Hillbilly Pilsner Brewday

[Horden Hillbilly]

All done & dusted now, I had a 5:00am start! Here are some pics for you.



Big Bertha in action for the 1st time, heating the mash water.



Mash stirred & doing a temp check, hit 66c.



Doesn't it look cosy!



P.H. check.





3 tier sparge set up, spinny in mash tun lid.




I think this is known as a violent boil! The hops have just been added & it is time to switch one of the elements off.





Wort cooler in action.



Aerating the wort, now where did I put that yeast sachet!

It looks like the "Low effiency syndrome" which a few of you have already had has struck me as well, O.G. was 1038 instead of the expected 1042! It's a good job that Mrs H likes a light Pilsner. Oh well, every cloud has a silver lining!

Here is the link to the recipe.

[oblivious]

Early start, nice work

[AT]

Great pics, that is a serious boil

[Grot]

5 AM start, that's dedication!

[BlightyBrewer]

That mash liquor looks lost in that boiler!

Good job. What was your efficiency?

[Jim]

Nice work, HH.

Re the efficiency, did you use Hop and Grape marris otter, by any chance? That's what I was using when I got my low extract the other week (though I'm not saying it's their fault - all suppliers seem to be affected).

I reckon I need to set my efficiency to about 70% from now on, until matters improve.

[J_P]

Looking good there HH.

I prop my HLT up on an S&N crate too

[Horden Hillbilly]

Good job. What was your efficiency?

I haven't got a clue! I still work out my recipes the old fashioned way, on a calculater!

I estimated 1042 based on 79% effiency & I ended up with an actual og of 1038, so as a guestimate I reckon mid 70's maximum. Perhaps some could work it out please!

Re the efficiency, did you use Hop and Grape marris otter, by any chance?

The malt was Pilsner & I did get it from H&G. Judging by This thread it does seem to be common, so it does point towards the malt rather than our brewing techniques. I have stuck to my tried & tested methods for years now. As I mentioned on the post I made on This Page it has happened to me before a few years ago.

[Horden Hillbilly]

Assuming 23L

Pilsner Malt 2784g. = 35.8
Carapils Malt 398g. = 4.6
Flaked Maize 398g. = 5.4
Brewing Sugar 398g. = 5.2

potential 1052, actual 1038

efficiency 38/52 x 100 = 73%

(Using Wheelers figures from Homebrewing, CAMRA guide)

Cheers DaaB!

[Vossy1]

Great work HH
I bet that nice clean boiler won't look so clean for much longer

[Wez]

Nice one HH

I thought that 3rd pic was of the Christmas Turkey till I scrolled down a bit more

[delboy]

Assuming 23L

Pilsner Malt 2784g. = 35.8
Carapils Malt 398g. = 4.6
Flaked Maize 398g. = 5.4
Brewing Sugar 398g. = 5.2

potential 1052, actual 1038

efficiency 38/52 x 100 = 73%

(Using Wheelers figures from Homebrewing, CAMRA guide)

Would the brewing sugar not be propping HHs efficency up since its always going to give 100 %.
From his grains etc his efficency is more like
52-5.2 = 46.8 is 100 %, his actual being 38-5.2 = 32.8
therefore 32.8/46.8 * 100 = 70 %

Personally i'd be happy with 70 %, my last few brews have been lower than that. I haven't bothered to work it out but im probably in the mid 60s

[iowalad]

Nice one HH.

[Horden Hillbilly]

Here's my take on it now I have worked it out. I use Brewing Sugar rather than Granulated & I used the Dextrose Monohydrate figure of 319 in my calculation from Graham Wheeler's "Home Brewing"

Based on 23L.

Pilsner Malt 2784g =35.584
Carapils Malt 398g =4.894
Flaked Maize 398g =5.375
Brewing Sugar 398g =6.934

Potential 1052.787, actual 1038.

Effiency 38/52.787 x 100 = 71. 987

Therefore I reckon I hit 72% effiency based on my figures.

I intend to brew my house bitter in a few weeks time. It does not use sugar I normally base it on 79% effiency & I am usually near enough, I will change the recipe to either 73% or 74% effiency to see what happens.

Here is the link to my house bitter recipe, the second one down on the page.

[delboy]

Going on your figures above HH if you take the sugar out of the equation you only get 67.75 % of the sugars up for grabs from the grains and adjuncts.

If i was hitting those figures and i was looking to do an all grain brew next i'd be dropping my likely efficency down to at least 70 % or even less. After all its always easy to dilute it back down if you do buck the recent trend and get better efficencies and get above the expected SG.