Oatmeal stout greg hughes 1 Gallon

[Fastline]

I'm stocked up with beer kits in the cupboard and also about 3 previous batches of bottled already brewed still to be drunk, I was going to do a coopers stout with a mini mash mod but instead I have decided to just do a 1 gallon batch in a Demi

Hardly seems worth it but I'm keen to learn the all grain brewing and the small batches I can do in the kitchen with a few small stock pots on me weedy stove whilst I very slowly build a shed and put together a boiler hlt and mash tune

Total liquor 6.4l
Mash liquor 2.44l

60min mash
70min boil

Pale malt 840grams
Rolled oats 50 grams (I used Quakers porridge oats)
Crystal malt 40 grams
Chocolate malt 32 grams
Roasted Barley 14 grams

Challenger hops 7.8 grams start of boil
Challenger hops 3.2 grams at turn off
Golding hops 3.2 grams at turn off

I'm just mashing at the moment, because of small volume I occasionally add a little heat from the hob

We will see how she goes

[Fastline]

According to the recipe this should have had an original gravity of 1049 I ended up at 1056

I need to get a better understanding on how much to sparge, I went by the recipe but batch sparged so I'm not sure if this has some effect

I think I'm under the 1 gallon target also, which is sort of telling me I need more liquor to start with

Is it just a case of getting to know how much is boiled off with this kit or should I be making adjustments as I go based on gravity readings

I have heard of liquoring back, is that what I needed to do to get the og and Volume on target

Other than that all went well, used a immersion chiller for first time and this worked really well at cooling the wort, I need to look at a better tap fitting as I had to hold it on the tap, maybe a jubilee clip

Oh I pitched half a pack ok Wilkos gervin ale yeast, now sitting under the stairs in a demijon, will check on it tomorrow see if its churning

Think ill look into getting a refractometer and maybe a digital thermometer, any pointers on these and indeed any of the previous mentioned concerns greatly appreciated

[Fastline]

According to the recipe this should have had an original gravity of 1049 I ended up at 1056

I need to get a better understanding on how much to sparge, I went by the recipe but batch sparged so I'm not sure if this has some effect

I think I'm under the 1 gallon target also, which is sort of telling me I need more liquor to start with

Is it just a case of getting to know how much is boiled off with this kit or should I be making adjustments as I go based on gravity readings

I have heard of liquoring back, is that what I needed to do to get the og and Volume on target

Other than that all went well, used a immersion chiller for first time and this worked really well at cooling the wort, I need to look at a better tap fitting as I had to hold it on the tap, maybe a jubilee clip

Oh I pitched half a pack ok Wilkos gervin ale yeast, now sitting under the stairs in a demijon, will check on it tomorrow see if its churning

Think ill look into getting a refractometer and maybe a digital thermometer, any pointers on these and indeed any of the previous mentioned concerns greatly appreciated

[Jambo]

If you're under on volume and over on gravity then that's a relatively easy position to recover from - just add some water (ideally cooled boiled water).

[Fastline]

Ended up leaving this in the demijohn for about 4 weeks, bottled it, got 6 bottles but wow lovely very strong, need to get my boiler made and do bigger batches.

[BenB]

Dialing in the volumes takes a while. When it's excessive boil off I find 5L bottles of Ashbeck useful- relatively sterile and low levels of minerals: when you have too much boil off the required levels of minerals are there already so you need to dilute it back not add new minerals.

[Kev888]

Yes, it takes a few brews to get the volumes nailed sometimes. Keep records of mash and sparge volumes used, what is left pre-boil and post-boil and what makes it to the fermenter and finally the keg/bottle - then you'll be able to work things out.

You'll find there are volume losses to: grain retention, hop retention, evaporation and dead space in the vessels and any tubing etc. The evaporation doesn't lose precious sugars, but of course the others do. In some cases hops can be within the boilers deadspace though, so don't always add separately to the losses.

Good news that it was otherwise successful, that's a good result for a new setup!

[Fastline]

This was not really a new set up as more a what can I use in the kitchen to do an all grain batch whilst I make my 3 vessel system even more complex and further away from ever getting complete.
Pretty good for testing new recipes, but more work than reward