Well i did my first All Grain (Made from the raw ingredients) of the year and in a long time recently. Some issues (which i will learn from) occured but nothing which should destroy the beer.
Recipe:
4kg Pale Malt
200g Crystal Malt
100g Challenger (I know…i forgot to write my recipe from Beer engine down before i left work) 60 min boil
This will give a very high IBU (International Bittering Units) value but I like a good hoppy beer so lets see how it turns out.
My main issue was the mash. My thermometre is pathetic, some aquarium one i got for a fiver. Sadly which doesnt go over 70 degrees i discovered and also updates once per 10 seconds which is very annoying.
Since I needed to measure 82 degrees accurately this was a bit of a bummer overall :p The water for the mash should be about 67-68 degrees, im assuming a 10 degree loss from the grains.
Strike water in my custom made boiler my friend Adam made. Complete with 2 x 1kW kettle elements at the bottom. Sucks up some electricty I can tell you.
Doughing in the grains….i had forgot to mix hence the reading. Once i had mixed in it was better. This will sit for 1 hour during which time the sugars from the grains will be converted to fermentable sugars.
Thusly, it flucated around 1 degree off. Next time when i have better thermomtre my strike water will be more accurately measured.
I used the idea of sparging over foil. Sparging is the process which rinses the sugars from the grain in order to get all the fermentable sugars into final product. In this example I am fly sparging which is basically pouring water gently over the grain bed while draining it slowly.
Generally it worked ok but in future ill get MUCH bigger sheets of foil, this is just what i could find in my cupboard at a pinch.
On reflection next time i’ll be batch sparging which is basically add more hot water after the mash and then emptying the first runnings, refilling the run for 10 mins and empty again. Much simpler than the above.
Running into the fermenter ready to be slung in the boiler.
Checking gravity of runnings. The thing in the jar is a hydrometer which basically measures how much sugar is disolved in the wort. The more there is the higher it bobs. As i rinse the sugars out of the grain this will get lower and lower. I know to stop when there is almost no sugar left.
Sparging further would extract nasty tasty enzymes.
Boiling. This takes 1 hour during which time proteins will begin to break out of the mixture and form into horrible looking goo strand which do not look unlike brains. Nice.
The hops are added at the start of the brew and boiled for the full 60 mins. Mostly some hops are placed in at the start and some other hops are added near the end to add aroma to the beer (Goldings/Fuggles are excellent for this)
Chilling with an immersion chiller. Thats basically a huge coil of hollow copper which i pass water through by means of a garden hose. This means the stream of water within with cool the wort quickly.
Aerating the wort by pouring it from a height. The reason this is done is to get more oxygen into the mixture which the yeast can use to feed on. Yeast needs to divide quickly or it may succomb to infection. The oxygen and sugars help it to divide quickly.
This morning it was BLISTERING away.
Final Gravity was 1.040 (After addition of 200g of white sugar to boost it up a bit)
I tasted a bit of the wort after the boil and it tasted fine to be honest. Its going to be cloudy for sure but to be honest i needed to just jump in feet first to practice and ill be pleased if i get a half decent drinkable ale.
POINT FOR NEXT TIME:
1) Better thermometre – Not being able to tell the strike tempreture or sparging water temp accurately was a real pain and i didnt have a glass thermometre to hand. Really annoying. So i had to just guess which is cringeworthy i know.
2) Better sparging method – Will switch to Batch Sparging. Much easier
UPDATE 21/04/10 – Almost done fermenting just waiting to be bottled.
UPDATE 26/04/10
Berserker bottled! Im very impressed with the clarity, a vast improvement over my last attempt
