Whitbread Best - 28/11/08

[coatesg]

Mash in on this. Using water treatment after managing to measure my alkalinity successfully! 40L: 36ml CRS, 4g-ish gypsum, 9.5g-ish CaCl.

Grain bill as follows - adapted from Ollorson's recipe:

3.7kg Maris Otter
165g Crystal

Mash at 66C for 90min - just about to sparge. pH bang on with the treatment from the looks of it.

The hop schedule on this is a little odd - Olloson has:

WGV (4.5%) - 7g
Target (8.7%) - 32g
Styrian Goldings (3.7%) - 4g
Styrian Goldings (15min) - 9g

for 26IBU - I reckon it would be somewhat higher than that though - so doing:

WGV (8.7%) - 8g
Target (9%) - 16g
Styrian Goldings (3.9%) - 4g
Styrians (15min) - 9g

For 29IBU or so.

Dry hop 2g Styrians in keg.

[coatesg]

Few Piccies from tonight

First - the water alkalinity testing stuff... must have worked well as the mash was bang on 5.2 and efficiency up too I think!



New redesigned hop strainer - single pipe, hammered flat at the end with 27 3mm holes drilled on the underside - the old hop stopper was full of old crud that I couldn't clean away, and it left a fair bit of deadspace in the boiler.



Bittering hops (Target, WGV, Styrians):



Just coming to boil:



Successful brew! Note the very small amount of liquid left in the copper - redesign works well, though I need to recirc a little more before the hops settle into a filter bed.




Ended with 23L at 1038 - ptiched a 150ml lump of Hopback yeast that has been in the fridge for about 3-4 weeks - I ran some cooled wort into it during the boil to check it. wasn't sure at first, but after a while it started to show signs of life (hiss when uncapping the Schott bottle it was in) so I whacked it in the brew (lets hope that all is well with that...).

I'll dry hop with a couple of grams of Styrians for 4-5 days when I rack it to the keg.

[prolix]

looks good G. Glad the new hop strainer is doing the do, dead space in the boiler is a pain

[coatesg]

Ferment has kicked off - 20 hours after pitching I have a big fluffy top in the FV and almost no trub chucked up either compared to previous brews which is brilliant - one of the cleanest heads I've had I think.

[Horden Hillbilly]

Looking good Graeme, nice one!

[adm]

Nice one!

What's that going into your FV? Is it a heater?

[coatesg]

Yup - it's an old Boots demijohn heater for wine. It has a slot for an airlock, and it sits in a hole I made in the lid of the FV. It's essentially a fishtank heater with airlock, and it's connected to the "heat" output of the ATC800.

Works well - though it would be nice to have a heater for the FV that would mean I could get a completely airtight seal (though, I'd need a better way of getting the temperature probe in the beer and having that airtight (which it currently isn't!!). Still, not had too much issue - CO2 prouced in the ferment seems to blanket the beer nicely anyhow).