I had a small quantity of DME left in my stores, and after diluting into 3.3 litres of water and boiled it measured 8.2Bx = 1.032, which is (at least) in the correct range of 1.030 to 1.040, if on the low side.  I cooled it to about 23C, poured it into a freshly sanitised demijohn (rather, empty 5 litre plastic water bottle), shook vigorously, pitched the vial of shaken yeast, shook vigorously again, and it’s now sitting on the kitchen counter.  Hopefully, with the little yeasties multiplying happily!

I’ll be brewing on Sunday, so this should be about the right timing for when I need it.

It’s been a while since I made a wine kit, and I bought this box ages ago so it’s about time I got ’round to it!

This is another 6 bottle kit.  I keep thinking I should just make a 30 bottle kit as it’s no more difficult and a bit cheaper, but since this is only my third kit I ought to try a few more 6 bottles and work out which I prefer.

OG is 18Bx = 1.075

Brewday details:

• Length: 28 litres
• OG: 1.047
• FG: 1.009
• ABV: 4.8%

BeerXml File: Golden Delicious

Golden Delicious

• Style: English IPA
• Length: 28 litres
• Yeast: Safale US-05
• OG: 1.036
• FG: 1.008

Comments:

32 litres out of the boiler at 10Bx = 1.038.  According to BeerEngine this is 91.5% mash efficiency, which ain’t bad.

25 litres post-boil, which is a little lower than I was aiming, at 12.2Bx = 1.047 (1.046 by hydrometer).  This gives an overall efficiency of 82%, which is also very good.  I forgot a couple of litres in the second sparge, which explains why I’m a bit low in volume and high in gravity.

2012-04-20: Down to 5.4Bx = 1.009, so it’s ready to crash cool (if I can get the South Pacific bottled and out of the way!)

2012-04-29: Bottled 18 (including one 750ml), rest into barrel with 80g sugar.

Brewday details:

• Length: 28 litres
• OG: 1.053
• FG: 1.011
• ABV: 5.3%

BeerXml File:South Pacific Pale Ale

South Pacific Pale Ale

• Style: American IPA
• Length: 28 litres
• Yeast: Safale US-05
• OG: 1.05
• FG: 1.013

Comments:

The aroma hops went in when the wort had cooled slightly to just under 85C.  They had a 25 min steep before the cooling started in earnest.

An impressive 13.6Bx = 1.053 after the boil, which gives me 81% efficiency.  After losses to hops, I ended up with 26 litres into the FV. It went into the fridge at about 28C, so needs quite a bit more cooling before I can pitch the yeast.  Blame the hosepipe ban!

Down to 19C at 2144, so it will be tomorrow before I pitch the yeast.  It’s under an airlock, though so should be safe in the fermentation chamber.

2012-04-14: Only down to 1.018 today, so I’ve bumbed the temperature up to 21C, while switching it to the cold fermentation chamber in preparation for crash cooling it in the next few days.

2012-04-17: Down to 6.4Bx = 1.011, so if it’s the same tomorrow then I’ll crash cool it in preparation for bottling.

2012-04-18: Still at 6.4Bx, so I’ve dropped the temperature controller down to 3C to crash cool it.

2012-04-29: Bottled 18, rest in a barrel with 75g of sugar.

Brewday details:

• Length: 15 litres
• OG: 8.6Bx = 1.032
• FG: 4.6Bx = 1.010 (1.008 by hydrometer)
• ABV: 2.9%

BeerXml File: 1885 Ushers 40-

1885 Ushers 40/-

• Style: Scottish Light 40/-
• Length: 18 litres
• Yeast: Danstar Nottingham
• OG: 1.031
• FG: 1.01

Comments:

As for the invert sugar, I made it from golden syrup and molasses, according to the calculator found here.  The calculator suggests that for the 278g of Invert No. 2 that’s required I need 275g of golden syrup and 3g of molasses.

I’m looking forward to brewing tomorrow (as I write these notes) as I’ve done 7.5 days of work in the last 6 days and I need the relaxation!

With beautiful timing, it seems the kitchen scales have stopped working.  I was weighing the cats evening food and they’re reading well over… a 100g bag of peanuts was reading as 275g.  Somehow I don’t imagine the plastic bag weighs 175g…  Wonder how I can measure everything tomorrow?  It’s the Reading Half Marathon, so it’s not like I can pop down the shops very easily!

Interestingly, the black malt is to go in the kettle, and should be ground (“micronized”?!) before being added – see this post at the Barlcay Perkins blog for details.  It’s also a long day, with 2 hours mash and 2 hours boil.

Since it was such a small amount of grain I mashed it in my 10 litre stockpot, wrapped in towels.  Started about 69C, ended 64C after 2 hours, which is acceptable.  The sparge was basically taking the grain bag our of the stockpot and dumping it in the HLT with 20 litres of water at  75C for 10 minutes.

