Extract brew - "Gold Finger"

[BrewerBen]

Seeing as this is my first post it may as well be a brew day, so here's what im Brewing:

23 L
3.6 KG Muntons Pale Malt Extract.
250g Crystal malt.
250g Torrified Wheat.
250g Golden Syrup.
60g Goldings (60 min boil).
30g Goldings (15 min boil).
10g Goldings (thrown in at end of boil).
1tsp Irish moss.
S04 Yeast.

OG Estimate 1.051

Its loosely based on the 'Bishops Finger' recipe in the Clone Brews book, except id uses 100% goldings hence naming it Gold Finger.Photo's to follow.

[BrewerBen]

Ingredients:



Treated water (only just fitted the tap - it makes life so much easier):



Steeping Grains:

[BrewerBen]

Spent grains:



Extract from grains:

[BrewerBen]

Topped up with water and almost boiling:



Hops in and almost boiling over:

[BrewerBen]

Second lot of hops with the irish moss:



Third lot of hops at gas off:



Cooling (after moving the stock pot to another room so i can feed the hosepipe through the window):



Cooler having done its job:

[BrewerBen]

Now this is where i ran into problems, the stock pot hasn't got a tap so it was a case of pouring 14 litres of wort through a rather small sieve. Needless to say i got some hop bits in the fermentor. I did the same last time and ended with bottles beer 'with bits'. This time i had a second fermentor sanitised and ready and transfered it from one to the other sieving again, which also seemed to airate it nicely:



Gravity reading dead on 1.050, a bit cloudy though:



Now for a hard earned pint of the last brew, bits and all:



The dried yeast was sprinkled strainght into the fermentor at 23c so now its just wait and see. I am hoping for arounf 5% for this brew. So thats my brew day done, any hits/tips/criticisms on what i did our didnt do will be welcomed.

[BrewerBen]

Here's what it looks like this morning:

[StrangeBrew]

Looking good BB, nice pics too! Hope it turns out well! Keep us posted.

What size stock pot is that, 14ltr or more?

[BrewerBen]

hi StrageBrew, yes its a 14 ltr stock pot. I wasn't sure wether the cooker could take a 25 litre pot on it so i stuck with the 14 and top the fermentor up with water to the brew length

[Madbrewer]

Nice pictures - as I only ever did two extract brews, I was curious to see other peoples set ups. Have often thought about doing smaller experimental brews as quick 'extract-jobs' just never got around to it.

Where did you get the name from? Are you attempting to emulate the FFF breweries cask cond lager of the same name?

(edit) doh just read your original post again ... Bishops finger etc

cheers

[subsub]

If you're worried about bits of hops in your beer and you don't have a strainer just use hop bags. They're available from most homebrew stores

*edit Nice pictures btw

[leigh1919]

nice post fella.

[BrewerBen]

Well the brew has been in the fermentor for 2 weeks now, unfortunately the fermentation has stopped at 0.020. I pitched some fresh yeast a few days ago but still no drop in the gravity. I'll try to get down to the home brew shop today and buy some Yeast-Vit to see if that helps. Ill also rack it off the sediment as its been in there for 2 weeks.

[BrewerBen]

Well i ended up using a packet of dry beer enzyme and ended up with the gravity below:



It's certainly not the tastiest beer ive done but it's still drinkable.

[BrewerBen]

Well here it is, not really gold and not my best but drinkable and suprisingly smooth for 6.2%:



This is now officially my last extract brew as ive just tasted my fist all grain. It was worth the move.