Another bash at Riggwelter – my first full length brew of it.
It seems my stock-taking last week went a bit awry… the recipe calls for 540g of Torrefied Wheat, but I only had 480g in stock. After a quick fiddle with Beer Engine, I added 10g of Wheat Malt to the grain bill, which put me back to the correct target OG. Don’t think I have enough stock for another 15 litres of the same recipe wheat beer, so I may have to either tweak it to match what I do have, or buy more stock. Doing this Rigg leaves me with less than a kilo of pale malt, so I’ll be needing to visit the Malt Miller website again soon!
- Length: 25 litres
- Yeast: Nottingham
- OG 1.056
- FG 1.014
- ABV 5.6%
Recipe:
| Fermentable | Colour | lb: oz | Grams | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pale Malt | 5 EBC | 10 lbs. 1.9 oz | 4590 grams | 76.8% |
| Torrefied Wheat | 4 EBC | 1 lbs. 0.9 oz | 475 grams | 8% |
| Sugar, Household White | 0 EBC | 0 lbs. 14.7 oz | 420 grams | 7% |
| Crystal Malt | 130 EBC | 0 lbs. 12.6 oz | 360 grams | 6% |
| Chocolate Malt | 1050 EBC | 0 lbs. 4.0 oz | 115 grams | 1.9% |
| Wheat Malt | 3.5 EBC | 0 lbs. 0.4 oz | 10 grams | 0.2% |
| Hop Variety | Type | Alpha | Time | lb: oz | grams | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Challenger | Whole | 7.6 % | 90 mins | 0 lbs. 0.9 oz | 25 grams | 30.9% |
| Progress | Whole | 6.4 % | 90 mins | 0 lbs. 0.8 oz | 22 grams | 27.2% |
| Fuggle | Whole | 5.2 % | 90 mins | 0 lbs. 0.4 oz | 10 grams | 12.3% |
| Golding | Whole | 5.2 % | 10 mins | 0 lbs. 0.7 oz | 21 grams | 25.9% |
| Irish Moss | Whole | 0 % | 10 mins | 0 lbs. 0.1 oz | 3 grams | 3.7% |
| Final Volume: | 25 | Litres |
| Original Gravity: | 1.056 | |
| Final Gravity: | 1.011 | |
| Alcohol Content: | 5.8% | ABV |
| Total Liquor: | 36.1 | Litres |
| Mash Liquor: | 13.9 | Litres |
| Mash Efficiency: | 75 | % |
| Bitterness: | 39 | EBU |
| Colour: | 58 | EBC |
Comments:
11:00 – Started gathering equipment
12:00 – Doughed in @ 66.6C
13:05 – Down to 65.4C, started heating top-up water to 80C.
13:45 – Recirculated 6 litres of wort. Measured 1.050 at 52C = 1.061 corrected. Collected 15 litres of wort.
14:10 – Second batch in tun, first batch in boiler, now heating.
14:25 – Recirculated another 6 litres. Measured 1.012 @ 58C = 1.026 corrected. Collected another 15 litres of wort – probably another couple of litres left in the tun, but I’ve got a little more than I need.
14:30 – Added second collection to the contents of the boiler, to the 25 litre mark. Measured 1.028 @ 65C = 1.047 corrected.
14:45 – Boil, hops in.
15:30 – Sugar in.
15:45 – Cooler in.
16:05 – Irish Moss and EKG in.
16:15 – Boil over – start the cooling.
17:10 – Wort in FV, yeast pitched. 24.5 litres, and OG 1.056, so a little under.
The vent is looking exhausted itself now – bits of rust on some of the wires, and manky inside the tube. While it definitely works with regard to venting the steam, it’s clearly not ideal. I need to think of a better approach. I may try soaking it in VWP for a while to see if I can shift the nasty bits, but that might just kill it off…
2011-02-06: Not much happening so far. The yeast did seem a bit sluggish yesterday. Need to keep an eye on it and pitch another packet if it’s dead.
2011-02-07: Around 40 hours after pitching, and no activity at all. A dead packet of yeast, it would appear… I’m not very impressed by this. I knew there was a problem last year with the Danstar Nottingham yeast, but I was under the impression that it was no longer a problem. I will rehydrate another pack of yeast (probably S-04, given my current stocks) and pitch it this evening.
2011-02-08: Still almost no activity yesterday evening (a few bubbles on the surface, but nothing of significance), so I rehydrated and pitched a packet of S-04. By this morning the airlock was bubbling away quite happily. I just hope the batch survives this…
2011-02-14: Down to 1.016. Sample taken from tap has a lot of yeast in suspension, but it’s not tasting infected yet so I may be ok.
2011-02-19: Racked into barrel. I intend to bottle my usual 10, but don’t have time this weekend, so I’ll do so at the beginning of the week. It’s tasting ok, maybe a bit grainy – and clearly needs conditioning, but no noticeable infections, so I think we got away with it.
2011-02-25: Quite a long gap, but bottled 10 this evening. Rather fizzy, and there’s a risk I introduced air into the barrel.
2011-04-16: Not great. Drinkable, but maybe a slight phenolic note – I thought so at first, but maybe less so now for some reason. Given the problems it had, maybe as good as I can hope for. I’m also not convinced by the recipe. Last batch of this one, I think!
