AG No4 Pendle Witches Brew

[scarer]

After talking to one or two of the guy's from the forum at the weekend in Derby I was given the idea of brewing beers using just one hop variety to get an idea which hops are to your taste and what the particular charactaristics are of that variety so being new at all this I thought that was a jolly good idea

So today I'm brewing this:

5.200kg Pale Malt (MO)
250g Crystal Malt
190g Flaked Maize

Mashed at 66C for 90 mins (75% Efficiency prob get nearer 80% though)

63g Fuggles 4.2%AA 90 mins
20g Fuggles 4.2%AA 15 mins

Total boil 90 mins (15% Evaporation Rate)

Gervin English Ale Yeast x 2

Hopefully I'll end up with 23 Litres at least in the FV of 1053 loveliness.



I'm 25 mins into the boil at the moment and with a pre boil gravity of 1053 and 32 litres in the boiler I'm going to be diluting the post boil wort and getting a bit more than the 23 Litres I had aimed to get.

I'm using a Graham Wheeler recipe with the hops trimmed down from 97g to 63g partly because of the bitterness confusion with Mr Wheeler's recipes and various software applications but mostly because I haven't got enough Fuggles to do 97g!!

Anway, should be ok as according to BeerAlchemy this will give me 35 IBU's which is fine for me.

What I am going to try different this time is to half put the lid on the Burco about half way through the boil to try to slow down the evaporation rate, just to see if it works really. I know this isn't recommended practice but I'm going to try anyway

[Vossy1]

Glad all's going well scarer
I like Fuggles...a lovely hop IMO.

That was good advice they gave you. I did exactly the same thing when I started brewing, it's a great way of knowing which hops you like and spotting hops in other beers

[scarer]

Thanks guy's

All the hops have gone in now, and some irish moss. Timer has just gone off so switching off........


Gonna let it settle for 20 mins or so then I will get the chiller going.

I thought this was a good one to try as it's a bit stronger than my previous brews and slightly more bitter. I also really kept my eye on the mash temp this time as well. I didn't want it to drop from 66C much, again for learning purposes.

[scarer]

Cooling down nicely.

Just checked the Gravity with a refractometer and it was 15.2 Brix which is 1060.

I will have to dilute with some filtered tap water to get it to 1053 as I thought I would. I must be getting better efficiancy than 75% then

[prodigal2]

Scarer, it looks like a good day was had
Single hop beers are a great learning curve, and help you so much to understand the beers that you have out and about.

BTW are you a live or studio humhed?

[scarer]

humhed?

[scarer]

Because I've had to dilute using 4 Lts water the IBU has gone from 35 to 28.

I know my average mash efficiency now so I can use this to get a more accurate grain bill to hopefully cut out the dilution stage. I also need to double check the markings on my FV.

The beer will turn out fine but I need my calculations to be more accurate for future brews.....must write that down somewhere

[prodigal2]

humhed?

Sound engineer

[scarer]

Ahh, thought that's what you meant



Both

[ECR]

Sounds like it went well