25 litres at 6Bx = 1.024 into the boiler, which looks like 91% mash efficiency.  That’s assuming I accurately measured the grains, which I didn’t.  I was using 1 kg bag of sugar showing as 2.7kg as a rule of thumb…

Hops and black malt were measured when I remembered that the food processor has a built-in scale on it. It only seems to have a 2g accuracy, so it’s not exact, but better than guesswork.  Similarly the syrup and molasses are a bit guessed at using the scales, but they’re probably about the right sort of ratio for the colour.  While this may be my least accurate brew, it will still be beer!

After cooling, 16 litres at 10.6Bx = 1.041, by hydrometer 1.040.  That was 14 litres into the FV, so I liquored back with 3.5 litres of cold water (1.5 litres from the original campdened liquor, 2 litres of tap) and got 8.6Bx = 1.033.

Pitched 1 pack of N0ttingham.

2012-04-07: After 6 days we’re down to a quite low 1.008 (maybe even a smidge below that), so we’re looking at ABV 3.2%, which is a little higher than the recipe suggested, but may be down to my stock-pot mash ending up quite cool.  Still a comparatively low alcohol beer, so a bit more mid-week friendly!  I’ve moved it into the cold fridge to crash cool for a couple of days, then I’ll get it bottled up.

2012-04-10: 3 days cold, looks pretty clear.  Measured OG at 4.6Bx.  Bottling the entire batch in 500ml bottles, with 60g sugar to prime.  Smells a bit sharp, but I’ve noticed that before on beers that have turned out fine.  Tastes rather good for something so light, so that’s reassuring.  I ended up with 30 x 500ml, plus 2 x 750ml.  Used my new crown capper – note to self: try to cap bottles of the same size in groups!

An evening of Googling and reading later, I’ve realised I’m thinking about this all wrong.

I collected 23 litres of sweet wort from the mash tun at 1.050, and Beer Engine tells me this is 73% efficiency.  It’s this that I should be concerned with, and I did ok.  It was a strong beer (which apparently lowers efficiency), and I still managed 73%.  This is a good thing!

The brew had a 90 minute boil, which lowered the volume to 18 litres and the SG to 1.064.  Again, plugging the numbers into Beer Engine, this has maintained the 73% efficiency, as I’d expect (since all that’s happened is that water has been evaporated away, reducing the volume and increasing the gravity).  Again, this is a good thing, and bang on (in fact slightly above) my target.

What I’ve been getting confused over is the volume into the FV.  This has nothing to do with my efficiency calculations (or, if it does, it’s not a measure of efficiency that anyone cares about).  The drop from 18 litres in the boiler to 15.5 in the FV is simply a loss of wort to absorption into the hops and to the dead-space in the boiler.

If I’m wanting to get 15 litres into the FV, then I need to formulate a recipe based on how much wort I’ll loose to hops and dead-space.  In this case it was 3 litres, so I need to formulate the recipe for 18 litres at 1.072 rather than 15 litres at 1.072.  Certainly it will be a guess based on the amount of hops I’m using in a recipe, but it will be a lot closer to what I’m actually wanting.

Points to keep in mind for future recipes:

1) Formulate the recipe for the volume in the FV + losses to hops (i.e. the total I want at the end of the boil)

2) Calculate the batch sparge volumes for the quantity into the FV (i.e. after the losses to hops)

So: my efficiency is fine. And now I know why, if I have the volume in the FV that I wanted that my gravity is always a few points down.  I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to realise…

Brewday details:

• Length: 15 litres
• OG: 1.064
• FG: 1.012
• ABV: 7.2%

Torpedo

• Style: American IPA
• Length: 15 litres
• Yeast: Safale US-05
• OG: 1.072
• FG: 1.018

Comments:

23 litres into the boiler at 12.8Bx = 1.050, so that’s a mash efficiency of 73%.

After cooling in the boiler, about 18 litres at 15.6Bx = 1.062, 1.064 by hydrometer, which is quite a lot low.  About 15.5 litres into the FV.

Dry hops went in on Sat 3rd, day 7, then crash cooled for 3 days at 1C bef0re bottling 40 (in small bottles!) today, day 12, with 50g priming sugar.

Measured FG at 7.6Bx = 1.007, but the hydrometer thinks 1.012, which seems a lot more likely.  The latter means an ABV of 7.2%.  Bloody good job I bottled it in the small ones..!

This is also a different way of showing the recipe details. I’m now using an XSLT file to generate HTML from a BeerXml file. It needs more work to get it looking better, but it’s a start. This was prompted by this post at the Homebrew Forum.

Brewday details:

• Length: 15 litres
• OG: 1.044
• FG: 1.008
• ABV 4.7%

BeerXml file: Weiss Weiss Baby
XSLT file: BeerXml.xslt

Weiss Weiss Baby

• Style: Weizen/Weissbier
• Length: 15 litres
• Yeast: Safbrew WB-06
• OG: 1.04987
• FG: 1.01247

 Comments:

23 litres of wort collected from the mash, 19 litres at the end of the boil, about 16 litres into the FV.

