December 30th, 2010:

My first full-length all-grain brew.  Recipe chosen by Vicky from Graham Wheeler’s book.

• Length: 26 litres
• Yeast: Nottingham
• OG 1.040
• FG 1.010
• ABV 4.0%

Recipe:

Comments:

Started 11:00.

I heated the strike water in my boiler, using the ATC800 with the probe dropped in the water.  It was too deep, so I ended up with water that was too hot.  By the time I doughed in I needed to add 2 litres of cold water to bring it down to 67.4C, which is close enough to the 67C I was aiming for.  90 minutes on the clock, and we’ll see how well the coolbox mash tun does at holding temperature.  I put a piece of foil on the surface, since it’s only half full, and some towels on the top.  Before I started I’d thrown 2 kettles full of boiling water (around 4 litres) into the mash tun to bring its temperature up a bit first.

After 1:10, we’re down to 63C – maybe need to look at better insulation above it, or maybe the tun needs more pre-heating to make sure none of the heat is going to heat the tun up.  I’m not worried, though – 63C is still a mashable temperature, so while the character may be different to that intended, we’ll still have wort at the end of it!

8 litres of top-up water heated in the boiler to 85C.  The probe is at the top of the water this time, removed from the mash tun so I don’t know what temperature it finished at.

13:45 – After topping-up the mash tun with the 8 litres, and a 10 minute wait, I poured maybe 6 litres out and back in to the top to get rid of the worst bits of sediment and grain, then collected 15 litres of wort (1.040 @ 47C = 1.049 corrected).  14 litres then went in the boiler, again heated to 85C for the second batch sparge.

14:05 – Water in for second batch sparge, and wait for 15 minutes.  Wort transferred to boiler and power on so we reach the boil as soon as possible, hops (a mix of plain Goldings and East Kent Goldings) ready to go in when we’re boiling.  Exhaust in place, lid ajar.

14:30 – Collected 14 litres of wort (1.010 @ 57C = 1.023 corrected).  25 litres now in boiler, getting towards the boil.  Rest of the wort (~4 litres) in FV to be added to boiler as it boils away.

14:45 – Reached the boil, hops added.  Lid ajar enough to prevent boil over, and exhaust tube supported by the chiller coil again so it’s all up hill to the open window, where exhaust tube drops and allows the steam to cool, condense, and drop onto the patio…

15:15 – Mash tun cleaned and open to dry in spare room.  Rehydrated Irish Moss.

15:30 – Added 2 litres of the spare wort to the boiler.  This is in 3/4 hour, so loss to evaporation looks like ~ 2.6 litres per hour.

16:15 – Boil completed, chiller running.  Of course I forgot to boil and cool water to rehydrate the yeast, so it’s in the freezer…  In total I added 4.5 litres of spare wort, ending up with 26 litres in the boiler.

16:45 – Cooled to 30C, draining into FV.  OG is 1.040 @ 24C = 1.041 corrected.  The recipe called was for 1.040, so I’d call that spot on.  Yeast is rehydrated, just waiting for wort to finish draining into FV before pitching and putting in the fermentation chamber, which is set to 18C.

Beer Engine Recipe File

2011-01-13: Racked to barrel and bottled 10.  Tastes very good – hope it remains so.

2011-01-19: In the barrel for 6 days, and I took a crafty sample.  By far and away the best beer I’ve done so far – bright already, and great taste.  Not a hint of that “homebrew twang” (whatever the hell it is) that I’ve noticed and have been mildly unhappy with in all the previous brews (bar the Riggwelter) so far.  I think I may like this all-grain lark!