1st brew on the gear formerly known as the Liberty Pilot Brewery

[Soren]

As Joking mentioned in a previous post, he made me a pilot brewery. I got this on Monday and yesterday I finally got around to playing around with it. I like to get straight to the point and instead of brewing a pale ale just to see how the system worked I went for gold, pushed the system to the max and made a big barley wine. This is also sort of a tribute to our first child who can arrive any day now, I plan on cellaring it for as long as possible,hopefully for 21 years...:)

If it turns out good, I might make a commercial batch. I have been working on making an all NZ hoped barley wine, but they usually get too sweet, so this time I'm trying to break it up a bit with a bit of sharp piney Simcoe:

A ProMash Recipe Report

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (L): 60.00 Wort Size (L): 60.00
Total Grain (kg): 28.10
Anticipated OG: 1.110 Plato: 25.89
Anticipated SRM: 20.7
Anticipated IBU: 147.5
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75 %
Wort Boil Time: 120 Minutes

Formulas Used
-------------

Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
89.0 25.00 kg. Pale Malt(2-row) Great Britain 1.038 3
3.6 1.00 kg. Crystal 55L Great Britian 1.034 55
5.3 1.50 kg. Crystal 75L Great Britian 1.034 75
2.1 0.60 kg. CaraAroma 1.030 150

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.

Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
150.00 g. Warrior Pellet 17.40 121.1 120 min.
150.00 g. Nelson Sauvin Pellet 13.00 13.7 1 min.
150.00 g. Simcoe Pellet 12.00 12.7 1 min.
150.00 g. Nelson Sauvin Pellet 13.00 0.0 0 min.

Yeast

Wyeast 1272 American Ale II
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I may have been a bit too optimistic about the size of the mash. The mash tun was litterally full to the brim and it was pinfull to see it spill over and mess up Jo's beautiful craftmanship! There was a lot of messing around and as a result I hit 62C instead if the planned 67. Oh well, I was planning on adding some table sugar to the fermenter to boost attenuation but that might not be necessary after all.

After 10 mins of recirculation, sparkling clear wort goes in the kette.

The sparge is gravity fed and super easy to work.

Just about to hit the boil. I collected 75 liters (the pot is 80 to the brim) and I'm amazed there was no boil over. the Rambo burner is adjustable with a ball valve, so if it had gotten close I couold always have tuned it back a bit.

I forgot to take a picture of the chilling process, but I whirlpooled with the immersion chiller in the background which took the wort down to 20C in about 20 mins. Then I took the chiller out and continued whirlpooling for 10 mins, let it settle for 15 mins and transfered into my good old buckets.

Nice pile of trub, I got a bit in the fermenters as well, but not enough to worry me. I might install some kind of screen around the outlet to make the wort even clearer,

50 liters final yield, not too shabby for a first go.

Bit of a quick writeup, I need to go clean the garage before I get invaded by fruitflies!

Thank you Joseph, this system is awesome! Now I just need to build some kind of stand to put it on, the floor doesn't do it justice!

[Reviled]

Awesome stuff, that system is the bizness!! How do you find the Rambo soren? Im getting one myself very shortly!

[Mike Neilson]

Freeze 20L of it!!! Go on do it!!

[JoKing]

Mate - there is some Trub in that kettle aye?!?!?! How did the diffuser like being immersed in mash? I know I had put it too low in the mash tun... typical that you push it to the limit on the very first batch!

[Soren]

The rambo is awesome, the only complaint would be the noise, it roars like a jet engine!
That is a good idea mike, ice barley wine, might go for it.
The difuser in the mash worked just fine Joseph, no issues at all.

[Soren]

forgot to mention that the "1 min" hop additions were added at flameout and steeped in hot wort for 15 mins. The "0 min" addtion were added seconds before turning on the chiller. I'm doing this to simulate the effect of Renaissance' brewing process, where we usually add the end addition after flamout and just before starting the whirlpool. We whirlpool hot for 15 mins and let settle for 15 mins before filtering the wort through the hop back on the way to the heat exchanger. so the 1 min additions should equal the flameout addition and the 0 mins should be the same as the hop back. Or close to it anyways.

Another experiment in this beer is to see how far I can push my "house yeast", Wyeast 1272. Usually I woulndt make a barley wine with this but lets see how it performs. I may have to add a more sturdy yeast after primary fermentation...

[Stu H]

Newbie question, but why do you whirlpool after removing the chiller?
Looks awesome though!

[Andrew]

You whirlpool to get all the coagulated proteins and hop debris (known collectively as Trub) into a tight pile in the middle of the whirlpool bottom. Then when you take the wort off you end up with much clearer beer with little or no Trub in it. You don't have to do this but it means you'll get more beer off the brew because you won't have to leave a load of cloudy beer at the bottom of the whirlpool or kettle.

[Reviled]

"it roars like a jet engine!" That sounds like a plus to me not a complaint ;o) haha

If I can answer Stus question, i would say its so that all the hop and trub material forms a cone in the centre of the kettle, meaning you can drain off crystal clear wort from the tap without getting all the crap mixed in, at least thats my understanding as to why people whirlpool, but am very interested if theres another reason?

[Stu H]

ow cheers fullas!

[Andrew]

I might get one of those Rambo burners. That would be the manliest way ever to make toast in the morning, if there is a manly way to make toast.