Home Brew Forum

Just going to go and get started on my first AG.
Going to do

Hogs Back T.E.A. as recomended to me by adm (thanks)

Fermentables
UK Pale Ale Malt 4.500 kg
UK Medium Crystal 0.360 kg

Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU When
UK Golding 5.5 % 35 g 20.5 90 Min
UK Fuggle 4.5 % 35 g 16.7 90 Min From End
UK Golding 5.5 % 10 g 2.7 15 Min From End

Got some Nottingham yeast for this one. Starting this time of day, as i'm leaving wort to cool over night.....

Well, here goes, i'll be posting pics if I can find the camera

Good luck with your 1st ag brew Kristoff, enjoy it & I hope it goes ok for you.

Have a good un, and welcome to AG

Cheers guys, I'm stuck already!!! No, just rechecking a couple of things.
Hillbilly - By the way great website, I've refered to it many times in my considerations for going AG

Hope its going well Kristoff. That looks like a solid one to kick off with

Matt

Have a good one Kristoff.

Just remember don't panic and take it easy, you've really got to try and mess it up. Beer is really forgiving.

Have a good brew day Kristoff. It is a really nice brew did that as my first one a few weeks ago tastes great.

Hope it's going/gone well

Just got it on the boil, lots of mini nightmares, phew, but i'll now know for next time.
I'll follow up later - I've managed to take some pics aswell

FINISHED -
Well it could of gone a bit smoother than that - bit of a nightmare, mainly because of equipment

Firstly, i need some decent scales, our kitchen scales only show increments of 50g and only go upto 2kg - should of checked first, found some old, more accurate ones in the shed, that were in pound and ounces, so I converted all my weights to imperial.

Then, bit of a faff weighing and mixing all the grains - they seem to expand when weighed, so I had to find some big saucepans to mix in.

My main problem was not being able to get the water hot enough, the pan was across all four burners to get it to temp, took ages and had to half cover with foil to keep the heat in. - Eventually got a boil and once I had one I could keep it going on two burners.

Bit of a problem after cooling, I did a whirlpool, which worked well, but because of the width of my pan, there was loads of wort left in after syphoning had finished, so had to jug out through a sieve, bit messy and had to do a quick sanitise on jugs, seives etc.

In the end I ended up with 4 gal, which I was a bit disappinted with, I think because of such a long boil and the size of my pan there was too much evaporation. I stared with 27l and ended up wth 18l - not good. Final gravity 1048, which is stronger than it should be, must be due to the boil off - Could I top it up with boiled water, until it reaches the proper gravity? or is it too late now, yeast went in at 11.30 this morning.

Overall i'm happy with what i've got, and the mash tun worked well, only losing 1 degree in 70 mins and at the end of sparging the runnings measured 1012, so that was good too.

So I think i'm going to ditch the stock pot gas boiler and get a Leyand 33l elctric boiler - are these any good, can I comfortably do a 5gal brew in one?

Pics to follow later - need to reduce them in size!

No reason why you could not boil water to sanitise and cover to stop nasties and then pitch once temp is below 30 deg. Personally i'd leave it since you have pitched your yeast and just enjoy the extra bang in your beer! It gets easier and by your 3rd or 4th you will be tweaking for speed/efficency and have it all down.

It's been a bit like Apollo 13. Thought you'd fallen into your boiler!

Dunno what you were aiming for, but 1 1/2 litres of cooled boiled water will get you down to 1044. 2 litres = 1042, 3 1/5 litres 1040. If you do add it, add it very gently. I'd personally go for 1 1/2 litres.

Well done on covering all your little moments, trust me when I say, when you have your first taste you think it is all worth it.

And with every brew it gets easier.

[quote="Northern Brewer"]It's been a bit like Apollo 13. Thought you'd fallen into your boiler! quote]

It was a long brewday, I took my time and had to do a couple of childminding stints inbetween, but got there in the end.
I was considering topping up, but i'm going to leave it and leran for next time, hopefully i'll have buil my plastic boiler by then, or I might even buy one

Just managed to get my pics reduced to upload, so here goes....

Heating strike water My mashtun, got some copper to replace the plastic, it did work, but it floats and I think it would easily come unattached More to follow

More pics, why have I got dodgy scroll bars??

First runnings Running cear Sparging More to follow