My 1st AG - Birch Tree Ale (some more pictures)

[ChrisG]

Hi everyone,

As promised here's how it all went.

It was a very early start at 6am. Set the equipment up the night before and set the timer for the mash water to start heating up earlier. This worked well.





Recipe:

4400g Pale Malt
540g Crystal Malt
300g Wheat
45g Challenger Hops in at 90mins
20g Goldings Hops in at last 15mins
10g Goldings Hops in at boiler off

Started the mash at 6:20am and hit the correct temperature after the grains were mixed in. At this point it was smelling amazing.







Sparge water at a good temperature.



Mash tun all wrapped up.



Tested the temperature at 23min and it had dropped so I added a bit more hot water. Great wee timer from the pound shop and guess what it was £1!



Transferring sparge water.





First runnings









Second runnings





After temperature correction I stopped at 1.008



Spent grains



Bringing it to a boil at 8:55am and first hops added









Second hops and final 10g (10:10am), chiller positioned, had a problem here with the hose coming loose so I had to keep an eye on it.







Running the cooled wort into my fermentation bin.





Couldn't seem to get anymore from the boiler but quite a bit left, finished at 11:30am.



Nice colour



Ended up with 19L of brew at 1.044, probably could have diluted it a bit but why bother. Next time I'll need more water and grains.

I had a really good morning and the smells were great, think the whole street knew someone was brewing.

Big thank you to every one here for helping me get started, without your advice I would never have become a craft brewer. Fingers crossed the brew tastes good!!!!

Cheers

Chris

[Jim]

Nice work, Chris.

[Grahame]

Looks like a great brewday mate, when you taste the results you will never go back to kits again!

G.

[Garth]

great looking first brewday Chris, well done

[Dennis King]

well done that man, welcome to the world of AG I`m sure you will gagging for the next one.

[Bru4u]

Well done Chris,
you have passed the leap of faith, I'm only about two weeks ahead of you and kegged my second session today,( I put the first down to learning the system, goood but very hoppy, it can condition away for a few months, )sweet jesus it tastes fantastic, no more kit taste, just fantastic beer, again well done.
regds
Bru

[Andy]

Superb, well done that man!

Bet you're knackered now, a brewday is really tiring!

[adm]

Good job mate,

Finished by lunchtime as well - right result!

It's not as hard to actually do as it is to read/think about is it?

[prolix]

Greta day it seems will be even better the day you drink it!

Loved the photos a nice bit of brew porn.

Thats what I have to do tomorrow get a brew on

[Vossy1]

Well done CG, gr8 pics

[highwayman]

Fantastic Chris,

I am well pleased for you..and no cock ups!!!

I'm not that far in front of youeither...will be making my third next Thursday or Friday depends when my order arrives Thanks to my friends on here it will be Kolsch!!!

Wait until you taste it mate! Whats more...wait until your mates/neighbours taste it!! Thats when the real buzz kicks in


Steve

[adm]

Highwayman's right.....the first time that you have your mates round and they have a few pints....


The compliments start like this:

"Well, that's not as bad as I thought it would be"

Then move on to:

"Actually, that's pretty nice, I'll have another"

Then:

"Blimey, that beer's really rather good"

To:

"Outstanding beer mate - how do you do it again?"

[ECR]

Excellent photographs - looks like you had a marvellous day

[fivetide]

Nice one Chris.

[adm]

Maybe one tip for next time:

Once you're finished chilling, remove the chiller, put the lid on and wait 20-30 minutes (to allow trub to settle) before running off to FV. Then put the first litre or so of run off back into the FV ( collect in a sanitised jug).....should give you a clearer wort.

Welcome to the world of great beer!