1st AG - Step by Step

[EccentricDyslexic]

Hi all, planing my first AG brew, it will be GW's London Pride 25 Liters. Cant wait to get started, but still waiting for all my equipment to come over from england to me in France, hopeful wont be long!

In the meantime, i am doing as much research as i can. My aim is to achieve a consistent method/procedure so that i can compare subsequent brews without complicating things with changes in methods between brews. So i have put together my intended checklist and I'd really appreciate it if experienced AGers could go through my procedure and critique it.

Here is the procedure as it currently stands-

GW’s London Pride Clone 25 liters needed in FV, (RIMs system)

Procedure- V7

1. Collect 40 litres of water and treat with one Campden tablet and “Brupaks CLS” liquor treatment @ 1.2ml per Litre (48ml for bitter or lager recipes) or 0.65ml per Litre (26ml for Stouts)
2. Fill HLT with 11 Litres of liquor (4.4kg grain bill, 2.5:1 liquor to grain ratio)
3. Heat liquor to 76c
4. Pump 11 litres of liquor into mash tun
5. Check liquor in mash tun is at strike temp, 75c (used Andy’s strike temp calc for this)
6. Prepare the treatment salts - use “Brupaks DLS” @ 0.75g per litre of total liquor (30g) for bitters, 0.375g per litre (15g) for lagers or 0.055g per litre Calcium Sulphate (2.2g) & 0.27g per litre Calcium Chloride (11g) & 0.17g per litre Sodium Chloride (7g ) for stouts
7. Treat (mix) the grain bill with a third of the mash treatment salts
8. Add treated grain bill to the liquor while stirring to ensure no dry grain bubbles (doughing in)
9. Check mash is at or very near 66c
10. Start 90min brewery timer
11. Fit sparge return manifold and adjust to sit just above the grain
12. Start mash recirculation pump and set RIMs PID to maintain mash at 66c
13. Fill HLT with 29 litres of water for sparging
14. Set HLT to heat sparge liquor to 80c
15. After 5 mins check ph of mash is near 5.2(make a note of this reading)
16. After 90 mins, check mash is still near 66c
17. Turn off the RIMs PID and pump, close RIMS valve
18. Open Valentine Arm valve & adjust VA height so its just above the wort level
19. Open sparge water valve to flow into return manifold (manifold is preset to flow ¼ litre per minute) (Note: Wort will flow into boiler automatically when the level of the wort in the mash tun reaches Valentine Arm level)
20. Capture 32 Litres of wort in the boiler(25 litres required for FV) + 3.75L (15% loss to boiler) + 0.25L (dead space + 3L lost to trub) & shut off VA valve
21. Turn on heating elements in boiler & set boiler temp controller to 102c
22. Add the other two thirds of the treatment salts to the wort
23. When wort is boiling vigorously, start 90 min timer
24. Add bittering hops
25. Put immersion cooler in boiler to sterilise at 20mins before end of boil
26. Recirculate a few litres of wort through the false bottom to the top of the boiler to settle the hop bed a little and sterilise the pipe work and pump
27. 10mins before end of boil, add flavour hops and protofloc, stir
28. End of boil, turn off elements, cover boiler with lid
29. Turn on immersion cooler (If adding post boil/late hops, stop cooling when wort is 80c, add the hops and let the wort sit for 30 mins, then recommence cooling)
30. When cooled, let the trub settle for 20 mins
31. When run off is clear, start pumping wort into a sterile FV and open aeration air bleed to introduce air into the wort
32. When 25 litres have been collected in FV, check temp is at 20c
33. Record OG
34. Pitch the SO4 yeast dry
35. Leave for 10 days to ferment at 20c
36. Record FG
37. Drain into sterile cornie and final few litres into bottles
38. Pressurise to 5psi CO2
39. Leave 4 weeks
40. Drink!

Hows that sound?

Many thanks for your taking the time to help!

Cheers

Steve

[vacant]

1) Fill with 11 litres

So you can start your mash much sooner, the other 29 litres can be heated during the 90 minute mash. No point in adding to your brew time or keeping water at a high temp for 90 minutes for no reason.

