50l Brewery Build

[LeeH]

Looking forward to the first brew Kyle, hope it all goes well!

I've not added mine up but I don't think I've got to the 700 pound mark, maybe 500. I'll go and have an estimate tonight.

[LeeH]

Ok....I'm way off. 700-750. Crikey!!

[Kyle_T]

Looking forward to the first brew Kyle, hope it all goes well!

I've not added mine up but I don't think I've got to the 700 pound mark, maybe 500. I'll go and have an estimate tonight.

Thanks man. Looking forward to it myself. Gonna run a mild through it first as a safety measure. I'm surprised your only just above me given the much more professional look of your beauty of set up!

[LeeH]

Some of it was FOC, I was just lucky with the table, temp controller and a few other bits.

[Kyle_T]

Ah I see. Still looks the mutts nuts tho.

[Kyle_T]

Well, with any bit of luck tomorrow should be brew day! Just need to tweak the sight glass and recalibrate the markings. The last of the Camlock fittings have arrived along with my new check valve and fittings. 2 Milds will hopefully be done tomorrow as a safety measure of any mishaps.

[LeeH]

Good luck Kyle!

[Kyle_T]

Cheers mate, I shall be following this recipe this time round. The last one was an improvement but I still find it lacking in some areas.

'Big Brute Mild'

All Grain - 23 Litres.
Style: Mild
OG: 1.041
FG: 1.009
IBU: 16
SRM: 17.6
ABV: 4.2%
Balance: 0.38

Grain Bill:

3.0kg Mild Ale Malt (75.7%)
0.4kg Crystal Malt - Dark (10.1%)
0.34kg Invert Sugar (8.6%)
0.15kg Flaked Maize (3.8%)
75g Chocolate Malt (1.9%)


68 deg/c mash for 90 minutes.
60 minute boil time.

Hop Bill:

20g Fuggles Leaf 6.2% AA @ 90 minutes: IBU: 12
15g Goldings (EK) Leaf 6.5% AA @ 10 minutes: IBU: 4

Misc:

3g Irish Moss @ 10 minutes.

Yeast:

Gervin GV-12 English Ale Yeast 11g

[Old Hooky]

That looks tasty! Where do you buy invert sugar? I don't normally use any sugar except a tin of Lyles Golden Syrup or some Spraymalt.

[Kyle_T]

That's what I'm using mate, it's a partial invert sugar, as far as I remember it is only 75% fermentable but does add to flavour and body, I think it works out something like 340g of fermentables for a 454g tin.

[Kyle_T]

I'm afraid I've cheated and copied this from my brew day post on another forum but here's how it went:

Today's the day, the sun is shining and the steel is clean. Woke up at 06:00 hours, had a cup of tea, slice of toast and got ready for a much awaited day.

This is the recipe:

'Big Brute Mild'

All Grain - 23 Litres.
Style: Mild
OG: 1.041
FG: 1.009
IBU: 16
SRM: 18
ABV: 4.2%
Balance: 0.38

Grain Bill:

3.0kg Mild Ale Malt (75.7%)
0.38kg Crystal Malt - Dark (9.6%)
0.34kg Invert Sugar (8.6%)
0.15kg Flaked Maize (3.8%)
88g Chocolate Malt (2.2%)

68 deg/c mash for 90 minutes.
60 minute boil time.

Hop Bill:

20g Fuggles Leaf 6.2% AA @ 60 minutes: IBU: 12
15g Goldings (EK) Leaf 6.5% AA @ 10 minutes: IBU: 4

Misc:

3g Irish Moss @ 10 minutes.

Yeast:

Gervin GV-12 English Ale Yeast 11g

Note: didn't have 400g of crystal only 382g so upped the chocolate malt from 75g to 88g to compensate

Will update as day progresses:

08:00 - Grain Weighed Out.



08:53 - Hops Weighed Out



10:11 - HLT Filled and Heating.





11:46 - Mash Tun Pre-Heat and Dough In



11:56 - Mash Begins and Temperature:





13:29 - Mash End Temp and Sparge





First Runnings:



Sparge:





13:59 - Heating To Boil Begins, Oversparged to 46L, will go for 90 min boil but no hops till 60 minutes.



14:52 - Hot Break



14:58 - BOIL!



16:00 - Gas off - Tea break.

17:30 - Gas back on for boil.

17:50 - 60 minute hops.



18:50 - 10 minute additions:



19:20 - Chilling:



20:05 - Hydrometer reading at 20 deg/c:



20:35 - Drained Into Primary and Yeast Pitched:



After what has been the longest and most trying brew day of my life I noticed 2 important things, pre heat the mash tun longer and watch that fecking sight glass like a hawk, after all the effort I actually got this:

'Big Brute Mild'

All Grain - 30 Litres.
Style: Mild
OG: 1.036
FG: 1.008
IBU: 13
SRM: 15
ABV: 3.7%
Balance: 0.37

Grain Bill:

3.0kg Mild Ale Malt (75.7%)
0.4kg Crystal Malt - Dark (10.1%)
0.34kg Invert Sugar (8.6%)
0.15kg Flaked Maize (3.8%)
75g Chocolate Malt (1.9%)


68 deg/c mash for 90 minutes.
90 minute boil time.

Hop Bill:

20g Fuggles Leaf 6.2% AA @ 90 minutes: IBU: 11
15g Goldings (EK) Leaf 6.5% AA @ 10 minutes: IBU: 3

Misc:

3g Irish Moss @ 10 minutes.

Yeast:

Gervin GV-12 English Ale Yeast Starter 200ml.

On the plus side, my efficiency did go from 75% to 88%! for this brew on the new system, will go for an 85% on the next brew just to make sure it wasn't pot luck.

[Old Hooky]

What is meant by "efficiency" I have to confess that I never got too technical with home brewing. I got drinkable, tasty beer and never went for all the jargon because I thought of people making beer 500 years ago never had all the technology we have today. Can you explain what you mean? I'm going to make this mild as my first brew in 5 years.

[Kyle_T]

It just means how good you and your equipment is at extracting the sugars from the grains. As I went way over my volumes but extracted nearly all the sugars from the grain I got an alright result.

[Old Hooky]

Oh right. I always seemed to get good quality beers and just carried on regardless. Your brewery looks very professional. One day I will go down that route if work ever picks up to how it was before 2008, I can't see it happening anytime soon. Where in Essex are you? I'm Braintree.

[Kyle_T]

I got lucky mate, few months hard work and some good wage packets, I'm in Chelmsford mate.