Quick brew

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Scooby

Quick brew

Post by Scooby » Tue Jun 12, 2007 6:48 pm

Ok, as seems to be quite common with us home brewers I have been asked to make brew for a party on July 14th, my conical is in use until next Monday so that gives me 26 days :roll:

The brief is to make a brew to be drunk at a BBQ by mainly lager drinkers but also a few discerning ale drinkers, suggestions please [-o<

I've got MO, wheat and crystal malt plus flaked maize and torrified wheat.

50g Styrian Golgings and Fuggles and loads of Brambling Cross, Challenger and Goldings.

PieOPah

Post by PieOPah » Tue Jun 12, 2007 6:59 pm

How does this sound?

Scooby's Party Brew
8-B Special/Best/Premium Bitter

Image

Size: 40 imp pt

Original Gravity: 1.043 (1.040 - 1.048)
|==============#=================|
Terminal Gravity: 1.011 (1.008 - 1.012)
|===================#============|
Color: 10.8 (5.0 - 16.0)
|================#===============|
Alcohol: 4.22% (3.8% - 4.6%)
|================#===============|
Bitterness: 34.57 (25.0 - 40.0)
|==================#=============|

Ingredients:
4 kg Maris Otter
0.25 kg British Crystal 55°L
100 g Torrified Wheat
30 g Challenger (8.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
15 g Brambling Cross (6.0%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min
10 g Fuggle (4.8%) - added during boil, boiled 5 min

SteveD

Post by SteveD » Tue Jun 12, 2007 7:36 pm

That'll work...off you go. :) Or, you could reduce the crystal and compensate with more pale malt to make a paler summer beer that might appeal to the lager boys a bit more. 250g crystal will make for a dark amber-reddish brew - unless it's a light grade of crystal. Other than that optional variation, the recipe is goooood.

Scooby

Post by Scooby » Tue Jun 12, 2007 9:31 pm

PoP your a star =D> I'm thirsty already :beer:

I'm going to do the recipe as suggested but change the crystal to 100g as mentioned by SteveD, as a paler beer will appeal more to the lager crew.
I'll be brewing it next Monday and will keep you posted.

Think I'll call it Scooby's Pop :D Actually that won't mean much to party goers so it will have to be Chris's Pop.

Cheers both :wink:

Scooby

Post by Scooby » Mon Jun 18, 2007 9:03 am

Brew under way, final recipe is:

4.2kg MO pale
100g Crystal
100g Torrefied Barley

40g (7.4) Challenger all of boil
20g (5.6) Bramling Cross 30 min boil
10 (5.0) fuggles last 5 mins
10 (5.0) fuggles in hop back

Expected results: OG 41, FG 11, EBU 34 & EBC 11.4

Mash 3hrs @ 68c pH adjusted with Five Star 5.2 and sparge water dropped to about 6pH with phosphoric acid.

Took heed of suggestion to fill tun with water to preheat for 15mins, then drain to HLT until required amount of liquor left, temp at 74c doughed in and mash stabilised at 65.9c so added 1l boiling water steady at 68.2c :wink:

oblivious

Post by oblivious » Mon Jun 18, 2007 9:05 am

Looks good Scooby, did you means torrified wheat or is there Torrefied Barley?

Scooby

Post by Scooby » Mon Jun 18, 2007 10:14 am

oblivious wrote:Looks good Scooby, did you means torrified wheat or is there Torrefied Barley?

No and yes. I meant wheat, but must have been thinking of PoP's breakfast beers as I think torrified barley is similar to Puffed Wheat :D

Scooby

Post by Scooby » Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:25 pm

Stopped the sparge at 14G with 22l collected SG 1.054 :shock: don't know why but that's 90% ish. Don't usually check the mash efficiency so will see what the brewhouse is, as I don't sparge the hops will be some loss there.

Topped up to 28l and checked again 42G. Only problem was that one element packed up so has taken ages to come to the boil and hot break not that impressive, only a gentle rolling boil so will boil a bit longer and up the hops as the OG will be a bit more than planned :wink:

Scooby

Post by Scooby » Mon Jun 18, 2007 5:02 pm

Ended up with 47G in 22l so lost 7 points to sugar driven off in boil and left in the hops, that makes the brewhouse 78%

This is only my second brew with the stainless tun and it looks like it may be more efficient than my coolbox.

Wort looks, smells and tastes good so far thanks PoP :wink:

Scooby

Post by Scooby » Tue Jun 19, 2007 10:51 am

Fermentation proceeding well.

In view of the increased efficiency with the new tun I'm going to stop the sparge at 16-18g. After a few brews I should have an idea of the brewhouse efficiency, then formulating recipes and the brew day should should run smoothly again.

Scooby

Post by Scooby » Tue Jun 19, 2007 11:37 am

DaaB wrote:Are you looking for an overall efficiency of 70% or so then Scooby?
Yep, that was what I used with my other setup but getting consistent results is what matters, I could obviously reduce the grain and carry on using 78% but as SteveD points out there may be more quality gains to be had by reducing the efficiency :?:

Using the figures from this brew I have tried to work out the result of stopping 2, 3 or 4 points earlier :? but reckon it's best done in practice.

BTW It looks like using a spinny in a round tun as opposed to a rectangular cooler is responsible for the increase in efficiency as I haven't changed anything else :?:

Scooby

Post by Scooby » Tue Jun 19, 2007 11:59 am

DaaB wrote:If you are looking for consistency and a higher quality brew you might want to have a go at batch sparging for comparison. It does require a little forward planning but once you know what results you system is producing then you should be able to hit your targets every time. It doesn't suffer from the potential problems that can occur with fly sparging ie rising ph and grain bed temperature. Some say that is is the next best method quality wise to no sparge brewing. I have to say it's nice not to worry about the gravity of the final runnings and it's nice to know exactly what you will end up with.
I may just try that DaaB, I've seen plenty of discussion on it but not taken that much notice of the volumes, temp etc so will do a search :wink:

Scooby

Post by Scooby » Tue Jun 19, 2007 12:08 pm

Strange, did a search and this was top of the list :lol:

Scooby

Post by Scooby » Tue Jun 19, 2007 12:31 pm

Ok thats straightforward, presumably any sparge water added should be at 77-80c, and both the first runnings collected and returned to the tun. Is the second batch stirred and allowed to settle before running off?

jonnybeer
Piss Artist
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Joined: Mon May 14, 2007 5:14 pm
Location: essex

Post by jonnybeer » Tue Jun 19, 2007 12:48 pm

Scooby, a question about your mash tun. Is it the one from Catering Services u.k. I've received mine today and was wondering how to cut through the double wall stainless and what size/ fitting will I need to connect a ball valve on the outside and a copper manifold inside.
I bought mine to be able to fly sparge as I've never been able to get consistency batch sparging so thought I may be able to up my efficiency
by using the spinning thing.Cheers.

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