Pitched 1 packet of WB-06 mid-afternoon the day after brewing (I forgot about it when waiting for it to reach 12C).  Also forgot to measure the OG, but I’ve just done that now and read 11.4Bx = 1.044.  This is a couple of hours after the yeast was pitched, but it doesn’t look like they’re doing much yet!

As ever with these batches of wheat beer, this is quite a bit under my target.  Beer Engine suggests an overall efficiency of 64%.  It’ll still be beer and taste good, though, so I don’t really care!

Bottled with 75g of sugar.  FG 1.008, so ABV = 4.7%.

• Length: 25 litres
• Yeast: US-05
• OG 11.8Bx = 1.046
• FG 1.008
• ABV 4.9%

Recipe:

Comments:

34 litres of wort collected from the mash.  Doughed in at 64C, still 64C at the end (by manual thermometer, since I no longer trust my digital one).

Stupidly, I’ve done exactly the same recipe as last year.  I say stupidly as I’ve since determined that my mash efficiency is around 70% rather than the 75% that was used to calculate the recipe.  Not that it really matters, it was a great beer last year so it should be good again!

The final hops addition was specified as being at flameout or hopback, but for some reason last time I dry-hopped the 60g.  I would have preferred a little more fresh grapefruit in the hops flavour last year, so I’m going to switch this to be a 80C steep for 30 mins instead.  If that’s still not enough for me then I may try a combination of the two approaches next time I brew this (and there will be a next time!)

After the boil, there was 29 litres in the copper, so that’s a 5 litres loss to evaporation in 1 hour, which is about 15%.  Measured OG at 11.8Bx = 1.046, and just under 25 litres of wort into the FV.  It’s down to 20C, and in the fridge until it gets down to 16C, when I’ll pitch the yeast.

So, we had 15% evaporation, and about 4.5 litres lost to 100g of hops – plug these numbers into my batch sparge calculator next time!

2012-02-19: Bottled 12, the rest in a barrel.  Bulk primed with 75g of cane sugar.  Not actually measured the FG, which is a bit silly, will do so from what’s in the barrel when it’s primed, so in a few days.

2012-02-23: It’s primed in the barrel and is looking pretty clear already.  FG at 1.008, so that’s an eminently drinkable 4.9% ABV.  It’s also tasting great again!

• Length: 29 litres
• Yeast: Windsor
• OG 10.4Bx = 1.040 (1.042 by hydrometer)
• FG 5.2Bx = 1.010 (1.012 by hydrometer)
• ABV

Recipe:

Comments:

Strike water heated to 76C, into pre-heated mash tun, when doughed in the thermometer was reading 64C, which is a little lower than I was aiming, but is good enough for me.  Don’t know why I’m so low, but it is a cold day and the crystal and top-up 70g of MO were at garage temperatures (i.e. cold!), though the 5kg of MO was at room temperature.

Since it is such a cold day I’m doing this brew inside the garage.  The heights of everything aren’t ideal, but it does mean a lot shorter distance from the boiler to the fermentation chamber.  I’m going to try to minimise the sauna effect by using my tumble drier hose tucked in to the top of the boiler, with the space around it padded out with foil.  I’ve joined two pieces of hose together to get a long enough run to get outside.  It’s a 29 litre batch, which means around 37 litres will be boiled, in my 70 litre boiler that should give plenty of space to prevent it boiling over.  It’s not doing a lot, but we don’t have a sauna in the garage, so it could be worse.

Since I’m boiling in the garage I’ve also got a CO detector and a fire extinguisher to hand.  Just in case!

I’ve also worked out what depth in the boiler corresponds to what volume of liquid.  Fortunately it’s a cylindrical pot, so the maths was simple!  I should manage to actually take some proper measurements for this brew…

So, 15 litre mash, 10 litre top-up, and 19 litre second batch.  I got 40 litres in the boiler, but then I forgot to measure the amount post-boil.  It’s gone in a shiny new 45 litre fermenter (to give me a bit more room on these longer brews), but I’ve not calibrated that bucket either.  So I have no idea how much wort I’ve ended up with…

I only have 1 pack of Windsor, so that’s all that’s gone in.  It’s probably a bit too small a quantity, but we’ll see how it fares.

2012-01-22: Bottled 12, rest in barrel.  Still cloudy, but I didn’t have time to fine and cold-crash it, so tough.  It may take longer to clear, but it will still be ok!  Tastes not completely unlike Pride, which is good.  When racked into the FV for bottling I had about 28 litres.  Before racking it measured at 32.5cm from the base in my new 45 litre FV (need to work out the volumes on these!)  I was intending to brew today, but unfortunately I need to go in to work (boo! hiss!), so I could have given it a couple of extra days to cool, but by the time I knew it was too late…