Brewday - London Pride clone 17/10/07

[Wez]

Don't you chill in the boiler?

No, I run the wort into a separate bucket. I use an immersion chiller and don't fancy stirring up the hops at the bottom. Not sure if this is right or not but it seemed to work for me.

What I did today which gave me the best results so far in terms of trub trapping is:

Boil
Settle (20 mins)
Carefully drop the IC in
Chill to 20 degrees)
(leave the IC in the boiler)
Transfer to Fermenter

What that did was by settling the hops all dropped to the bottom to form a nice filter bed, I got good cold break by chilling to 20 degrees this was then all filtered out by the hop bed and didn't make it to the FV.

I'm trying to irradicate a haze problem (as I'm sure you'll have read ) so I tried to get rid of as much trub as possible in case it's this that's my problem.

Does that make sense? I've had a beer?

[Buzz]

What that did was by settling the hops all dropped to the bottom to form a nice filter bed, I got good cold break by chilling to 20 degrees this was then all filtered out by the hop bed and didn't make it to the FV.

I was worried that if I put the IC on the hop bed in the boiler, it might be so compacted that the wort wouldn't make it through the hop strainer (you can tell I'm a beginner).

I'm probably going to do a kit next week and try another AG in a fortnight. What you did makes sense and I'll try it that way with my next AG brew. Thanks for the tip.

[Buzz]

Pictures are now here;

http://www.flickr.com/photos/buzybakson ... 81/detail/

[Wez]

Good pics

[Madbrewer]

Buzz - I did that exact recipe and the ESB recipe from GW's later book and was equally impressed with both!

If you like Fullers beers (and my favorite was always Chiswick, in the pub as I like session beers) you could do worse than try and emulate it (Chiswick). My version is basically a 1.036OG version of the recipe your doing though I brew 80 pint batches!

Keep us appraised of how it tastes when it's ready?

well done

Phil

[Vossy1]

Gr8 pics Buzz
That sure is a dirty head on that yeast

[iowalad]

Nice pics. My pride inspired beer is fermenting away nicely. Smells great anway!

[Buzz]

That sure is a dirty head on that yeast

Have I done something wrong? - it's only my second AG and if you were being serious about the yeast head, do you think I'll have a problem?

I transfered it to the secondary fermenter after 4 days and had a quick taste - very cloudy (as expected I guess) but the flavour was awesome.

I'll check on how it's doing again on Sunday evening - that will be 4 days in the primary and 7 in the secondary FV. Should I measure the gravity at this stage to see how it's doing?

[Vossy1]

Have I done something wrong? - it's only my second AG and if you were being serious about the yeast head, do you think I'll have a problem?

No you've done nothing wrong, it was a figure of speech

The dark brown crust on top of the yeast head (aka trub) is quite normal. If you try tasting it it will be very bitter. Some people skim it off to reveal the white yeast head beneath, others simply leave it

You can measure the gravity, now or later it's up to you.
I usually measure it after say 3 days...because I'm curious as to how my brews getting on

[Buzz]

Thanks Vossy, put my mind at rest.

I'll wait until sunday for the measuring but I couldn't resist drawing off another taster just now. Unbelievable Wish I had jumped ship from the kits years ago if this is how my beer is going to taste from now on!