A day in the life in the JoKing Brewery.

[JoKing]

It's been a couple of weeks since I've been and given a bit of insight to the brewery here so I thought I'd pop in and say hi... Yesterday was a massive day of home brew related activities. And I was mindful of a few of the discussions that were on the forum. First off for the day was bottling off the batch of Barleywine that Mike and Reviled brewed here in my whare. It's been a while since I bottled a batch - so I thought I get the assistant brewer to give me some help with this. I had about a pint of this beer (due to spillage) and I must say... not bad! However - a was half pissed at 11am... not good.

We had a bit of a production line going on... it worked out well, but I have to admit that this is my least favourite aprt of brewing. I think that if I was still bottling instead of kegging, I would probably brew a lot less. I mean... there were 38 Bottles, each one was individually cleaned, rinsed, steralised, rinsed and then primed even before the Assistant Brewer came over to help. It took about an hour and a half to get these bottles filled. Christina was the filler, I was the passer and capper: Christina hates capping! Anyway... after lunch I got into the business at hand. I thought it would be interesting to write a brew log for this session... so here goes. Naked_______ Blonde 6-B Blonde Ale Author: J Wood Date: 18/04/2009 Size: 24.24 L Efficiency: 84.0% Attenuation: 78.0% Calories: 169.89 kcal per 12.0 fl oz Original Gravity: 1.051 (1.038 - 1.054) Terminal Gravity: 1.011 (1.008 - 1.013) Color: 4.85 (3.0 - 6.0) Alcohol: 5.25% (3.8% - 5.5%) Bitterness: 26.1 (15.0 - 28.0) Ingredients: 4.75 kg Pilsner Malt 0.250 kg Melanoidin Malt 10.0 g Nugget (11.6%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min 42 g Home Grown Hops (8%) - added during boil, boiled 12 min 42 g Home Grown Hops (8%) - added during boil, boiled 1 min 1.0 ea Fermentis US-05 Safale US-05 12:00 Set up brewery 12:16 Start filling Mash Tun 12:18 Start Weighing Malt / Start heating strike water 12:25 Finish heating strike water - 75.2 degrees / Start milling malt into strike water. 12:27 Finish Milling malt / Stirring mash 12:29 Dough in Complete - 67.5 degrees 13:00 Start filling HLT 13:01 Start Heating HLT 13:02 Start Recirculating HLT 13:12 HLT Full 13:13 HLT up to temp - 78 degrees 13:14 Flush water out of pump with wort 13:15 Start recirculating the mash 13:29 Turn off pump, change mash outlet hoses over to the kettle 13:30 Start transfer wort to kettle 13:31 Connect hoses to pump and HLT 13:38 Turning kettle on / Start Sparging 14:08 Sparge complete: 29L in kettle / Start pack away empty HLT / Check SG of final running: 1.006 14:33 Rolling Boil observed 15:03 10g of Nugget added to boil 15:48 Chiller placed in Kettle and start whirlpooling. 15:51 42g of Danscade added to kettle with .7g carageenan and .2g servomyces 16:02 42g of Danscade added to kettle 16:03 Cold water on / Turn Kettle off 16:18 Turn whirlpool off 18:33 Start transfer to fermenter / pitch yeast 18:43 Transfer complete / pack away brewery 18:45 Check SG of wort: 1.051

So that's some nice clear wort there... a little bit darker than I expected - still blonde though... maybe a golden blonde! After I finished with the brew, I went into the fermenting room to check on the Red Ale that is fermenting in there and took a photo of the yeast sitting atop the clear wort for Studio1. This is the 2nd brew in a row with that yeast that it behaving like this! Honeslty... if you didn't have temperature control, it must be extremely difficult to get the yeast to drop out from its krausen!

Patience Grasshoper... it will drop when it's ready...

[JoKing]

And the Naked Blonde is fully cranking now... Good old 03-09 Batch of US-05! Gotta love that stuff!

[denimglen]

Interesting to see you only use 200mg of servomyces, is that the reccommended dosage?

Your chiller is 15m of 1/2" with the whirlpool aye? What temp did you get to in that 15mins from flameout to whirlpool-out? Any idea of water temp? Just wondering, ditched the plate chiller in favour of one of these and just wondering what to expect next brewday.

[JoKing]

Yeah - the recommended dose is 1 gram per hectoliter of wort. If you overdo this stuff it creates insane cell growth (resulting in off flavours in the beer).

Good question mate. It's astounding how fast these chill... and there are soooo many benefits of having the ability to chill all the wort at once, while it is whirlpooling. At the end of the day, the hop flavour in the beer is much more pronounced.

Anyway... by 5 mins (at this time of the year) the wort is at 40 - 50 degrees. 10 mins it is 25 - 30 and 15 mins it's at the same temp as the water. I turn the whirlpool off when it's reached temperature equalibrium.... but I leave the water running with the wort in the kettle for at least and hour and a half - just so that all the break material settles to the bottom.

I cant wait for winter - to see what really cold supply water will do here.

[denimglen]

Yeah the plate chiller is awesome but with the clogging and slow overall cooling times it's not doing much justice, maybe if you had glycol or some fancy below-freezing coolant it would be better. But even recirculating back into the kettle I'm looking at about 30 mins to about 30 - 35C. Kinda sealed the deal with the amber I brewed with hop bag and plate, and 120g hops in the last 15 mins and has only the slightest hint of hop aroma.

[Mike Neilson]

Loving the Krausen!! Cant to see it sister on my bitter!! Bubbles after 2 hrs This stuff is like Viagra!! so ive Heard!!!

[studio1]

I've got some 1469 about to blow the lid off my fermenter on a brown ale. I love it!

[Mike Neilson]

I take it youve got temp control aye!! Dont want it to be to hot!!

[studio1]

yip, sitting at 19.

[JoKing]

I'll be keen to know how things turn out with your 1469 - there seem to be a few of us on here noticing that it doesn't drop down from the top of the fermenter... even after a generous rousing, 30mins later - it's back!

[Mike Neilson]

Nice see how I go I have about 21-22 in the fermenter so F'all head space, so im expecting abit in the blow tube!!