First brewdays

[fullclaret]

Hi all,

So the wife and kids went to the in-laws for a long weekend and it gave me the chance to try out my newly built mash tun, boiler and cooler. 1st recipe was for London Pride (hop & grain recipe) and I managed to get 71% efficiency despite the sparging taking 3 hours due to clogging. Turned out I had the copper drain pipes flush with the bottom of the mash tun and nothing was getting through Boil went without incident and then cooled pretty quickly, not surprising as the water came from the outside tap and it was well below freezing on Saturday. Ended up with 5 galls at OG 1044.

Used SafeAle 04 yeast and fermentation started within 4 hours (so much quicker than with kits ) I checked the SG on Monday (+48 hours) and already down to 1012 with little activity. Slightly worried this is too fast, especially as I wrapped the ferm bin in an insulating jacket as the room temp is around 15 degrees (the wort temp rose to 25 degrees overnight which really caught me out). Next step is to transfer off trub, add finings and some hops, leave for 5 days then bottle. I did sneak a taste from the testing sample and it's not far off the real deal, can't wait until conditioning has finished, patience, patience

As I had two days to kill I kicked off batch #2, Sarah Hughes dark ruby mild. I again got the recipe from hop and grain and after double-checking the total grain weight of over 6.5kg was correct got the mashing underway for 80 mins. Sparged with hotter water this time and wedged some washers under the mash drain pipes and got a very fast flow. All done in about 1/2 hour, and ended with a post boil OG of 1075, a long way above the expected 1062 (73% efficiency this time). Kept the hose pipe reel indoors overnight to prevent freezing (try that with wife and kids there).

Used safeale 04 yeast and again was very happy to see signs of fermentation within a few hours. Will check SG later today as ferm looks to have almost finished now, amazing compared to kits of similar OG which took around 2 weeks to ferment.

Hail to the all grain!

Cheers,
Steve

[WishboneBrewery]

as you'll read in other threads, You don't need finings if you are going to bottle.

Good work on the first Brews, there's no turning back now its an infinitely interesting and changeable hobby

[fullclaret]

as you'll read in other threads, You don't need finings if you are going to bottle.

Thanks for the tip. I followed a combination of the hop and grain recipe and an old brew book by Dave Line that my Dad gave me. Dave recommends using gelatin though I guess any fining would do

[sib67]

as you'll read in other threads, You don't need finings if you are going to bottle.

Thanks for the tip. I followed a combination of the hop and grain recipe and an old brew book by Dave Line that my Dad gave me. Dave recommends using gelatin though I guess any fining would do

Best not to use finings if you're bottling - you'll end up with a much less compact and stable sediment, which won't want to stay put whilst pouring.