#ag no 1# Lil she devil 02/09/2015

[sbond10]

Yesterday I did my first all grain brew it's been months in the planning. First of all Id like to thank all that helped gave me ideas,answered my questions supplied me ingrediants kit and calmed my worries.

The recipe looks like this
Grain
3854g minch pale ale malt
208g minch vienna
208g weyermann s carawheat

Hops
21g magnum 90 mins
20g pride of ringwood 15 mins
10g willamette 10 mins
20g willamette 0 mins left for 20 mins before transfer
20g willamette dry hop

Yeast
11g gervins gv12

Misc protofloc at 20 mins

Total water used 43 litres
Into no chill 29 litres
Into fv 23 litres

Was aiming for 1.041 end up with 1.037

Good points
☆I've made beer not massively hoppy more sweet with a bitter after tone
☆My kit works
☆Only lost 2 degrees over the 90 minute mash using duvet and thermawrap I'm happy still within range
☆I got a pre boil gravity of 1.028 at 64 degrees which according to biabacus was spot on it didn't say if this reading was suppose to be at 20 degrees or 66 in witch case I did even better.

Bad points
☆I missed my gravity reading by a few points probs due to the extra 6 litres can someone confirm this
☆my high temp washers started leaking so need new ones
☆brewing is hard work and I need a garage lifting lumping and carrying heavy bits of kit around is exhausting
☆having a sheet of tarp and 3 breeze blocks 4 foot above your head is unnerving
☆the beer is extremely murky it went from a golden straw colour (preboil)to a caramelised colour (post)did I put enough protofloc in ?

Lessons to be learnt
☆weigh the grains and hops out the night before
☆add less water I'm considering 4 litres as my next grain bill is bigger
☆build a better brewing tent breeze blocks are not clever

Sorry for the lengthy write up if anyone can add anything give me pointers of where I can get better please do

Cheers sean

[Rubbery]

Well done. You have beer!

29L @ 1.037 = 23L @ 1.0466522

On my gear I use about 35L to target 23L in FV at around this gravity.

Guess some figures for you losses and you will soon dial in your gear.

For example, hear are the losses I expect on my gear:

• Evaporation% = 18.75% over 90 min -> Evaporation = 6.3L
• Mash Tun Dead Vol = 0.7L
• Loss to Grain = grain bill in kg * .75 = 3.16L
• Copper Dead Vol = 0.6L
• Loss to Hops = hops in g * 0.017 = 1.24L

6.3+0.7+3.16+0.6+1.24=12L loss

[sbond10]

The one figure I forgot to take was headspace after mash So work out my evapportion rate I may have it somewhere.
So I can safely say if I got my numbers right I'd of hit my figures hey ho this is all a learning curve and I'm happy

[sbond10]

Well fermentation appears to have kicked off nicely I pitched at around 11 am and by 4 it was making islands now we have a good crust coming along really need to buy an airlock

[sbond10]

Dry hopped it today looking and smelling lovely

[sbond10]

Bottled today got 40 bottles smells lovely can't wait to taste

[Monkeybrew]

Bottled today got 40 bottles smells lovely can't wait to taste

What's next then

[sbond10]

Bottled today got 40 bottles smells lovely can't wait to taste

What's next then

Smoked treacle porter dude