English special bitter - AGIII 5/1/07

[Frothy]

AG III - English Special Bitter

I’m really pleased, since getting to grips with efficiency calculations (thanks to the page in Jims beer kit) I’m now able to adjust the grain bills in recipes. I adjusted this from a 19L recipe to 23L. Unfortunately I based my calculations on an 80% efficiency and only achieved 69% so it’s turned out a little low on the gravity.

Aim: 23L @ 1.047 & 35IBU
Marris Otter 3.60kg
Flaked Maize 0.50kg
Crystal Malt 0.35kg

N.Brewer 10% 17IBU 17g 60minutes
Goldings 5% 11IBU 29g @ 30minutes
Goldings 5% 7IBU 29g @ 15minutes

First outing for the pump enhanced setup – the Totton has a nice gentle flow rate & although I had some problems with airlocks I found the lower level of the system much easier to work with.


As my equip' has to be portable I've screwed everything to a Frothy brew-bench TM.

The speed-fit filter is hidden behind the HE. It uses a stainless mesh insert which works with hop particles but aparently not break material.

Strike temp 64oc @4L/kg. Temp' reduced to 60.5oc over 1hr mash
Sparge @ 80oc to collect 27.6L (allowing for 20% boil reduction)
Boil 1hr
Result= diluted to 23L @ 1.035
Youngs GP yeast in 300ml starter

cost 15p/500ml
Fermentation schedule: Primary 1week, 2ndary 4weeks, Filter & carbonate

I'm experience large amounts of hot/ cold break - how do you deal with it?
It seems impossible to filter out & can it effect the flavour?

Froth

[Vossy1]

Like the set up Frothy, especially the Frothy Brew Bench

The chiller set up is lovely and compact

I too had problems with airlocks on both my pumps and lowering them like yourself has remidied the situation

Cold break, I also get loads. General opinion is that it makes no difference what-so-ever. I asked this question a while back, there's a link to it somewhere.

I found a good link on the net the other day with some gr8 pic's...I'll try and find it.

That was a late finnish

[DRB]

Boy you must have had an early brew day .

[SteveD]

I expect you're getting a lot of cold break material because by using a plate heat exchanger you're force cooling with such efficiency. It won't make any difference to the ale in itself as most of it is carried up and away by the initial yeast head as trub, and you can skim it off if you want.

However, one possible problem with massive hot and cold breaks is that there is a risk of precipitating TOO MUCH protien out of the wort, which then starves the yeast of those nutrients resulting in poorer yeast performance. As with most aspects of brewing, it's a question of balance. If you're getting poor yeast performance and you suspect that to be the problem, try adding a pinch of yeast nutrient.

[SteveD]

Very tidy Frothy. I'm sure you've mentioned it before but what was the milk churn for?

Yeah..what's it for? At the point where the photo is taken you appear to be pumping from the boiler/HLT into the mash tun? Nice looking set up. Being in the stone age of brewing, I'm still pushing a plastic pipe onto the mash tun 'boiler' tap outlet, which of course softens when it gets hot, and is prone to dropping off at precisely the wrong moment.

[Andy]

I think the photo just shows all the constituent parts of Frothy's setup rather than a snapshot of a brew in progress.

The pipe into the mash tun at the top is frothys sparge input. The milk churn was going to hold chilled water for the therminator (he talked about using a submersible pump in the churn to pump the cold water into the therminator).

I'm sure frothers will give us the full gen when he surfaces....

[Frothy]

Howdy y'all

The milk churn contains 10gal of water and a 1200L/hr pond pump for recirculating through the therminator... still not as efficient as using disposable water but last night I got 23L down to 28oc in about 15minutes.

The setup pumps from the boiler to the M-tun & remains in the same configuration as above for pumping both strike water & then water for the fly-sparge. I tip the wort by hand back into the boiler. When pumping the boiled wort to the fermentor the HE is switched on & the M-tun connect is just swapped to a racking cane.

Steve - will have to see how this fermentation goes. The last AG I got one of the best attenuations yet so fingers crossed.... it's just that my first attempt at this brew had lots of break material and ended up with off-flavours. Do you not have a sparge arm in the M-tun lid? this is just 15mm copper with slots cut in it.

2am finish
Froth