First Extract Brew Day! EX#1 Hob Goblin

[ajclarkson]

So after a couple of months away from brewing due to work, I finally got around to doing my first extract brew, following the Hob Goblin recipe in this very forum. I've adapted kits with hop pellets and malt extract before but after picking up a 21L stockpot it was time to go for it. Sorry for quality of some of the images, the light in my kitchen is awful!



All of the ingredients weighed out and ready to go. Fuggles and Styrian Goldings weighed into 3 additions, and crushed Crystal, Carapils and Chocolate Malt mixed in the bowl behind. You can just see the 2.9KG of Light Spray Malt creeping in the corner.



Grains added to water at 68 degrees. I don't have a grain bag at the minute, forgot to order one, so that's my stock pot with a sheet of voile lining it, held in place by some elastic strapping. Worked well enough!



Temperature control for the steep was done by putting the whole pot in the oven at roughly 68. Over the 30 minutes it only lost a degree of heat, so pretty happy with that. I know this is a little overkill for steeping speciality grains, but I'm also dry running my process for doing a 2.5 gal all grain batch using this equipment next week.



Steeping done, DME added and stirred and onto the hob to bring my first wort to the boil! First addition hops are already in here too, it took about 20 mins to get up to a very strong rolling boil.



Boil over, hop additions complete and a little whirlfloc for good luck and it was time for some low tech cooling in a bath of cold water. It only took around 15 minutes to get down below 40, at which point I transfered to the fermenter. I did this by pouring through the same voile sheet (cleaned and sterilised beforehand!) held again with elastic.

The recipe didn't really predict much boil off / loss of water to the hops, but after giving the filter voile a quick squeeze I was around 1-1.5 L down on the pre boil volume. Topped off to 19L and took a gravity reading.



It came out at 1.053 at 28 degrees, so temperature corrected 1.055 which is only .001 off the expected in the recipe so I'm pretty happy with that. It does seem to have a lot of particles floating in there, but I'm sure they'll settle out...



Temperature checked, aerated and yeast pitched and it's now under airlock. Off to a temperature controlled waterbath once I'm happy with the temperature in there.

All in all an excellent first introduction to extract! I was expecting to make mistakes along the way, and as far as I can tell all went smoothly. Obviously the proof will be in the tasting! Needless to say I am a complete convert now. I loved making up an extract batch, and for the first time I actually feel like I have properly brewed something. As long as the 2.5 gal all grain goes well next week, I think I'll be very happy doing extract 5 gallons and 2.5g all grains for the foreseeable!

[Gawk]

That looks a great brewday, I'm hoping to step up to extract at some point so I'm obviously very jealous.

How are you going to do 5 gallon extracts in future? Up the fermentables and dilute in the FV?

[ajclarkson]

Basically yeah, this was a 5 gallon extract too. You can see the recipe here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9700#p290872

The amount that you need to boil is around 9 litres, all of the extract, the "wort" from the speciality grain, and the hops all go in there then it's diluted with another 10L of water in the FV.

I was amazed at how cheaply you can make the step up to be fair. That stockpot was less than £30, and it's basically the only thing I had to buy to make the jump!

[ajclarkson]

So this fermented out very quickly, and now on day 6 I've just taken the second constant reading of 1.014 and early indications suggest its going to be a very tasty brew indeed! I'm going to leave it in the primary for another week, then it looks as though half is getting bottled for my dad and half will go in my mini kegs. Looks like I'll be making another batch sooner than I thought!

[Shaun21]

Brilliant thread, I've been reading up about extract, I'm a kit brewer at the moment but want to make this leap. I done this on a smaller scale with a kit and like you said, makes you feel like you're properly making something...

Just need a big pot and to learn about the different hops and grains

[Jocky]

It's worth the jump to extract from kits - the reality is that when you go to extract are properly making something of your own, as even if you follow a recipe you inevitably you have to adjust the hops to take into account the differences in alpha acids.

[ajclarkson]

Absolutely, I can't see my self going back to kits now. Incidentally I have just this minute finished racking this off to my secondary carboy, it doesn't really need it as I aren't dry hopping or anything like that, but I need the primary freeing up for some other stuff in the coming days. As I mentioned in the original brewday thread the initial sample did have a lot of particles in, and there was a good solid cake of trub at the bottom of the FV, probably about 1" deep which is by far the most I've ever had. I'm taking that as an encouraging sign though, because it means most of it shouldn't have made it into the secondary. Roughly 10 days until I'm bottling to give to my dad when he visits (I'll be glad of the help bottling!)

[Shaun21]

Any help cleaning those bottles is a winner!

[ajclarkson]

Too true! Slightly off the topic of this, but along the lines of you looking to step up from kits. I'm currently using exactly the same equipment and process to do a 10L all grain stout batch. It's mashing in the oven as I type this and smelling wonderful, so once you have a big pot and some sort of bag / voile for the grain a whole load of possibilities open up!

[Shaun21]

My goal is to progress up to making my own all grain stout! What is the actual process you're using? All this 'mashing' and 'steeping' is new ground for me.

[ajclarkson]

Basically the same as above but with a different mash:

Heat water to strike temperature (16.6L to 68C in my case)

Then add the grains in a grain bag (I'm using almost 3KG of mixed grain for this recipe)

Mash the grains at 65C for 90 minutes. I did this by getting it to 65C and then temperature controlling in my oven as above.

Then give the grain bag a good squeeze to get all of the liquid out, and boil. The rest of the process is as above really.

Just replace steeping the speciality grains, with what I just outlined above as a mash schedule!

Just waiting on it coming to a boil now!

[Shaun21]

Sounds good, you'll have to keep me updated on that one! Sounds like it could be a gem!

[ajclarkson]

You can see the planning and everything else on my thread over at BIABrewer.info: http://www.biabrewer.info/viewtopic.php ... 528#p20528

It's in the fermenter now, and I can finally put my feet up. I think I've got the AG bug now though, and while I'll still be doing extract brews for my 5gal brews, I can see plenty of half size brews AG in my future!

[Shaun21]

That's a lot of ingredients, was it not expensive?

[ajclarkson]

It wasn't especially expensive, extract brewing cost is comparable to premium kit brewing, or tweaking coopers kits, due to the cost of the extract. For this brew it cost me £19 which is £1 per litre or approx 56p a pint. The breakdown was:


Carapils - 45p
Crystal - 26p
Chocolate - < 1p
Spray Malt - 12.65

Fuggles - 1.60
Styrian - 1.58

Nottingham Yeast - 2.46

Though obviously you can't buy the grain in exact amounts as I have priced above. So if it is your first one, as it was for me, it cost £24 and as a side effect I've got enough grain to make another batch of this, and enough of each hop left for a different brew. I guess it is all about building up stock at this point. The price is one of the reasons I'm considering skipping extract brewing and going straight to brew in a bag. I did a successful mini-BIAB which works out much cheaper. It all depends on how my first attempt at a maxi-BIAB goes to get 5 gallons out of my 19L pan. If that works, I might be sold on going all grain rather than shelling out for the extract.