What are you brewing?

[nzbrewer]

Since this is the most popular thread on the RealBeer.co.nz forum I thought I would start it here just to see what happens

[JoKing]

SMaSH brewing is really satisfying. I think you'd have excellent results with GP and amarillo. If you mash at 68 degrees, you'll have plenty of body left behind to aid the mandarin / peach thing that Amarillo is so good at.

My West Coast Blonde is Simcoe and GP at 67 degrees. It is one of the best beers I can make. A keg lasts about a week and a half. Self control doesn't exist when that stuff is in the keg.

[martin w]

what hop additions do you use?

[JoKing]

From memory - I bittered it with about 10 - 20g which gave me 18ish IBU. The 15 min addition gave me another 5 - 8ish and was like 20 - 30g ? I cant remember...

What I was after was using a total of 100g of hops. So whatever the difference was after the bittering addition (say there is 80g left over) I split into 3:

26g @ 15min
26g @ 1min
26g Dry hop for a week or so.

It works really well.

[Matthew]

Just just finished my SMaSH. Probably the smoothest brew day yet. We've been losing up to 5 degrees on the mash which wasn't good, I was going to get some polystyrene to put in the top of the chilly but forgot so last minute I put a wet towel over it. Cranked up the strike temp to compensate for the losses I've been getting except the towel worked a treat. Lost maybe 2 degrees tops which meant it mashed between 68-70. I missed my numbers by a bunch but oh well, Now I know the towel works.
Also been having major chilling issues so we whacked a copper coil together during the boil. Had time for a quick test, no leaks, bunged it in the pot for 30min then chilled 20L down to 20'C in less than 10 min! "We knocked the bastard off" as Sir Ed would say.
Brew day done n dusted in 4 hours ish. Not bad. Not the clearest wort, still need to work out a better process for sparging with this bag but we'll get there.
I might add some sugar later in the week just to bump it up a bit but so far we're on track for an acceptable CS4 beverage.

[James P]

Looks like it was a crap night weather wise down here, and the 21st across the round has finally wound up for the night... so time to brew!

A trial for the CBC:

Gladfields Pils 85.71 %
Cara-Pils/Dextrine 4.76 %
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L 4.76 %
Acid Malt 3.81 %
Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM) 0.95 %
Green Bullet (60 min) Hops
NZ Cascade (15 min) Hops
Motueka (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops

US 05
1050 ish 40ish IBU right in the middle of the road for all the stats.

[Patrick]

Just mashed in the Blonde Ale

3.5kg NZ pils.
1kg Maris Otter
.5kg Torrified Wheat
20g nz cascade @ 60
20g nz cascade @ 15
10g nelson sauvin @ 0
US05

Shooting for 1048 OG

I love the smell of it just after you stir all the grains in!

[Nick T]

Just (finally) doughed in for my first AG (BIAB for the time being) Nelson Sauvin Summer Ale - basically 92% Marris Otter, rest torrefied wheat. Lots of NS hops. Was not the most relaxed intro to AG - my flippin' mill stopped working! Had a cupful of milled grain, the rest stuck. Spent an hour fixing and re-trying the darned thing, was a grub screw that is not binding well (large pulley to drive shaft on mill) didn't help that it is not the most acessible bit and it was plugged full of milled flour. aarrgh! In the end had to mill a couple of kilos at a time. The rest after that seemed pretty straight forward, now waiting for mash-out time!

This BIAB lark seems to be so simple, uncomplicated, tidy - I can see why people like it!

[Nick T]

Hmm....not such a lark after all- preboil gravity way way off (1030 instead of 1042). The mash was 65 deg. Had only dropped 1 deg first 45 mins, but was down to 61 deg at the end of 90 minutes. The mill gap is set to 0.045 inch, so should be OK? I did notice that the torrefied wheat malt did not look particularly crushed though.... Looks like this is going to be a BIAB/extract hybrid ;-(

[James P]

Was your 1042 based on dialling in your expected efficiency? I found BIAB gave me low efficiency unless I did a mash out and rinsing of the grains step (Rev should be able to explain it, or check his blog post).

You will need to be able to apply heat during a 90min mash, mine was about 2C per 40~60 minutes.

[Nick T]

I had dialled in 70%. I did do a mash out and rinse step too. Must be the heat thing. Live and learn....

[Dale]

What temp did your take your reading at? If you got 1030 @ 65C then that's like 1042 @ 20C

[Nick T]

After not beleiving the refractometer I took a hydro sample and chilled it in the freezer to get the 1030 reading. I think I have been sucked in by the propoganda on the AHB BIAB thread which claims that efficiencies are as high if not higher as for a 3 vessel setup! ;-)