brewday 23-08-07 "hands off"

[Gurgeh]

Going to get a brew on this evening, should be ready to rack off when i get back from holiday.

Emphasis is on interfering with things as little or as conveniently as possible.

grains mixed already, water treated with campden tablets. wife out for the evening. mash to start 6ish

for 23L...

3KG MO
3KG Lager

1 tablespoon ph5.2
1 teaspoon DLS

65C x 60 mins (could well be 90...)

60 mins x 20g brewers gold (8%aa)
15 mins x 40g brewers gold, 40g cascade (5%aa), 1 whirlfloc tablet

cool to 80C then 5 mins with a good handful of mixed leftover hops i've got (challenger, EKG, BG, others...)

cool to < 27C and leave for 30 mins

move to FV, aerate & pitch with a DFS of nottingham + half a tsp of yeast-vit.

lid on. airlock on. ambient temp. 10 days. no rousing, no skimming, no peeking, no fining.

[jonnybeer]

Hope all goes well,and have a good holiday also. Is that the last of your Cascade?
John.

[Gurgeh]

Thanks john,

No i've got plenty of that left - but wanted to keep the hoppy notes up and turn the citrus down a bit.

Loved all 3 of your beers btw!

[Garth]

enjoy the evening brew session

[Wez]

Have a good one!

[prodigal2]

Sounds like it should be a good one

[roger the dog]

Enjoy it G, hope all goes well

[Vossy1]

Good luck G

[delboy]

Hope it goes well for you and you have it done and dusted by a reasonable hour

[Gurgeh]

thanks for kind messages folks,

Mash went well - batch sparge was easy as usual. not massively efficient but that's okay - just means i get fresher malt sooner

boil now going along nicely. looking forward to using whirlfloc.

I don't know about you lot, but as my HLT and my boiler are the same thing, it means i take my first batch into the FV, so that i only have to shift about half full vessels. good idea huh. i noticed that when i racked that first batch back into the boiler the last 1/3 pint or so of it was really milky - like cappucino. glad that lot left the process early!

just going to sort out my DFS

[iowalad]

Sounds like things are running smoothly.

[jonnybeer]

Hi Pete, how did the brew go? Did you finish before midnight?

Is there a big difference between whirlfloc and irish moss. I assume you steep in the hlt for a while before cooling the wort, can you see the difference at this time.

Might have an apple press. Check your p.m.'s
j.b.

[Gurgeh]

all done and dusted by half ten

what with my usual efficiency of about 60% (not worried) and the size of the hop bed, i managed to lose quite a bit of wort. ended up with 4gallons at 1.045

I think next time i might go back to hop bags. i'll keep my bittering hops and aroma hops free to act as a filter, but bag up the flavour hops and pull them out and squeeze them during cooling.

that whirlfloc though - after the first half gallon or so the wort was coming through bright!

so that's it. it will remain in the brewery for the next ten days without even the door being opened... (hence my choice of nottingham yeast)

jb - i chucked the whirlfloc in as it was at the 15 minute mark with my flavour hops.

[steve_flack]

Is there a big difference between whirlfloc and irish moss.

In my experience, yes. Lots.

[Gurgeh]

the results are immediately visible, they are worth the extra cash imo.

As soon as i'd finished cooling and left things to stop swirling around i could see how well flocculated the gunk had become and ran to get my camera - by the time i got back it had all sunk out of sight!