First brew day - a success I think?

[leedsbrew]

nice one matey!

[onelegout]

Looks great : ) I'm from Chichester!

[saxon]

I had read of this technique to avoid disturbing the grain bed when doing the vorlauf. I just put lots of holes in the foil and sat it on top of the mash.

sorry dont get me wrong but isnt a sparge arm for doing that job ?? i tried the tin foil method and you dont get a grat extraction from the grain i increased my extraction my 10% using a proper sparge arm

[GeordieBrewer]

Hi Geordie Brewer,

the hop strainer was straightforward in the end. I bought a female connector from Wickes to replace the locking nut that was there before, and then inserted a piece of 15mm copper pipe into the compression fitting, drilled with lots of holes.

I think this was the one:

http://www.wickes.co.uk/compression-fem ... vt/424900/

This is how it ended up looking:



Hope this helps

Nice one! Cheers! Ordering a connector as we speak! Will save a fortune on hop bags

[pswillies]

I'm a fan of Gem, so might give this a go in future. Keep us updated with how it turns out!

[Underthethumb]

Quick update - fermented down to 1.010 after 12 days. Have bottled it tonight and reckon i'll get 4.8% which is exactly what Bath Gem is when bought in the bottle.

Tastes OK if a bit raw at the moment, so will leave in secondary for a week or so and then leave to condition. Have a bottle of the real stuff put aside to compare it with.

Fingers crossed

[Andy]

I had read of this technique to avoid disturbing the grain bed when doing the vorlauf. I just put lots of holes in the foil and sat it on top of the mash.

sorry dont get me wrong but isnt a sparge arm for doing that job ?? i tried the tin foil method and you dont get a grat extraction from the grain i increased my extraction my 10% using a proper sparge arm

The "vorlauf" is the recirculation of the initial mash runnings back into the mash until some clarity is achieved. The tinfoil stops the recirculated wort disturbing the grainbed and preventing what you'll looking to achieve i.e. clarity of wort exiting the mash tun. This is NOT the same thing as sparging, vorlauf happens (if a brewer bothers) before the sparge starts.

[Underthethumb]

Final update.

Tastes pretty good after leaving to condition. Only problem is that I have a whole keg full of kit beer left to get through - nice problem i suppose.

AG2 finished this Saturday, so onwards to AG3

[simco999]

Love your brewery logo......oooh Listen ---noooo oooh.

[phatboytall]

How does it compare to the real Gem? Looks like a great pint!

[Underthethumb]

Hi Phatboy,

supping one now - very nice and not a million miles away from Gem.

Interested to see how yours turns out if you have a go.