Big Brew Day!!! Done and Dusted....

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

Hey guys wow what a day it's been, started at 9am and finished at 2pm. Recorded every step of the way and have results (good I hope).

Started with 30L of strike water temp. 70 deg C gas switched off at around 71.5C

Mash temp 64.4C to 68C target was around 64 to 66.

Volume after removing grain bag was 26L

added 3L of sparge and 1L drained out of grain bag. Pre-Boil volume now 30L.

Probably did a just over 75min boil. Volume after boil 20L.

Started transfer of wort to fermenter at 25 to 20C.

Aerated pitched yeast and airlock on and fermenter volume is 18L.

I did a hydrometer reading, but don't know how to read it or do it, so could be wrong??

pretty much filled the glass trial jar till the hydrometer made it over flow then it floated around 60?

My target OG is 1.052 and final is 1.013.

So I guess you want the photos now......

[URL=http://s909.photobucket.com/user/daza152/media/Big%20Brew%20Day%20024.jpg.html][IMG]http://i909.photobucket.com/albums/ac298/daza152/Big%20Brew%20Day%2...[/IMG][/URL]

[URL=http://s909.photobucket.com/user/daza152/media/Big%20Brew%20Day%20017.jpg.html][IMG]http://i909.photobucket.com/albums/ac298/daza152/Big%20Brew%20Day%2...[/IMG][/URL]

[URL=http://s909.photobucket.com/user/daza152/media/Big%20Brew%20Day%20021.jpg.html][IMG]http://i909.photobucket.com/albums/ac298/daza152/Big%20Brew%20Day%2...[/IMG][/URL]

[URL=http://s909.photobucket.com/user/daza152/media/Big%20Brew%20Day%20025.jpg.html][IMG]http://i909.photobucket.com/albums/ac298/daza152/Big%20Brew%20Day%2...[/IMG][/URL]

[URL=http://s909.photobucket.com/user/daza152/media/Big%20Brew%20Day%20026.jpg.html][IMG]http://i909.photobucket.com/albums/ac298/daza152/Big%20Brew%20Day%2...[/IMG][/URL]

[URL=http://s909.photobucket.com/user/daza152/media/Big%20Brew%20Day%20029.jpg.html][IMG]http://i909.photobucket.com/albums/ac298/daza152/Big%20Brew%20Day%2...[/IMG][/URL]

[URL=http://s909.photobucket.com/user/daza152/media/Big%20Brew%20Day%20032.jpg.html][IMG]http://i909.photobucket.com/albums/ac298/daza152/Big%20Brew%20Day%2...[/IMG][/URL]

[URL=http://s909.photobucket.com/user/daza152/media/Big%20Brew%20Day%20030.jpg.html][IMG]http://i909.photobucket.com/albums/ac298/daza152/Big%20Brew%20Day%2...[/IMG][/URL]

So that's it fingers crossed it tastes good and I got close to my target gravity! can anyone make any sense out of the reading I took?

Cheers.

Officially a Brewer :-)

Daza.

[Grant R Baker]

Syphone from about the yeast cake / trub.

You are dry hopping in primary so the extra time in the fermenter will help it compact on the bottom.

 

If you move your fermenter for bottling give it a few hours to settle down before bottling.

 

One of my old favourites is a bottling wand on the syhpone hose to bottle with, instead of the fermenters tap.

 

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

No bubbles at the moment.

[Sam DT]

Google brewers friend wort dilution calculator, plug in your original and desired gravities plus your initial volume and it will tell you how much extra water you need to add. As you've added the water play with the target gravity figure until it equals 5 litres and that should give you a reasonable idea of where you ended up.

You could give it a boost with the heater if it's to cold but anywhere from 16-21 should be fine and once fermentation gets under way it'll keep itself warm. After fermentation starts to slow - say next weekend I'd throw the heater on and bring it up to 23 or so

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

Dam I think it says I should have only put in 2.7 litres to reach my desired gravity but I put in 5 litres still don't know how to make it tell me what I have now?? can you work it out? I going out to check my fermenter volume right now.......................................OK it's at 20L I think so that's odd! ok so maybe I have to be more accurate at the end of the beer making process and really focus on what's actually happening and record accurately. Starting to wonder if it was 16 L I'm came away with and not 18L bloody hell! oh well learning curve at this point I'm just hoping for drinkable beer. My heat pad is on and I have signs of life in air lock lots of bubbles. temp is 20 deg C on side of fermenter sticker. So I will leave on I think. Dry Hops still to add in 4-5 days now.

[Nathan]

Aside from an infection.....It will be very drinkable....Just let her ride, The trub will settle right out and should fall below the tap level so bottling wont be an issue if not only the first bottle will be "dirty", Volumes are tricky to get right, I have only just starting getting mine nailed after a year or so of all grain brewing, Don't stress about gravity's I gave up on that about 8 months ago no point in it I take a reading before yeast then a few at the end of fermentation and what it is is what it is. 

[Grant R Baker]

It sounds like your evaporation rate is quite high. Very vigorous boil..?

 

But now you have a better idea how much sparge water to add next time. Normally I would not add water after the brew is done, but nothing wrong with the idea.

1.060 instead of 1.052 means your beer might be a little sweeter than intended.

[Matt Smith]

Your OG after the 5 litre dilution would be 1.048. The calculation to work it out is pretty straight forward. Take the last two numbers of the current gravity i.e 60 for 1.060, multiply that by the initial volume i.e 20, then divide that number by the volume after dilution i.e. 25. So 60 x 20 = 1200, divided by 25 = 48 (1.048)