Come on you REDS - a Boston lager (inc pics)

[dogchillibilly]

I brewed this on 23/04, and today finally got off of my behind and posted the details.

I'm quite proud of the name, though the wife didn't get it.

I took a few pics (sorry - not the traditional set and iphone so crapish quality).

For AG22 i thought i'd do a day of firsts.

First use of my new 50l shiney mashtun
First attempt at under letting
First lager
and to top that, the first 50l brew day (normally 23(ish))

Based on Sam Adams Boston Lager from Clone Brews.


Amount Item Type % or IBU
11.50 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (5.9 EBC) Grain 94.26 %
0.70 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (118.2 EBC) Grain 5.74 %
25.00 gm Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [4.00 %] (90 min) Hops 5.3 IBU
160.00 gm Tettnang [4.10 %] (90 min) Hops 31.1 IBU
40.00 gm Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [4.00 %] (15 min) Hops 3.5 IBU
40.00 gm Tettnang [4.10 %] (1 min) Hops 0.3 IBU
8.00 gm Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [4.00 %] (1 min) Hops 0.1 IBU
(White Labs #WLP820) [Starter 1500 ml] Yeast-Lager

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.051 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.060 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.012 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.04 %
Bitterness: 40.3 IBU Calories: 567 cal/l
Est Color: 16.9 EBC Color: Color


First off the setup

Tesco Kettle Element (x2) powered HLT 70l
50l Nordic Thermos for a mash tun - (bottom draining, though i used a standard tank connector with a cut down thread, rather than drill and bolt as i wasnt too fussed about the complete draining)
Gas powered (foker burner) Boiler 70l




Pic of the false bottom in the tun. ( made with 500x500mm sheet of 2mm perf stainless off of ebay, some swearing and some spare tubing). I still need to add legs. For the first run it sat on several pipe off cuts.



Underletting worked - will be doing it again.

First boo boo
Should have got a bigger mash tun.
I fly sparged for the first 5 or 6 ag brews and never hit target OG. Always under or way over. This is because i have an inability to judge the speed of the run off. So i now batch sparge. Always hit OG (at least within a point or 2) as my efficiency is constant at 70%.
I got a bigger tun to enable me to do 2 batches instead of three.
Unfortunately with the grain for the 50l in the tun it looked like i'd need to do 4 batches there was so much of it, so i decided to fly sparge. Later high OG shows i made the run off too slow.

Note the "huck finn" fly sparge setup - coper pipe on an old chopping board.





The Focker burner brought 60l to the boil quickly and the first hop addition went in




90 minutes of boil and a 20 minute steep later i chilled down to 20ish, drained into 2 fermentation vessels and stuck in the "fermentation" chamber with the starters.
OG 1060 - 9 points over.
In the end 47l collected, the large volume of hops fouled the filter keeping a few litres trapped in the boiler.








Chilled down to 10C overnight and pitched on Sunday afternoon and raised to 11c.

I'd read reviews on the WLP820 being a slow arse, and it was - even with a 1.5l starter in each fermentation vessel it took 48 hours for a foam to appear on top.

It took 7 days to drop to 1050 (last Sunday) at which point i raised the temp to 12.5c (guidelines are 11c-14c) to try to hurry it along, and i also gave it a quick rouse.
It must have worked because now (Tuesday) it's at 1040.
Using Brewing Network advise i'll raise it to 14/15 when it gets to 10:20 ish - unless anyone wants to tell me differently.

Also picked up a cheap chest freezer on Sunday (£50 quid off of Ebay). A TC10 has also been ordered (whilst i'm not a birthday person they do come in handy for getting nice things).
As soon as the beer is ready it will be cornie kegged and lagered at 0c for a few weeks, then it will either be hmmmmm lager, or "what went wrong?"
I can also use the freezer to condition ales so it should get plenty of use.

Given so many firsts i am relatively happy, but i'll have to wait a while to see how good it turned out.

[WishboneBrewery]

Nice work there

[DarloDave]

isnt 1.5L of yeast nowhere near enough for 50L? I wouldnt have said thats enough for 50L of ale, nevermind a lager?

[Chunk1234]

Unrelated question about your yeast starters. I can see you've got them going in bottles with air locks fitted to the top? How did you manage that ... I've hunted around for milk bottles because my airlock bungs are just too big for normal sized coke bottles. Is it a specific bottle with a wider mouth or have you found some small bungs somewhere?

Thanks.

[dogchillibilly]

re the bungs - they are "grommets"

Search hop and grape for "AIRLOCK GROMMET".
With a 15mm drill they fit snugly into the lid of a coke bottle.
Have wondered about chemicals leaching into the starter from the plastic bottles, but it's not like i drink the whole starter every day, so not too worried.


re the 1.5l starter.
It was 1.5l per fv - might be a bit low? Any feedback gratefully received as this is all a learning experience, and thats part of the fun.

[DarloDave]

Mr malty says you would have needed a 16litre starter..that cant be right surely? I dont know maybe i'm just talking bollocks

[critch]

i only use a 5 litre starter for a 10bbl brew.....................

works fine with me mate

[bellebouche]

Do you pre-warm the mashtun at all? Reason I ask is that with it being steel and you're using 12+kg of grain... your initial underlet will have to be very hot to bring the ensemble up to mash temp.

[dogchillibilly]

You'd think so. But I used the same temp as I would to preheat my old plastic tun. It worked just fine. Add at 80c. Is approx 66 when all mixed up. Thinking about it the more grain the more water so volume of grain should nt affect final temp. I suspect that the heat I didn't loose sticking the water in an empty tun counteracted the extra heat required to heat the steel. but that would be a guess.

[bellebouche]

I see - I was just thinking about the thermal mass in the mashtun.

All told, I'm liking your system/workflow - it's interesting to see how other people brew. I'd say sticking at refining your flow rate for fly sparging will give you the most benefit but it obviously takes time. I'm fairly carefree with mine and never really have any issues. The odd stuck sparge if I let it flow too quickly but that's more a function of the grind I use.

Does your mashtun have an exit in the bottom? I've seen very similar looking stainless vessels with a small side mounted tap (for catering use - soup and the like!) which I've considered as an upgrade to my 25litre coolbox/copper manifold.

[dogchillibilly]

Does your mashtun have an exit in the bottom? I've seen very similar looking stainless vessels with a small side mounted tap (for catering use - soup and the like!) which I've considered as an upgrade to my 25litre coolbox/copper manifold.

This is a really good example, although i used a tank connector so i didn't have to drill the extra holes. It means when i wash and rinse it i have to turn it upside down to drain it completely, but its only 50l so not a huge deal.

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