BBQ Beer MK II

[delboy]

After the sucess of my last BBQ beer, kegged and drunk all within the month (SWMBO said it was my best yet) i've decided to knock out a 10 gallon batch.

Couple of questions, i have the H&G 10G brewery system, does it really do what it says on the tin and handle a 10G brew (im thinking more the mash tun capacity).
Is it much more hassle to do 10Gs (i will have an assistant for this batch) and would batch sparging be a royal PITA for, should i try and hook up the the spinny thing for this one??

The orginal recipe was

lager malt 3kg
Marris Otter 1.75kg
wheat malt 0.25g

66C mash for 90 mins
Boil for 90 mins

cascade 6.8 % AA 80 g at 15 mins

US-56 ale yeast

I've however run out of marris otter i was thinking of upping the lager malt to the required amount ie an extra 1.75 Kg for 5G or 3.5kg for the 10G.
I was thinking of possibly throwing in some crystal 60 to hopfully replace some of what the MO brings to the recipe.
What about 100 or 200g in 10G?
I also have some viennal malt, how might a few 100gs of this in place of the crystal work out.

[mysterio]

I use the same brewery and I regularly do 10 gallons with it (sometimes 11 gallons). The mash tun is limited (in my experience) to 9kg if you want to be safe. However my last beer (hefe) was 10 kilos of grain (11 gallons of 1.052) so I pre-planned and used a second cool box for a couple of kilos of the grain. Once the mash was finished, i ran off the main mash tun giving a little more room to scoop in the contents of the second mash tun. Pretty makeshift but it worked fine. No sparging problems and that was a wheat mash. I've tried to fit 10kgs into the one mash tun before, it was a disaster.

Only thing to watch out for is the lifting, I have to lug a full 10 gallon FV up the stairs once i'm finished which isn't a fun part of the brew day.

Crystal is a totally different flavour to MO, I would go with the Vienna instead.

I might have to try your recipe or something like it delboy, I've still got a kilo of Cascades in the freezer untouched!

[delboy]

Thanks for the pointers mysterio.
Never mind the recipe, you'll have to try your own hopping schedule (80g at 15 mins) im very pleased with it

[mysterio]

I've just ordered some MO & lager malt for this, I've got to get those untouched Cascades used up.

I'm going to go for 160g at 15 minutes for 10 US gallons. How did you find the bitterness at that kind of level? Pretty low?

[delboy]

After seeing your reply i nipped out to the beer cellar (shed) and tried one of the MKII bottles, i think the hop flavour and bitterness is great.
Mk II was a 10 gallon batch as well (U.K. gallons though) with 160g of cascade, i think the hop bitterness is just right IMO, if you like it a bit more bitter then 160 in 10 U.S. should do the job.
TBH its actually quite difficult to discern between the bitterness and the flavour, all i know is though it seems to work brilliantly .

Good luck with the batch.

[mysterio]

Delboy,

Did something similar to your BBQ beer after suggesting the 15 minute Cascade hopping schedule.

Mine went around 45% Maris Otter, 45% lager malt, 5% flaked corn, 5% honey. 1.045, 140g of Cascade at 15 minutes, US-05 yeast.

Filtered it tonight, turned out delicious. Tasty grapefruit/orange flavours. To my tastes, the IBUs came near enough exactly where I wanted them.

All I need now is a barbeque - it has rained every day for the last month or so in Scotland.

[Orkney_Rob]

Since you mentioned the H&G 10 gallon set up...

Is it actually a complete system, or is there anything else that is really needed in addition?

Being pulled in all sorts of directions with plans at the moment, and keep coming back to this set up.....

[mysterio]

It's a complete system, all you really need is three tiers so that gravity can do its job. And some malt and hops of course.

[Orkney_Rob]

Cool - thinking of cool... wort chillers... does it have one of them in the box? I was thinking it may need that and a hop strainer to complete - which just starts getting a bit expensive for this month

Could have used that £35 million lottery win

[mysterio]

Whoops, no it doesn't look like it comes with a chiller. You'll have to shell out £30 for an immersion one or make your own. I'm pretty sure the hop strainer is included - best email them.

[SiHoltye]

Strainers for the MT & Boiler were included in my 10G system from H&G. If you can make an immersion chiller all the better. Brupaks ones are v small in the 10 gallon kit, and don't reach far enough into a 5 gallon brew to cool very quickly in my opinion. I extended the legs on mine so it reaches a little lower, but it still looks too small to do an efficient job.
By my calcs they've used 10 metres of microbore to form their chiller.

There are 20 coils of 12.5mm diameter. Pi x d = circumference (39.28mm) x number of coils = 785.6mm. The other 214.4mm being the legs.

I want a chiller that fits snugly just inside my boiler, and reaches right to the bottom.

I think I'll get 25m of microbre and bend it myself. Anyone done this with success? 8mm or 10mm or bigger? Is 25m enough? I've got a Youngs fermentor that fits inside the H&G boiler with the right space around the edge so as to sugest I could form the coils around it. Can you manipulate this stuff OK? Does it kink real easy?

[Orkney_Rob]

Aye - it's easy enough to bend, the microbore usually comes in coils anyway!

I hadn't thought of using my wee fermenting bin as a former to may a chiller for the 10g set up! But if the strainers are included (I may email em to veriy that at some point) I would probably just buy the leyland one along with my ingredients as that was rumoured to be a much bigger affair... and is cheaper than buying a big coil of copper pipe I think! About £25 for 8mm and £30 for 10mm (25m coils) - although that much copper would make a superb chiller!

[SiHoltye]

http://jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopi ... on+chiller

There's a picture on this page: Leyland left, Brupaks right. In what looks like a H&G boiler.