After the stuck mash on my last brew, I was itching to have another go and try and get it right. I’d already decided to go with pretty much the same recipe as last time, mainly as I knew that these first couple of brews back would have issues and I wanted to try and iron them out. The main difference between this brew and the previous one were the hops being used, this time around it was a bag of Simcoe that was getting used up, along with the remainder of the packet of Amarillo. Here’s the recipe:

Fermentable	Colour	Grams	Ratio
Pale Malt	5 EBC	3436 grams	89.1%
CaraPils	4 EBC	420 grams	10.9%

Kettle Hop Variety	Type	Alpha	Time	grams	IBU Ratio
2010 Simcoe	Whole	12.2%	90	8	30%
2010 Simcoe	Whole	12.2%	15	15	25%
2010 Amarillo	Whole	10.7%	15	10	15%
2010 Simcoe	Whole	12.2%	10	12	15%
2010 Simcoe	Whole	12.2%	5	23	15%

Other Hop Variety	Type	Alpha	Time	grams
2010 Simcoe	Whole	12.2%	80°C steep	20g
2010 Amarillo	Whole	15%	80°C steep	20g
2010 Simcoe	Whole	15%	days 4 to 10	21g
2010 Amarillo	Whole	10.7%	days 4 to 10	20g

	Expected	Actual
Volume	19 litres	18.8 litres
Mash	90 mins at 66°C	90 mins at 65°C
Original gravity	1.040	1.048 (12 Brix -> 1.050)
Terminal gravity	1.007	5.8 Brix -> 1.0065
ABV	4.9%	~5.68%
GU/BU ratio	1.25	1.04
Yeast:	Safale US-05
Brew fridge:	19°C ±1°C

I didn’t quite have enough Marris Otter Pale Malt left to reach my target gravity of 1.040 with a 92%/8% split with the CaraPils, so I added more of the latter to make up the difference. Hopefully this won’t result in the beer having too much residual sweetness and infact might help as the GU/BU ratio is quite high.

For some reason I decided to use my main boiler to heat the initial mash liquor, rather than my spare one. I think the reason was that I needed more liquor than would fit in either, so decided to use the main boiler first so it would free to accept both batches of wort, without having to wait for the second batch of water to heat to temperature.

The taps on both the boilers are different, the one on the main boiler is quite small and doesn’t have anywhere near the float rate of the spare boiler, which is why I’ve always used it in the past for the initial mash liquor. Because of this, it took longer than expected to get the initial batch of liquor into the mash tun and I missed my mash temperature by a degree. Which meant that I mashed at 65°C for ninety minutes, rather than at 66°C for ninety minutes. I was pleased to see though, that after ninety minutes, the temperature of the mash was exactly the same.

Missing my mash temperature was also compounded by over shooting the strike temperature and then having to faff around to try and cool it down by a couple of degrees. I’m not sure what happened exactly, but it reached strike temperature about five minutes earlier than I was expecting and as I was in the house at the time, it meant to ended up too high. I should really find out what the power of the boiler elements are, so I can be a bit more accurate with working out how long it will take to heat up.

Both batch sparges went without issue, although I do think I should have recirculated three two litre jugs of wort like last time, rather than just the two that I did. The wort was much clearer last time round before I let it drop into the boiler, this time is was really muddy looking. On the upside though, at least this meant that I didn’t end up with a stuck mash, which all meant that I hit my target pre-boil volume.

Due to not having a stuck mash, this part of the brew went just bit faster than last time. I didn’t time it exactly, but it was somewhere in between three to three and a half hours or so from starting to fill the boilers with water, to having all the wort in the boiler. I still think there is room for improvement, so I hope to make this part go even quicker next time. One thing I definitely need to do next time is go to bed immediately after I finish and not stay up till half past midnight.

After drinking a few bottles of the last brew on the Friday evening and another bottle once I’d started the mash, I decided to make a tweak to the hopping schedule. Rather than 40% of the IBUs coming at the start, I decided to go with slightly less, in favour of a much bigger addition at 15 minutes to go. This also meant that there was no twenty minute addition, so it’ll be interesting to see what kind of difference that makes, if any.

The boil passed without incident, although I’m not sure that I boiled quite as hard as last time. Though there did appear to be quite a lot of break material in the boiler once it was drained, so hopefully I boiled it hard enough. It took quite a long time to get to the stage where I could empty the boiler though, as it seemed to take an absolute age to cool down to pitching temperature. On the plus side though, I reseated the jubilee clips on the chiller, which seems to have stopped them leaking.

