

This will be easier said than done, it's smelling very tempting now after 5 days

[MarkA]

What it looks like now.....



It tastes lovely but is unfortunately nearly gone

Oh well, #2 (another Summer Lightning clone at 5.2%) is priming in bottles as we speak and #3 (Blonde ale with biscuit malt) will be ready to bottle midweek allowing me to start on #4 which will be a Hobgoblin clone.

I love this hobby!!!!