Jonny's 1st Mini Mash

[CyberPaddy66]

Woohoo!

The Mrs just asked me what was going on in this thread

[roger the dog]

Great pictures Jonny, looks like you've got the process nailed, next step - get that credit card out & move up to 5 gallon brewing

[mb]

Also my hob is having a bit of trouble getting a really good boil going on, it's more of a rolling simmer which I think might be inhibiting the hot break? It's an electric hob so maybe it's not up to the job?

i used to have the same issue with my hob when mini-mashing, it didn't seem to be a problem though - the beer ended up good enough for me to decide 4.5L wasn't enough of it and i had to buy a boiler it certainly is a slippery slope.

[jonnyv]

Right i've started my 2nd mini mash this evening.

I'm using the recipe delboy posted a few days ago for DL's London Pride. I couldn't find the torrified wheat in my LHBS but the rest of the recipe is there I think. I divided the recipe down from here


A few changes from the first AG yesterday:
- Instead of using foil, I drilled several dozen 2mm holes into the lid of the 5L fermenting bucket and use that to sparge with. I cut the lugs off the inner fermenter so it's sitting right on top of the tap now.

- The bruheat boiler I have doesn't actually boil. It gets temps up to about 80 degrees but that's it :/ It seems as though the thermostat is cutting the element out too early and I'm not sure why so I'll be using the hob again, but a different ring this time.

- I'll still use the boiler to do the hop filtering since I've got a hop filter on it now and my seive didn't do a great job yesterday

The boil is now on, the other hob ring is doing a much better job.

[ECR]

Sounds good, hope it's going OK

[jonnyv]

All done and in the fermenting bucket. If only I could brew more than 5L then I could stock up easily for summer at this rate!

Five hours this time but better than yesterday's 6.5 hour brew

Just one minor mishap this evening - I thought it a good idea to fill some empty bottles with water and freeze them to help the cooling of the wort in the sink. Remind me not to use thin bottles next time - they split and shatter very easily when placed in a sink

One quick question about immersion chillers. I bought 10m of 10mm copper tubing and wrapped round a demijohn - the only problem is that I don't know how to connect it to my taps in the kitchen. We don't have an outside tap with a hosepipe type connection Any ideas?

[jonnyv]

Cool thanks for the info - I guess I could get such a thing at somewhere like Focus or B&Q.

All I need now is a 5 gallon mash tun (cool box jobby) and a boiler that boils and I'm all set for some proper AG.

The thing that annoyed me about the boiler I have is that it has an usual kettle plug from the element that goes into the thermostat - but it has a notch on the connector so I can't just plug a kettle lead from a wall socket to the element (bypassing the thermostat). I guess there's probably a reason for this which eludes me.

Thanks for all the help - it's been a busy two days

[Chris B]

One other tip with the imersion chiller you have made. If you want to connect a hose pipe direct to the chiller from the tap, go to B&Q or your local plumbers merchant and get a yorkshire type fitting reducer 15mm -10mm and solder this to the inlet to your chiller and then the hose will be a snug push fit over the reducer.

Chris

[jonnyv]

The notched ones are rated at 10a, the un-notched ones apparently aren't. Proper kettle leads (ie not pc/printer leads) will fit.

There is no need to by pass the thermostat, if it works correctly turning it up to max will have the same effect and it will be on constantly.

Ah right, it is by design then, not just to irritate me I only have pc kettle leads in the house

Must be something wrong with the thermostat because with it turned right up to max it still only clicks on for about 20 seconds then turns off for a minute+. It does make good sparge/mash water tho

I wonder if taking it apart might help

[jonnyv]

I'll give the element another clean with some wire wool and see if that does the job. I thought it was the thermostat but maybe it's the thermal cut out in the element as you've suggested.

Will let you know if it works

[awalker]

Or some citric acid if you have some, I am sure I have seen some one on here do the same.

My element always gets a really good clean after each use now.
As this 80oc cutout always used to get me when I didnt clean it properly.

[Wez]

Or some citric acid if you have some, I am sure I have seen some one on here do the same.

My element always gets a really good clean after each use now.
As this 80oc cutout always used to get me when I didnt clean it properly.

Same here, most of my brews now are evening brews so the following night I take out the elements and clean them up, it's a 10-15min job thats well worth doing.

[jonnyv]

Ok thanks for the tip - I'll look out for some citric acid, the LHBS had some but it was quite expensive - I think chemists sell it cheap?

I managed to get the hozelock tap adapter and a hosepipe for the IC, just need a reducer to get it connected up fully.

Just checked the gravity on my first AG, 1010 already It only went in the demijohn on Saturday evening!

[jonnyv]

OMG - I just tasted the trial jar sample - it's fantastic! A little warm and flat at the moment but the flavour and aroma surpasses anything I've brewed with kits!

I'm well impressed - there I was thinking all the effort wasn't worth it - I was so wrong!

[roger the dog]

I think chemists sell it cheap?

I got some a couple of weeks ago, 72p for 50g