Double Brewday - Monday 28 May 2007

On Monday 28th May in order to keep up with supply and demand I decided that it was time to do a double brewday, 2 5 gallon batches.

Batch 1 - Mr Grumpy Bum

I'm hoping that this will be a nice rich deep coloured bitter.

Target OG 1041 EBU 40
90 Min mash at 66 degrees C
4130gm Pale Malt (MO) Grain 91%
410gm Crystal Malt 9%
90 min boil
80gm Fuggles [AA 4.90%] (90 min) 40.2 IBU
25gm Styrian Goldings [AA 2.00%] (15 min)

Batch 2 - Styrian Stunner

This one should be a very light and very hoppy summer ale.

Stunner Target OG 1043 EBU 43
90 min mash at 66 degrees C
4750gm Pale Malt (MO) 100%
90 min boil
46gm Challenger [AA 6.80%] (90 min) 31.6 IBU
42gm Styrian Goldings [AA 2.00%] (90 min) 8.5 IBU
30gm Styrian Goldings [AA 2.00%] (15 min) 3.1 IBU
45gm Styrian Goldings [2.00%] (0 min) (At Power Off for 1hr)
15.00 gm Styrian Goldings [2.00%] (Dry Hop In Cask)

Here are a few pictures from the day:

(Left) Is the mash underway for Batch 1 Mr Grumpy Bum (MGB) this was covered and insulated. (Right) Sparging the grains at the end of the mash.

(Left) Is the initial run-off from the mash tun into the boiler for Batch 1 (Right) is the final volume collected in the boiler (25L) following the run-off and sparging, very pleased with the colour of this one.

(Left) The Batch 1 boil underway with the bittering hops swirling around (Right) Cooling the wort quickly with the IC (Immersion Cooler) after the boil.

(Left) The yeast starter getting going (Right) The first runnings from the Styrian Stunner mash, very pale compared to Batch 1.








(Left) Bittering hops going into the Styrian Stunner (Right) The result, 2 x 5 Gallon batches into fermentors, it was a long and quite tiring day in total it took 12 hours from 6am to 6pm! Now thats dedication! Both of these fermented out quite quickly and were kegged on Monday 4th June, Batch 1 Mr Grumpy Bum ended up at 3.9% abv and The Styrian Stunner ended up at 4.6% abv. Both are now conditioning and i'll be able to report back on how they have turned out in a few weeks! For the record the efficiency for the brews are Batch 1 73.8% and Batch 2 79.1% so not bad.

Fledgling Bitter - Update 1 Friday 25 May

Well this one has fermented down to 1010 in five days so it's found it's way into one of my King Kegs, it will stay in the warm of the kitchen for 5 days before being moved to the cool of the garage to mature. I primed with 85g DME mixed with 250ml warm pre boiled water. This one is 4.2% abv.

Brewday Sunday 20 May 2007 - Fledgling Bitter

On Sunday 20th May I brewed this which I hope will become my 'stock' bitter. I'm naming this one Fledgling Bitter for two reasons a) It will remind me of the number of Fledglings that we have being fed in our garden at the moment and b) to reflect by AG brewer status!

Brewlength 25 Litres

Grain Bill:
4350gm Pale Malt (Marris Otter) 94.8 %
240gm Crystal Malt 5.2 %
90 minute 66 degree mash

Hop Schedule:
55gm Challenger [AA - 6.80%] (90 min) 37.6 IBU
10gm Oregon Fuggles [AA - 4.90%] (15 min) 2.3 IBU
25gm Styrian Goldings [AA - 2.00%] (15 min) 2.3 IBU
1 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 15.0 min)
90 minute boil

I cleaned and sterilised the boiler the night before and filled it with 25L water treated with a half campden tablet. Also filled the mash tun (MT) with water and steriliser and weighed out the grain to give me a bit of a head start, the following day then went like this:

6am: Alarm goes off, wandered downstairs to switch both elements of the boiler on and also the kettle for a much needed coffee, while the water was coming up to temp (85 degrees) I emptied and rinsed the MT.

6.30am: Water up to 85 degrees so turned switched elements off and ran 12L into the MT and put the lid on for it to stabilise the temperature for a few mins, waited a for the temp to drop to 75 degrees then doughed in the grains, adjusted the mash PH to from over 6 to around 5.2 with 1 tsp of CRS, lid back on the MT and wrapped it up in a quilt for an hour and a half mash.

6:30am to 8:00am: A bit of spare time to potter around and get the equipment ready for the next stage (sparging), so cleaned and sterilised the HLT, spinny sparge arm and got another 25L treated water up to 90 degrees ready to sparge with.

8.00am: Once an hour and a half mash had completed I slowly ran off the turbid wort and recirculated it through perforated tin foil on top of the grain bed then ran the rest of the wort into the boiler whist sparging. The picture to the left are the first 'clear' runnings to the boiler. I like the colour of this one. I ended up collecting 25L after sparging this took around an hour to collect with a real slow run off.





With 55g of Challenger hops weighed out the boil was started at around 9am and took about half an hour to come up to a rolling boil and after fighting back the hot break the bittering hops were added at 9.30am. I added the remaining aroma hops 10g Oregon Fuggles and 25g Styrian Goldings along with 1 tsp Irish Moss 15 mins from the end of the boil. I lost around 5L during the boil, the remaining 20L was left for the hops to settle to form a filter bed this was then cooled using a copper immersion chiller. It dropped from 80 degrees to 20 degrees in about 25 minutes!



The wort was then run off into my fermenting vessel, I collected 18L, this was topped up to 25L with treated water and I got a reading of 1042 at 20 degrees which is an efficiency of 75%. The yeast starter was pitched and 24 hours later the yeast head had formed nicely and the airlock was going mad. A hydrometer reading was taken at 7pm on 22 May (55 hours after pitching the yeast) and it read 1012, so this has turned into 4%abv beer in just over 2 days!

To be continued...