[EccentricDyslexic]

Good point, i have modified the start of the procedure to address that point.

cheers

steve

[wetdog]

you will need more wort in the boiler. 15% will be lost to the boil, your .25l of dead space and around 2-3 litres will stay in the trub
my last brew saw 32 litres go in the boiler and 22 come out after 75minutes of boiling

[quiff]

Is it ok to add chems to the mash tun ???
My ph was too high yesterday and never considered adding gypsum to the mash to bring it down

[EccentricDyslexic]

Thanks wetdog, i have added 3 liters to the boiler collection volume to allow for loss to trub, i had allowed 15% for loss to boil already, hopefuly that will be about right now.

Quiff, i thought i had read somewhere about someone adding acid to drop the ph if the mash level was too high and stiring it in. Will see if i can find who said it.

cheers all

steve

[escapizm]

Very thorough, ive had better results recently with 15mins on the protofloc.

24. End of boil, turn off elements & stir wort to effect a whirlpool ? Can i ask what this does?

[EccentricDyslexic]

Hi Escapizm, i understand this done at the end of the boil causes the trub to settle in a lump in the middle of the boiler base. I plan on having a circular 14mm copper pipe cut with hacksaw slots to drain my wort at the bottom of my boiler around the outside edge, away from where the trub will settle if all goes to plan!

[adm]

Personally, I'd forget about the RIMS for the first few brews until you've got the basic procedure down pat.

Also - as others have said, you may as well heat more water so you aren't waiting around for it.

If your HLT is big enough, then it makes life easy to treat and heat ALL the water you will need in one lot. Let it come up to temp while you are getting set up and weighing stuff out.

I also wouldn't worry too much about trying to mess with the mash pH either.

Basically, strip the prcess down as much as possible at first, then once you are happy, you can start adding complexities.

So - I would combine all the water treatments into one if your HLT is big enough, forget about the RIMS for now, remove Step 18 (i.e. don't stir), not worry about the whirlpool in step 24 and finally, DO NOT aerate the wort when you transfer it from the FV to the corny!!!! Use a siphon tube and let it flow gently into the corny keeping the bottom of the tube submerged. You want to aerate the wort when transferring from the boiler to the FV, but after that, you want to keep the beer away from oxygen as much as possible.

You may also want to consider batch sparging for your first few brews. It'll make life a little bit easier.

Good luck - and have fun!

[EccentricDyslexic]

Personally, I'd forget about the RIMS for the first few brews until you've got the basic procedure down pat.

Also - as others have said, you may as well heat more water so you aren't waiting around for it.

What about collecting all the water in advance in a 50litre pot, treating it cold then pumping it into the HLT when needed?

I also wouldn't worry too much about trying to mess with the mash pH either.

Well I.m gonna have 90 mins to play before sparging, so i may as well take a sample, even if i dont treat the mash.

Basically, strip the process down as much as possible at first, then once you are happy, you can start adding complexities.

So - I would combine all the water treatments into one if your HLT is big enough, forget about the RIMS for now, remove Step 18 (i.e. don't stir)

ok dont stir half way through the sparge, but half way through the mash is ok?

, not worry about the whirlpool in step 24

ok, so there isnt much benefit from doing this then?

and finally, DO NOT aerate the wort when you transfer it from the FV to the corny!!!!

Congratulations! You spotted the deliberate error!

Use a siphon tube and let it flow gently into the corny keeping the bottom of the tube submerged. You want to aerate the wort when transferring from the boiler to the FV, but after that, you want to keep the beer away from oxygen as much as possible.

You may also want to consider batch sparging for your first few brews. It'll make life a little bit easier.

I can see where your coming from here, but want to stick with fly sparging, get into the habit right from the start!

Good luck - and have fun!

Thanks very much for your help adm! Excuse the poor quoting, i am trying to do a better job!

Steve

[adm]

Personally, I'd forget about the RIMS for the first few brews until you've got the basic procedure down pat.

