Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby - First AG brew

[Fuse]

Well after brewing from kits off and on over the years and never been quite satisfied with the quality (although the brewferm ones seem to be about the best ive tried) i thought it was about time to make the move onto all grain brewing. I got a boiler for crimbo but havent done anything with it until now, whilst visiting a mate down london area i deicded to swing by the home brew shop in farnborough and got myself kitted out with a mash tun, cooler and all the necessary grains, hops and yeast. I tried this beer at a local beer festival a couple of months back and loved it at the time, so when i saw a recipie for this in Graham Wheelers new book i couldnt resist, the setup was as follows:

Pale Malt - 4.2kg
Crystal - 750g

Hops:
Fuggle - 25g for 90min
Golding - 22g for 90min
Fuggle - 16g for 15 min

As it was my first AG brew it took a bit of time, got going at 11am and done by 5pm - was done by a batch sparge as my fly sparge isnt quite finished yet. I managed to end up with 14L of brew instead of the 19L i had intended resulting in a higher OG of 1.070 as opposed to 1.058 so in theory should end up with a 6.7%'er - i had a taste of the running and i was quite happy with the hoppiness so decided not to dilute to 19L. Yeast as the Danstar Nottingham it was a tossup between this and S04.

I guess the lower volume was due to the vigerous boil i had on and could be sorted by adding some boiled/cooled water to make up the volume? regardless i was happy with the clarity (got a nice cold break but no piccies as i was in a panic at the time and forgot) and taste of the brew so i guess time will tell. Anyway piccies of the process below:

Grain Bill:


The Mash:


First Runnings:


Hop Addition:


Vigerous Boil:


Chiller In:


Cooling:


1.068 Gravity:


Quite a dark brew so here it is held up to the light to see, quite happy with the clarity pre-fermentaion:


Running out into FV, all 14L of it :s


Anyway firt brew out of the way and the cherry popped, defo going to get another one on next weekend and hopefully will learn from the one i did today

[Parva]

Well done! Wait 'till you get to taste it, there's just no comparison.

[Horden Hillbilly]

Well done there, nice to see another chap taking the ag plunge! I'm sure that you will be delighted with your brew, enjoy it!

[mdex]

I did this last wednesday as my 2nd AG brew. I also had problems with the final amount of wort as I left both elements on during the boil.

Its going to be ready for kegging by the weekend. Might transfer to a secondary tomorrow with some gelatine.

[Tequilla6]

Just wanted to say congrats, as I did my first AG brew over the weekend as well , so I know now just how you are feeling and yes fluster was the word I would use to sum up my emotions but now that it's fermenting away I just cannot help having a peak at it and when I do I get a great big grin on my face.

[Fuse]

thanks for the comments guys. Small update, the yeast took off like a rocket (was dry sprinkled on top of the wort) and looks like i have 14L of beer and 14L of head on it yesterday:

From the outside, kept in the bath just in case of overflows


inside:


Those were taken last night, tonight the heads died down and ive just had the hydrometer in it, and its at 1.014 already and still visibly "fizzing" the smell is amazing very fruity/chocolatey/caramel not too dissimilar to something like Chimay Premiere, you can definately get the alcoholo whiff from it as well. Hopefully this is going to be a good drinker, but definately going to have to be in moderation as id based my calcs on it reaching 1.015 and its on its way well below that!

[Capper20]

I'm thirsty now after reading this!

Would be interested in what you think when you get to drink some of it.

[Fuse]

ok so this got put into a secondary FV with some sugar and bottled this evening - the FG measued was 1.011 giving me and ABV of 7.9% but took about 15 days to stop fermenting. Had a quick taste when bottling (as you do ) tasted pretty good but definately a little harsh still at the moment vut definately drinkable a nice liquorish aftertaste to it - if it mellows out a bit in the bottles will definately be a nice drink. For my first AG im pretty happy and it is currently perfectly clear

[WishboneBrewery]

good stuff, looks a nice colour

[flytact]

Looks fantastic and welcome to the AG club!
6 hours for the first AG is not bad at all, I think that my technique is very honed and I'm looking at 5 to 5 1/2 for a 10 gallon brew.

[Tequilla6]

Took a sup of this brew whilst at the Cambridge beer festival and loved it. Guess I need to add this to my list of brews now.

[Fuse]

slight thread ressurection and an update, well after 2 weeks in bottles - we opened some at the weekend whilst having a BBQ, purely to check the progress you understand pint was lovely very nice to drink, we had to open another half dozen or so just to make sure they were all as nice and im glad to say they were, ½ pint pic:



I had also done a Deuchars IPA clone from the same book the week after. It was only fermenting for 3 days before it was bottles and after a further 7 days in the bottle it looked like these beauties:



these tasted pretty good as well, a nice 4.5% brew - much better than the real thing imho - especially after the S&N boys have played about with the recipie and changed it for the worse!

[WishboneBrewery]

nice, I hope my Extract version comes out as nice looking

[Tequilla6]

Resurrect away, Always nice to get a glimpse of the end product and very nice it looks too.

Well Done Fuse.

[Fuse]

cheers guys, you wont be dissapointed by this brew pdtnc the only problems your gonna have is the bottles dissapearing too quick, i only have 10 left now lol thankfully the IPA id proving a distraction or it would be all done by now.

defo going to get this one going again this weekend - may push the boat out and try 2 brews in 1 day!