3kg pale malt
500g crystal malt
Using HERMS system -
Mash schedule:
½ hour @ 40 ̊C beta glucanase/ phytase rest/ debranching
½ hour @ 50 ̊C protease/ peptidase rest
½ hour @ 60 ̊C beta amylase rest
(pH about 4.5 at this point using uncalibrated pH meter, but it read pH7.5 with de-ionised water)
½ hour @ 70 ̊C alpha amylase rest
heated to about 80 ̊C for sugar solubility before sparging with 78 ̊C water down to 2̊ Brix
NB mash liquor and sparge liquor each had 0.4g metabisulphite added (= 1 Campden tablet) to kill chloramine.
HERMS chugging away happily in the garage:
recirculating some rather floury-looking mash liquor at the 40 ̊C stage:
note the use of some little stainless-steel curtain-rail clips (from a well-known Swedish furniture retailer) to hold up the grain bag:
They're in a range called Dignitet, and were £3.45 for a packet of 24 clips and 24 hooks.
After heating the sparge liquor in the second boiler, I moved that Pt100 probe from dangling in the water to the end of the sparging tee, and pumped the sparge water through the tee (spraying back into the boiler) to heat the tee up and make sure the water was at 78 ̊C.
No pics of running-off, sorry.
Sparging:
Pumping the wort back up to the boiler (I don't have to lift the receiving vessel and tip anymore!):
The boil ( 1 hour with 26g 2006 home-grown Hallertau hops and a lidful of Irish Moss) - ran the PID at 101.5 ̊C to actually get a boil - about 1.7 ̊C high compared with the thermometer, but it boiled away with the element going on and off, saving me some electricity I hope:
Stuck the chiller and the bag of late hops (60g 2006 home-grown Hallertau ) in after an hour, waited for it to come back up to temp (about 7 minutes!) and gave it the final 15 minute boil:
Chilling down to 17 ̊C (meant to stop about 25 ̊C:
OG 11̊ Brix = 1044
Pitched SO-4 starter made with wort not sugar, but it only had about 1½ hours to start up, so it wasn't going amazingly fast.
Yes, I know you don't have to do silly temperature steps with modern malt, but this was my first brew with the HERMS, and I wanted to do it because I could
26th of April: racked using the peristaltic pump (edited-in the correct racking picture 28th April):
Still occasional bubbles coming up from the yeast bed.
Racking gravity 5.8̊ Brix = 1023 so between 2.75% and 3.4% ABV at this point.
Tastes pretty good, big aroma hops, lots of malt, big body, not very alcoholic. Need to check FG with hydrometer as refractometer apparently unreliable with fermented beer!
The mash schedule seems to have worked - malty, chewy...
I was inspired by Tony Clarkson's presentation on Pilsner at LAB on the 7th of April. He handed-out a sheet with enzyme groups, functions and temperature ranges, so I had a go.
