Broadsword again

[Vossy1]

Todays brew. recipe reduced from 75% efficiency to 70% as this was my first attempt at a batch sparge

8.2kg Maris Otter
1kg Carapils
153g (4.5%AA) Fuggles Bittering (90 min)
75g Styrian (aroma (15 min)
2 x Whirlfoc tabs (last 10 min)

Target OG 1038
IBU 40
46ltr brew length

Mash liquor 23lts, mashed at 65 deg c for 90 minutes.
At 90 mins set pid to 77 deg c, it took 5 mins to get there.
Then added 18.2 ltr's of liquor (near as dammit) at 77 deg c.
Didn'd need to stir as the pumping of the liquor did that for me
Recirced for 5 mins and ran off to collecting vessel.

Added 31.2ltr to the mash at 85 degc, recirc for 5 mins and ran off to cv.
All went smoothly so far, though the runnings weren't as clear as I'd have liked. Pumped into boiler and started the boil.

I decided to try my Saniclean to sanitise the pre filter, plate chiller and return manifold, including associated hoses.
If this stuff is the less foaming variety I'd hate to use Starsan
It behaved well enough though
I also thought I'd try the chilling set up by sanitising with boiling wort...just to see how I liked it.

It went really well at first. However ten minutes after starting the chilling recirc the flow of the return dropped off.



The pre-filter was not blocked but certainly clogged enough to reduce the flow rate of the pump to such an extent that chilling was too slow.
I knew it would happen again if I cleaned the pre filter so I decided to remove it completely, losing about a litre of wort in the process

The rest of the chilling went o.k taking the wort from 95 deg c to 22 deg c in 46 minutes...not as quick as I'd of liked but with the mains being quite warm, not too bad.

I used my new shiny hop swatter for the 1st time on this batch and it performed well....too well Due to it's large area, and the fact that it has an underhanging area the hops couldn't form a tight filter bed around it. As such a lot of cold break got through to the fv, which I'm not really bothered about, but best practice would say try to prevent it.
Some hop debris is still in the hop swatter, it's being a swine to remove and there was also a lot of hop debris in the plate chiller.



If you look at the edge of the hop bed you can see the holes where the cold break got through.

I hit a OG of 1040, target being 1038 @ 70% efficiency so I'm quite happy with that for my first batch sparge. I lost 1ltr of wort but still ended up with 45.5ltr, target being 46 ltr

I've split the batch into 1 x 23ltr and 1 x 22.5 ltr. I've used S04 for one and T58 for the other, and both already have a nice head on them

Ps, the Morebeer pump is very very quite and efficient....I can see another one winging it's way over the pond shortly

[J_P]

Vossy - Somewhere a hop farm died for that brew

Looks like you had a better day than me - sat behind a computer screen whilst the sun shined

[Vossy1]

Today I took hydrometer reading for both the S04 and T-58 fermented Broadswords, and both were at 1012 which surprised me as I expected them to be lower

In the process of turning the taps on the fv's downwards to take the trial jar sample, both taps started leaking so I had to transfer into secondry.
They've had since last sunday in primary and I expect the gravity will drop a couple of points in secondary anyway.

Now the yeast tasting from the sample jar. Firstly the S04 was starting to drop bright but the T-58 was murky as a wheat beer.
I got swimbo to taste them after I did, to see if she thought the same as I did, and we agreed.

The S04 at this stage has the similar clean taste as it does when it's finished. The T-58 on the other hand...well, I don't like it at present, not in this beer anyway...though that might change with time

It has imparted peppery and spicy notes but the overwhelming taste at this stage is that of Hoegarden type yeast. It's got that yeast bite you would expect in a wit, but it's overpowering in the pale ale, though it would be very at home in a wit

The T-58 yeast cake was not as well settled as the S04 either, not surprising as I think most of it was still in suspension

This beer is as green as green can be and I'm sure it will change with time, I'll report back once it's dropped bright.

[Vossy1]

I racked this brew to secondary on the 11/08 and racked to corny today.

The results



The T-58 has remained true to the original trial jar smaple, it's still got a lot of yeast in suspension .
The T-58 is still overpowering the brew but this should change with conditioning.

The S04 on the other hand is clearing nicely, but there is definate diacetyl in the brew, hopefully conditioning will sort this out
Apart from the diacetyl the brew tastes alright at this early stage



There was also a lot more yeast at the bottom of the secondary of the T-58 brew (left).

I have racked the T-58 to corny woth issinglass as I have strong doubts that it will clear (yep I'm chicken )

I may rack the 100% Satisfaction without finings...we'll see

[oblivious]

What about chilling it in a bin of ice water for a few hours?

[Vossy1]

What about chilling it in a bin of ice water for a few hours?

Cheers OB Whilst I'm sure this would help I'm not so sure it wouldn't be negated by having to lift the secondary out of the ice bin prior to racking to corny.

I take my secondaries out of there temperature controlled cupboard 24 hours prior to racking to corny. I'm sure lower temps would help, but I simply don't have the facility at the mo