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

[Mike Neilson]

And people say swinging is not the way to go aye, chuck your mash paddles in the middle and away you go!!

 

By the looks of this swing its going to be awsome!! and I hope it makes alot of money for the cause.

 

Ka Pai!!

 

[Mike Neilson]

Black Pale Ale time me thinks

 

83.6% Thomas Fawcett Maris Otter

8% Thomas Fawcett Light Crystal

4% Bairds Dark Caramalt

2.2% German Chocolate

2.2% Thomas Fawcett Pale Chocolate

 

15Ibu Centenial @ 60

1g/l @ 20 Centenial

1.5g/l Centenial/Amarillo .7g/l Simcoe @ 10, 0

50g Centenial Dryhop

50g Amarillo Dryhop

 

1.058 - 1.014 5.8%abv

50Ibu

1469/US05

[JackoNZ]

Hung up the bag today and having a crack with a 54L mash tun instead. Brewing an easy quaffing NZ Pale Ale to build up a yeast cake for a Barley Wine next.

 

Lost access to Beersmith temporarily so not sure of the grain bill, I remember it was 5.3K, About 92% base, some caramalt and some pale crystal I think. Pacific Jade to bitter up to 26IBU, 30g of Mot and 10g of NS at 10min and 0min. 40 IBU all up, 1.055, S-05

[JackoNZ]

Not a great brew day yesterday in terms of efficiency. Just wondering what you guys who use a chiller bin mash tun would extract from 5.31Kg of grain? I ended up with only 28L of 1.041 pre boil gravity, an into boiler efficiency of 70%. This was my first time using a chilly bin, I mashed in at about 3.5K/l due to not hitting mash temp and having to top up, then mashed for an hour, topped up with 7l for mash out, drained, sparged with 12L more. I'm used to getting over 80% into boiler efficiency with the BIAB method so was quite shocked to be so low. Everything I had read said that using this method would be almost as good as fly sparging. Other things I think it could be, grain mill has been adjusted recently after a house move and I guess could go finer on the crush, I had no issues with stuck sparges yesterday. Could the grain bed depth be an issue in such a large tun (54l). I did enjoy the new method and would like to stick with it, but would also like to see that efficiency go up.

[jt]

First thought is that both drainings of a batch sparge should be equal volume. Not sure your deadspace in the tun, but looks like the second draining could be short ?

[JackoNZ]

Yeah good point JT, didn't even think about that one. I did aim for equal sparges but because I had to top up to hit mash temp I ended up using less water for mash out. 16-17l for first drain, 12 for second. Would that really give you such a low extraction rate though? The initial drain came out around 1.055.

[jt]

Would that really give you such a low extraction rate though?

 

Ummmm, to be honest no idea, it was only what I'd read - green bay rackers articles from memory, it was  awhile ago.

 

I do batch and did have very low effic when I started. The equal drainings was one of many many changes so I have no idea what it contributed

[JackoNZ]

I had a read online about efficiency today, I read somewhere that it needs a difference of 30% in drainings volume to see 1% efficiency loss! So I'm thinking that's not the issue. I'm putting it down to grain crush at the moment, will have another go this week and see if it improves. Cheers

[Mark]

Probably a bit of tweaking on all the above, never-before-used systems always take a bit of getting used to. For me, mash thickness, water ph and mill size are the big efficiency drivers, so once you've got them sussed you should be fine. I bought an expensive system from Morebeer which, until I got used to it, gave me less efficiency than 2 pots and a sieve!

[Mike Neilson]

Holly shit!! First time I have ever drunk (skulled) the whole gravity sample!! Fuck the dryhops its time to drink crash cool to 12 and dip the handpull line into the fermenter and suck the bitch out me thinks!!

[Martin Bridges]

I'm knackered at the end of a long brewday. Just waiting till my boy's in bed then I'll be rewarding myself with a beer.

 

I had another go at my Parkin beer today. I think I posted about this before, but it's a beer inspired by the world-famous Yorkshire delicacy. It contains Golden Promise, a big whack of oats (about 20%), dark Crystal, Melanoidin & Biscuit malt. Not a lot of hop, but there's fresh ginger added to the boil at 15 mins to go and flameout.

 

The first time I brewed it I had a nightmare trying to lauter it (with such a high percentage of oats I'm not surprised). So this time I decided to try a step mash (my first attempt at such) with a beta-glucan rest at 40 degrees. This turned out to be a longer rest than planned because it took my HLT a long time to come up to temp for the second infusion. Still, it seems to have done the trick because the lauter was much easier. Efficiency was also up a bit.

 

Wort is now chilled and in the fermenter. Looks awesome and tastes pretty good, although the ginger is not as prominent. This time I shredded the ginger finely and added it in hop sacks rather than grating it and slinging it direct into the kettle as I did last time. I had all sorts of problems with the outlet getting blocked last time. I guess I can adjust the ginger via "dry gingering" if required!

[David Wood]

Cooool I tried your first batch, it was great! Perfectly captured the essence of golden syrup and ginger.

In the few gingered ales I've done I let the chilled wort rest for an hour and siphoned the clear wort off the ginger bits, rather than using my kettle tap.