All that was left to do was pitch the yeast and clean up, which I did immediately this time round. While chilling the wort seemed to take an age, everything else seemed to be go a bit quicker, so I was all done and dusted and back with the family in time to whip up an Ottolenghi recipe for lunch.

I was much happier with the way this brew went, even though I still overshot the anticipated gravity, which I think was just down to an increased efficiency, rather than anything else. Having said that, I do think that I could have had a clearer mash run off, so it’ll be interesting to see what the beer is like once it’s been bottled.

Update: 17/04/12
I popped out to the shed this morning to check up on the beer and take a gravity reading. As you can see from the photos, I had a smashing time… I don’t know what it is about me and hydrometers, they just don’t last very long around me. At least I have a refractometer now though, so I can still monitor the beer and work out the terminal gravity and thus rough ABV. So it turns out that this equation is my new best friend:

SG = 1.001843 – 0.002318474*OB – 0.000007775*OB*OB – 0.000000034*OB*OB*OB + 0.00574*FB + 0.00003344*FB*FB + 0.000000086*FB*FB*FB

Update: 18/04/12
The gravity reading from yesterday was low enough for me to think about dry hopping the beer, so I did. I used up the remainder of both the packs of Simcoe and Amarillo, and boy did they smell good! I used the same dry hopping technique as last time, although I decided against adding some water, mainly as I couldn’t be arsed to boil some for ten minutes to sterilise it. I should really get my finger out next time and make sure I do try it wet, as I’m not sure I want all those lovely hop resins stuck to the side of the processor bowl.

Update: 23/04/12
I totally forgot to turn down the temperature on the brew fridge in Sunday night, which would have given the beer three days at 2°C. I suddenly remembered this morning, so ran out the the shed and adjusted the thermostat accordingly. I totally forgot to adjust the low level alarm again though, so when I got home it was blinking away. Luckily the temp in the fridge appears to have gone all the way down to 2°C inspite of this, so a minor tweak to the thermostat and the alarm disappeared.

I think I need to write a checklist of all the different steps that need doing and when they need doing. Sounds like a good idea for a blog or two…

Update: 25/04/12
Yesterday morning before work turned out to be slightly hectic, as I suddenly realised that I hadn’t prepared any bottles by stripping them of their labels. This resulted in a frantic scrubbing session at nine o’clock in the morning, to make sure I had more than enough clean de-labeled bottles.

I have to say though, that preparing German bottles is a breeze, the labels simply slide off after five minutes in hot water. In contrast, I have no idea what glue British brewers are using, as it seems capable of withstanding a thermonuclear explosion! Judicious use of a knife and metal pan scourer eventually got it off, but what a pain. I think I’ll have to try boiling the bottles next time, that should soften the glue enough, I would have though…

The benefit of getting the bottles prepared before work though, was that I could get them all into the dishwasher and have it set to come on while I was on the way home, so the bottled would be ready for me once I’d had my dinner, so theoretically I could get on quicker. This worked out quite well, especially as I ended up going off to collect another fridge for use in the shed, so if I’d waited until I’d got home to put the dishwasher on, who know how late it would have been when I finished.

I bought a new syphon tube clip for use on this brew, as my existing one is a bit crap and last time, didn’t allow the tube to get all the way to the bottom of the bucket. The only issue though, was the clip is for ¼” syphon tubing and mine is slightly thicker, which meant that it got a bit pinched. This resulted in the longest transfer I think I’ve ever done, it took an absolute ages to syphon the beer onto the primings in the other bucket. I might have to have a fiddle with different tubing, although the syphoning into the bottles didn’t appear to be affected.

I managed to get 34 bottles, which isn’t too bad, it means I lost just over a litre and a half to the trub and dry hops. While I could take this into account and have more than 19 litres in the fermentor, I’m getting near the limit of what the existing mash tun can cope with when batch sparging. I’m considering looking into getting some of those 30 litre blue barrels and trying to bodge my own system, I can’t see it happening anytime in the near future, but it’s worth dreaming about for a bit I think.

The bottles are all now in the brew fridge, which has been set to a balmy 19°C, where they’ll sit for a week or two until they’re ready to sample. All that’s left to do, is cut the remaining labels out and stick them on. I’ve got high hopes for this one and am really looking forward to trying it.

Update: 08/05/12
My wife was out last night, so I took the opportunity to cut out the remaining labels and stick them on. I’m quite pleased with these labels, I think they’re an improvement over the last batch. They do need a bit of tweaking though, as the sidebar has come out a bit darker than I wanted and I think the main text could be slightly larger, but other than that, I’m really quite pleased.