Also - as others have said, you may as well heat more water so you aren't waiting around for it.

What about collecting all the water in advance in a 50litre pot, treating it cold then pumping it into the HLT when needed?

You can do that - do whatever makes it easiest! Personally, I use a 60L HLT and for a 5G brew I just fill it with 50L of cold water, add a crushed camden tablet and enough CRS to reduce my alkalinity to 20mg/L CaC03 and switch that sucker on and let it all get hot, then draw from it as needed (After the initial mash in, I turn the temp of it up a bit for the sparge, then after the sparge, I tip what's left into the sink to clean the rest of my equipment up with)

I also wouldn't worry too much about trying to mess with the mash pH either.

Well I.m gonna have 90 mins to play before sparging, so i may as well take a sample, even if i dont treat the mash.

Yup....checking the mash pH is definitely a good thing. To make it easiest, if you have got the alkalinity correct in the water in the HLT, then the mash will almost definitely fall at a perfectly acceptable pH anyway. However, for your first brew, even if the pH isn't smack on, you'll probably end up with good beer anyway!

Basically, strip the process down as much as possible at first, then once you are happy, you can start adding complexities.

So - I would combine all the water treatments into one if your HLT is big enough, forget about the RIMS for now, remove Step 18 (i.e. don't stir)

ok dont stir half way through the sparge, but half way through the mash is ok?

Yup. No problem stirring during the mash. You can of course just leave it alone, but a stir every now and then would even out any temeprature irregularities.

, not worry about the whirlpool in step 24

ok, so there isnt much benefit from doing this then?

If you've got a halfway decent hop filter in your boiler, there's not really any need. The hops in the brew will act as another layer of filter for the trub as well.

and finally, DO NOT aerate the wort when you transfer it from the FV to the corny!!!!

Congratulations! You spotted the deliberate error!

Use a siphon tube and let it flow gently into the corny keeping the bottom of the tube submerged. You want to aerate the wort when transferring from the boiler to the FV, but after that, you want to keep the beer away from oxygen as much as possible.

You may also want to consider batch sparging for your first few brews. It'll make life a little bit easier.

I can see where your coming from here, but want to stick with fly sparging, get into the habit right from the start!

Fair enough!

Good luck - and have fun!

Thanks very much for your help adm! Excuse the poor quoting, i am trying to do a better job!

Steve

No problem! The quoting's a pain in the ass once it gets past one layer...

[EccentricDyslexic]

I have made a few changes-

I have ommited the whirlpool step because i have decided to go with a false bottom boiler rather than a hop stopper, and ditched the CFC in favor of an immersion cooler because I'd prefer the cold break to happen in the boiler so theres less chance of there being cold break trub in the FV.

Although i have now allowed a further 3 litres loss to trub, i will make my mash tun and boiler with false bottoms and with the drain from the bottom, so i should get very little loss. Time will tel how much!

Steve

[EccentricDyslexic]

Ok i am looking at putting in the procedure a set time to let the boiled wort rest to let the hot break precipitate out, before turning on the immersion cooler. I was thinking 10 minutes, does this sounds reasonable? I plan on making the immersion cooler quite long for maximum surface area and hope to bring the temps down pretty quick after this rest period, hopefuly within 20 minutes. So by half an hour after the boil has finished, the wort is ready to be pumped into the FV and yeast pitched.

Talking about yeast i have so4 in mind. Do i need to rehydrate this? Hows best for me to do this, can i do it within the timescales of my procedure above?

cheers!

steve

[adm]

What you should is let the wort settle AFTER you've cooled it with the IC. The reason is that to get faster cooling you can gently stir the wort with the IC. Then once you're down at the required temperature, remove the IC and let the owrt settle for 20-30 mins before you run it off into your FV.

[OldSpeckledBadger]

Talking about yeast i have so4 in mind. Do i need to rehydrate this? Hows best for me to do this, can i do it within the timescales of my procedure above?

I find that S-04 works fine without needing to be rehydrated. I just run the wort into the FV, sprinkle on the S-04 and give it a quick stir in and then leave to do its job.