Stewart's 1st Brewday! - 100% Satisfaction

[BrewStew]

Morning folks!

Had a semi successful afternoon at the bedford brewshop yesterday and have bought all bits except for an immersion chiller which they didnt have in stock.



I took it upon myself to build my own IC after borrowing my mates pipe bender. I'm now thinking that 2 meters of it was not enough but i've tested it and it does seem to work, allbeit slowly.



here's all the gear setup up and tested



i checked how much wasted water gets left in the bottom of both the mash tun and the hlt/boiler. the mash tun leaves exactly 1 litre behind, the hlt/boiler 2.3 litres. so i guess as i'm using my hlt as a boiler, i need to add a total of 5.6 litres to the intial amount of water i need... so 23 litres plus 5.6 plus 20% for evapouration totals 34.32 litres, plus watever gets absorbed by the grain and hops (how do i work that out?) please correct me if i'm wrong.

my mash tun came with a rather strange manifold inside:


i notice it's too close to the edges and so may cause channeling but i'll see how it goes.

here's all the ingredients i bought



there's some other hops there for my next brew which will be Styrian Stunner.


well i'd better go clean up the kitchen and await your answers about how much water i need before i start.

[spearmint-wino]

Good work there

FWIW my manifold sits pretty close to the edges of the tun and I get efficiencies of 80-85% so shouldn't be too much to worry about (sparge slowly )

-edit-
I don't see a spinny there so I'm assuming you'll be batch sparging? In that case ignore me, listen to those on here that know (as opposed to those like me that just post excitedly ) and have a great brewday

[J_P]

For a 23l Brew this is my water requirements

I follow Daabs sums listed here

I lose 5l to hops and trub and assume an evaporation rate of 10% per hour. NB The 5l for hops and trub is specific to my system and until you know your kit you just have to guess

So for 23l on a 90 minute boil

Pre boil volume = 100*(23l+5l)/100-15

Pre Boil Volume = 32.94l (Call it 33l)

I know that my lauter tun has 600ml dead space and the grain absorbs 1l per kg so for a 4.5kg grain bill I add an extra 5.1l of water

Total water used = 38.1l

Of this I will use 12l-14l in the mash leaving ~ 26l to sparge with.

I hope this babbling makes sense there BrewStew

[J_P]

Nice kit by the way!

[BrewStew]

thanks for the tips folks!

okeydoke the kitchen is clean (a rare sight in my household)

as i'm on combi i think i'll save some time by filling the boiler with water from the hot tap. campden is on standby also.

while that's heating up i'll weigh everything up ready and put into bowls in order of use (gotta Keep It Simple Stupid!)

more photos shall arrive shortly

[AT]

Best of luck

[Jimberbob]

Good luck with the brew.

[Wez]

Have a good day!!

[BrewStew]

OK all is going good. the doh in went well and at spot on 13:00 it was complete with a temperature of 64.9 ... close enough




lense must've got steamed up



I've pre weighed my hops and put them in order of usage from closest to the boiler... dont want any cock ups now from right to left (all of it goldings) 75g, 12g, 15g. the 12g was leftover from the original recipe. so i'm just gunna chuck that in about 45 mins into the boil.



my boiler couldn't take the full amount of liquor needed, so i topped it up after doh'ing in to the amount i needed. hope this wont affect the boil later. it holds a total of 25 litres about half inch from the brim. i guess i'll just keep topping it up as it evapourates.

all in all i'm happy with the way it's going *fingers crossed*

EDIT: forgot to add. my mash and water pH was 6.0 hmmmm is that not a bit too high? well in any case i have nothing i can use to do anything about it. I bought the ph strips purely for informational purposes next time i will attempt to mess with the ph to see how it changes the flavour etc.

[DRB]

Looks like the wallet has taking a bashing there brewstew,but hey in the cause of brewing.
Looks like it is going well,nice photos to.

[BrewStew]

heh it certainly did DRB, but by my calcs i've only gotta do 3 or 4 brews and it's paid for itself in terms of money saved from shop bought booze.

having a well earned rest and pint of my admirals.... YUM. my back is starting to complain (slipped disc) so i'd better take it easy and not lift a full fermenter of run off

i'll start sterilizing bits and pieces that havent already been boiled and make a yeast starter of Nottingham shortly.

[steve_flack]

Had a semi successful afternoon at the bedford brewshop yesterday.

Say hi to Melvyn for me next time you're in.

The Happy Brewer used to be my local HB shop when I lived in Hitchin (Technically it still is my nearest but it's bloody miles away now).

[BrewStew]

funny that Steve, he told me to say hi to you too

[fraserjaxx]

good luck with the brew mate,looks like you,ve got it all sorted so far.

[greeny]

Best of luck. I did this brew as my first ever AG on Friday. I ended up with less in the fermenter than I should have - the figures quoted above look more acurate than my calculations so you should be closer to the mark than I was.

You have the same mash tun containing the same manifold as I have. It worked OK for me though I did not calculate efficiency.

Enjoy the day - the process will seem much less complicated once number one is under your belt.