Bloody 'ell pdtnc, that's a bit awsome, I got the impression you were a bit serious!
I'll stick to my 570UZ for now, it's a bloody sight easier than my Canon stuff which sits on the shelf and gathers dust coz it's too complicated and heavy!!
Anyway, on with the day:
I must have had some sort of mental seizure last night because I thought I would have another two brew day after all. I must have that brick between my ears adjusted.. It turned out to be a bit of a lesson...
Up at 06:30 to get the boiler and HLT on.
07:15 With grist already in the tun, I underlet 18L of liquor at 78C. (Later Addition: Damn, I've got that book on the shelf Pants, looks like it's time to read it properly!!) It does need a bit a gentle doughing in but it seems easier than pouring the grist into the water, any lumps are easily broken up. So I think I will be doing this all the time now.
The liquor coming up:
Here's some chalk for all of you that don't need to deal with it:
07:30 All stable at 66C, so RIMS on.
09:30 Increase RIMS to 76C to mash out - I've never tried this before but it seems to go well.
09:20 Mash at 76C, begin drain HLT at 61L so down to 41L
This is the hop filter I am starting with:
There are no real "first runnings" with RIMS, but this is the start of the drain:
09:40 Boiler burner on
09:50 Boiling with 19L collected so far
10:00 Stop sparge water with 25L collected, drain OG still at 1.020 (at ~75C)
10:05 Draining water 1.014, 28L in boiler
10:10 Finish draining tun with OG=1.004 (~75C). Ended up with 33L. Total drain/sparge time is 50 mins
2nd. 3rd and 4th hops:
11:10 Boiler now has 25L, getting a bit low so I add boiling water to get up to 28.5L. The sample I took at the beginning of the boil is OG=1.066 at 27C in 33L.
11:40 Second hops
11:50 Third hops
12:00 Burner off. The hops... If it wasn't for the sodding great big extractor fan, I would be wafted away to....
This is what I like to see, lots of empty bags:
12:15 Boiler temp has dropped to ~85C, forth hops in, recirculation on without cooling
12:30 Boiler temp ~75C, start cooling, the idea is to cool and aerate, leaving the hops and trub in the middle. I said the idea is......
12:40 Boiler temp now 25C, rest without recirculation
13:15 Start gravity drain. Ah...Murky as hell and it does not seem to want to clear - buga!
In the end I got about 21L at 1.076 in the FV; should have been 1.061. The boiler measured 25L before I started draining so I lost about 4L in the boiler and wet hops.
Oh look, NO cone of hops and trub (before I made a hole in it):
I am thinking that I got the cold drop while cooling and re-circulating so the trub just got broken back up again. Time to find out how to get rid of a serious protein haze!
The smell is wonderful and the taste - ohh nice, extremely sweet, but not too harsh, even at this stage. Definitely a hop bomb, but currently a thick broth hop bomb!!
Later note: I have just realised - I forgot the copper finings....buga!
In the meantime and in complete contrast I am going to do a lower strength golden single varietal, "Progress" (somewhat inspired by Ollosson's" Jemma"):
About 10:30 clean out tun and put 6000gm of Pale malt in.
10:50 Underlet again but get carried away, putting 25L in instead of 16L - buga! Wrong valve, operator cock-up again... Remove about 8L with jug. Incredibly, the mash ends up at 66C so I start the re-circulation.
12:50 Slowly drain tun into underback (spare FV!) while boiler is busy with the Euro APA
13:20 Put the 8L back into the tun. RIMS it to 66C and let it run
14:20 Start drain and sparge into the cleaned boiler with the remaining HLT liquor, underback tipped into boiler
14:30 Boiler temperature ~55C, burner on
14:45 I've ended up with 31L, with OG=1.036 at 62C. This will give 1.053 at 20C which is a lot higher than I want for this one, add 4L cold water.
15:00 Boiling with first hops in, 100gm of Progress
16:15 Just going out to do the second hops (50gms of progress) and COPPER FININGS!!
16:30 Burner off
16:50 Boiler temperature 85C, steep hops in (50gms of progress)
17:10 Boiler temperature 73C, start slow re-circulation with cooling
17:30 Stop re-circulation at 35C for a rest - currently murky
After half an hour or so, much better than last time, but look at the OG!, this is supposed to be a mid strength easy drinking beer!!
The hops left in the boiler. Not much sign of trub....
This was the filter I was using this time:
So lessons for today are:
Underletting is good.
Mashing out with RIMS works well, but I don't know if it actually makes a difference.
There is a lot going wrong with my ideas on whirlpool cooling.
Don't forget the COPPER FININGS.
It really is about time to allow for much higher efficiencies, but xmas is going to be good.
Try not to forget which valve does what.
RIMS can get you out of a hole very nicely.
It might not be the best idea to design recipes to use whole packets of hops.
(But it does the world of good for the sinuses!)
Two-Brew days = half the cleaning up, but three times the anguish.
Don't keep sampling the PWB while you are trying to put up a post...
