Wells Bitter (some pics)

[L2wis]

Hey all, I'm planning on doing my second brew tomorrow so thought I would create this thread in readiness.

The recipe is as follows (Click to download):



The Celiea Hops will be going into the fermenter and not before. I was considering adding them when the wort goes into the no chill vessel but they'll have longer exposure in the FV. All being well I'll get up stupid O'clock to get on with everything and hopefully finished before 6 nations super Saturday!

Pics coming tomorrow! I'm tempted to make a youtube production.

I've not took an awful lot of photos this time, instead I've been filming it! So hopefully it'll be more useful to beginners looking at doing their first brew!

[far9410]

it looks great mate, but i couldnt be bothered to make 12 ltrs, its all work and no play

cheers

[L2wis]

haha yeh that is true, I was thinking about upping the total but I've got no empty kegs available and I can't bring myself to bottling 40 bottles. I probably will do a full 40 when I get another capper, I sold my last one and I was going to just use a hammer one for the odd bottle but I didn't realise how much of a hassle the hammer ones are!

Oh also this is only my second AG so keeping quantities lower to start with so I can make sure when I do make 40 pints it'll taste nice!

[far9410]

I only began AG last week, if you keep things sensible, cleanlinessetc, i think theres no more risk of failure than with any other method. the results seem at this stage to be good, keep posted when we suppin.

cheers

ps get some cornies!

[L2wis]

it's not infections im worried about, its more creating a rancid beer thru lack of knowledge. im slowly increasing . Cornies would be lovely but im guessing they are expensive. i've got the perfect mini cellar for them if i was to upgrade though! Roughly how much is a cornie with a tap to dispense and a valve on it that i could attach an S30 gas canister onto?

[L2wis]

Crystal malt:


Wheat malt:


All together:


Goldings:

[far9410]

Hi speak to Norman on here or on eBay , he s keg king

[L2wis]

i shall at somepoint, im sure they are probably out of my budget though so dont want to waste peoples time.

[L2wis]

mashed in @ 78C, once all the grain was mixed in temp read 70C dead bit hot but i reckon it'll be alright! maybe i should have not wrapped it so well and brought it inside this time.

[Kev888]

Good stuff - hope it turns out well!!

Yeah, Cornies are nice but quite expensive initially to set up a system. The actual refurbished kegs can be got for about £50 each (in small numbers), and if you get them from norm he usually includes the disconnects and some beer and gas line in that - the disconnects can be surprisingly costly otherwise. So not really much more than king kegs in themselves. But for a setup you'll also need at least one tap and (assuming you go for a standard gas setup) at least one gas regulator which together could total a one off £60 to £90 or so depending on what you go for.

The biggest challenge may then be finding a gas supplier - norman sells small new 2kg gas cylinders for £40 but I can't get them re-filled locally to me, eventually I found a place that hires 7kg ones for a one-off £45 deposit (rather than a monthy rental) and then about £12 to swap empties for a full one. Bigger gas cylinders last for ages though, even norms smaller one lasted me many months, so its more the initial cost than the price per pint. I'm not conviced it'd be worth it for just one keg, so I think you'd find they would multiply; they're a bit smaller than pressure barrels and I found that for standard session beers I needed at least four on a rota to allow enough settling time. I also found they got very foamy when dispensing last summer in my hot house, so I'm going to have to sort some sort of keggorator this year too - it never ends!

Anyway, the best of luck with the brew!

Cheers
kev

[L2wis]

thanks for all that info kev i dont see myself splashing out that sort of money anytime soon unfortuantly! you never know thou, if i win the premium binds then maybe i will!

What i might invest in is a bench capper and slowly collect more bottles and a bottle tree. my biggest thing against bottling at the moment is draining them so a bottle tree would solve that! just heated the sparge water up and going to be commencing 1st sparge in 3mins .

[L2wis]

boil is 14mins away from finished. Small change of plan with the Celeia, it's now going to go in 10 mins from the end then it can be seperated from the wort when running into the no chill

[L2wis]

All done and dusted and cleaned up! It's in the no chill now outside now. Just gonna work out what the gravity is now because I took a reading at 65C of 1.026 after sparging and before boiling, does anyone have any idea what it might equate to after the boil? I will take a reading tomorrow once it's chilled and i'm about to pitch the yeast .

[L2wis]

quick update, the brew is now in the fermenter with 6g of nottingham . Had a stroke of luck today i think, i checked the no chill this evening around 7 and it felt a nice temperture for pitching the yeast. Big improvement on my first AG cos i left that over night and it was really cold then.

Wort was 19C (which I believe is a good) also even better news I took a hydro reading and it was 1.056!

Mind you... I only had 11.5Lt not 12.

Start of boil:


Transfer to no chill:


Close up of transfer:


Spent hops:


Gravity before ferment:


Its starting to bubble the air lock slowly but aslong as there are signs of life in there I'm happy!

[jimny14]

Looking good, . Sure it'll turn out great. Keep us up to date with how it turns out. If this one goes well maybe you could try a 23l batch next time.