Brewday 2 - Brakspear special

[EportJake]

Second brewday, hoping to iron out some of the problems I had last time.

Brakspear special (21L)

Pale Malt - 3.75kg
Crystal - 0.13kg
Black - 0.05kg

Challenger 60gm (90 mins)
Fuggles and Styrian 5 gm each (15min)

Treacle and sugar 0.22kg each (10 min)

Thames valley Wyeast 1.3L

Ok, mash went well this time and stayed a constant 66 degC. Less adjustment necessary and I collected exacly the right amount; 28L. My mash tun lauters a handy 14L per batch.

Prepared boil ingredients:

Time for some dinner. Homemade King prawn Laksa and a pint. I may be a learner brewer but I am a master Laksa maker. If your into spicy Indonesian noodle curry get onto this stuff. Its the bollocks!:

I added some hot wort to my treacle/sugar and it liquified well and went into the boil a treat. Then came the curse of the H+G hop strainer. Several blockages followed by a surge of flow that brought a great torrent of cloudyness with it. The consequence was about an inch of matter in my FV:

Looks like I might be siphoning this brew out as the trub may be covering the tap! I got 1.044 on the gravity this time; much closer to my target. I cultivated 2L of yeast 4 days before and took 2 X 330ml bottles for future use. The remaining 1.3L was pitched:

All in all relatively successful. I have made one final alteration to my hop strainer; I drilled 3mm holes in the top side. If this doesnt work its getting binned:

This time was far less of a hassle and I managed to fit in a couple of extra tasks, including a drive to Roger the Dog's to get a replacement King Keg lid (thanks) and to keg my Briars Best which is smelling and looking fine. Any comments or advice is welcome. Gonna go for a nice belgian style ale next if anyone has a good recipe. Bring on the next brew!

[Jim]

Great pics; I reckon that recipe will make a lovely pint - that's my kind of bitter.

You'll be able to chuck those cans of John Smith's smooth in the bin when that's ready.

[EportJake]

Cheers Jim. My excuse for the John Smiths is I won them in a raffle. It was either a can of that or a bottle of Grimbergen double which is 6.5%. My missus comes home and sees me having that with my dinner and she wil be starting to think i'm an alky.

[Jim]

Cheers Jim. My excuse for the John Smiths is I won them in a raffle. It was either a can of that or a bottle of Grimbergen double which is 6.5%. My missus comes home and sees me having that with my dinner and she wil be starting to think i'm an alky.

Heh! Drinking sub-standard beer is permitted if you got it for free.

[roger the dog]

Nice work Jake, I'm looking forward to trying this one

[Flaming Barrel]

Nice one mate. I am planning to try the brakspear special next time out.
Ive got the wyeast 1275, i was wondering why you pitched the amount you did.
Also I have a very similar hop strainer that didn't work at all during last brew, if you could post & let us know how your new holes work i'd be very grateful.
Good Work! Thanks.

[Dennis King]

My excuse for the John Smiths is I won them in a raffle.

Was getting worried about you

[EportJake]

Nice one mate. I am planning to try the brakspear special next time out.
Ive got the wyeast 1275, i was wondering why you pitched the amount you did.
Also I have a very similar hop strainer that didn't work at all during last brew, if you could post & let us know how your new holes work i'd be very grateful.
Good Work! Thanks.

Ok, I used the Mr Malty pitch rate calculator. http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html
Put in 21L @ 1.044 and you get 1.4 L of yeast, which is about what I pitched. Be a week or so till I do my next brew so I'll update on the hop strainer then, but I advise you at least make the mod I did as it blocks real easy (I've only done 2 brews but its blocked both times). Good luck mate!

[EportJake]

My excuse for the John Smiths is I won them in a raffle.

Was getting worried about you

It was either John Smiths, Smirnoff Ice or a big box of chocolates. Christ I'm digging a hole now. . I'm sure my taste will be refined the more brewing I do although my waistline may suffer as I adjust.