first run of new brewery

[Gurgeh]

Had a bash at DE's recipe from the newsletter - a few substitutions were necessary, but there you go.

cock-up one - PID reported a temp about 10C lower than thermometer. I knew this and upped the temp of the strike water but as I was on the phone at the time I still managed to get my mash started at about 55C. The underletting was great though. quite amusing watching the entire grain bill rise up 6 inches in as many seconds

2 kettles, 3 decoctions and another kettle later (20 mins) i had raised the mash temp to 67C. held it at this temp for another 45 mins

batch sparge worked well - though i must admit to judging the measures for the batch sparge by eye and have ended up with too much wort at too low a gravity.

the pump sent the wort back up into the boiler in a jiffy and didn't push the hop filter out - which kind of surprised me! I used DaaBs hop-sock idea around my hop filter and while it performed very well in terms of collecting the break material, it meant the wort left the boiler VERY slowly and i just pitched the yeast into the near empty fermentor, left the taps open to drain the wort onto it and went to bed.

unsurprisingly there was no sign of activity this morning, though the boiler had finished draining properly. I switched around a few of the taps and pumped the wort out of the bottom of the fermentor and back in the top. 15-20 seconds of this and i had to switch off the pump due to the foam. I repeated this after half an hour and will do so again at lunch time and this evening.

I'm fermenting it at 22C after reading the newsletter (ringwood yeast)

For a first go, i'm over the moon. I had feared that something would go really wrong - as it happens, the hardware did exactly as it was told and if the beer is imperfect then it is solely due to my rushed approach and lack of calculation.

I need to figure out how to calibrate my shimaden PID - the auto-tuning feature doesn't seem to do anything. I wonder if it is because i have a thermocouple rated for 250C and the nearest I can configure the PID for is 400C (using dipswitches)

It looks like my strike water needs to be about 76 celsius next time too

[jonnybeer]

Nice one Pete.

j.b.

[Vossy1]

Great work G, glad all went well

[Gurgeh]

Good work there Gurgeh,

it meant the wort left the boiler VERY slowly

I found this the second time I used the hop sock thingy, I think it was partly down to it become tightly wrapped around the strainer and partly because I boiled the wort a lot harder and a fair bit longer before adding the hops.

I'll probably make a t-shaped strainer to stop this happening next time and hopefully H&G will have their nylon straining bags back in stock next time round which I think will be a little less clingy.

Hmm... I agree that it's a 'surface area' related problem. perhaps i might chuck include some small offcuts of copper piping in the sock so that the whole thing is more nobbly.

i found that my main element kept tripping out so i had to boil on the auxiliary one - could this be because the 'sock' may have come in contact with the element?

[Vossy1]

Check for leaks round the back of the element. Sometimes they don't drip but get into the element casing round the back.

Regards the strainer, well worth trying with some stainless mesh, it doesn't collapse as easily.

[Gurgeh]

so the treacle did it... cheers DaaB.

V1 - good idea, i'll have to spend another £1.49 on a satansberry's frying pan splatter guard then

[Vossy1]

V1 - good idea, i'll have to spend another £1.49 on a satansberry's frying pan splatter guard then

I tried a spatter gaurd...it rusted

[redmire fc]

I tied splatter gaurd around my hop strainer the other day, as hops were getting into it when recirculating cooling wort. There was too much surface area for hop bed to filter cold break properly ....may rap around individual pipes next time.

[Gurgeh]

I'd thought that too - just cut the mesh out of the loop and wrap it around. I'm thinking about getting some copper sulphate solution and a battery and electroplating the mesh with copper to stop it rusting so quickly

I reckon i could get one of the nice lab techs to do it for me in exchange for a jar of chutney...

[steve_flack]

I reckon i could get one of the nice lab techs to do it for me in exchange for a jar of chutney...

Is that what they call it down your way?