Brew Day #3

Preparation 

Water - Prepared over previous two days

Basically filtered then boiled two batches of water, allowed to cool then drained from boiler all except the dregs. Full details of process here.

Ingredients - Checked in the days prior to brew

These were purchased from Brew UK.

Hops were vacuum packed 100g pellets. 

Malt was pre-milled in 1KG packages.

Gypsum and Epsom Salts as powders in plastic containers.

Yeast dry vacuum packed.

Hops and Yeast stored in fridge at 5C - good for yeast, unknown for hops.

Malt stored in garage at approx 16C - no idea of this is a good storage temp.

Recipe

Hop Back Summer Lightening Clone as published in the Graham Wheeler Book - Camra's Brew Your Own British Real Ale.

I have been encouraged by Steve's Beer and Bike blog where he details his brew day with this recipe. If your attempting this recipe, I encourage you to have a read.

Recipe	Measure
Pale Malt (EBC 4 or less)	5.1Kg
Challenger Hops (start of Boil)	38g
Goldings Hops (Last 10 Min of Boil)	13g
Goldings Hops (End of Boil)	8g
Yeast	Danster - Nottingham Ale Yeast 11g Packet
Mash Liquor	32 litres
Mash Temperature	68C
Mash Time	1 Hour 30 Minutes
Sparge Temperature	no sparge
Mash Efficiency (estimated)	65%
Boil Time	1 Hour 30 Minutes
Batch Volume	19 litres
Fermentation Temperature	18C
Expected OG	1049
Expected FG	1011
Expected ABV	5%
IBU's Bitterness	38
Colour EBC	5.8
Pre Boil Gravity	1.045
Post Boil Gravity - Actual OG	missing
Actual FG	Not Yet Finished

 

Changes This Time

Up the level of calcium. It is possible we are too close to bare minimum. More calcium would help drive the pH lower - whatever it is, i.e. we have not correctly measured it. But its likely to be too high.

Gypsum 9g to grist + 6g to boil : 9g More than 
Epsom Salts 3g : Same as before
Table Salt 6g : New Addition

Benefits:
- Brings Calcium content up
- Reduces pH by 0.13 compared to 0.07 in brew #1 and #2

If the mash pH is too high, more of the boil Gypsum could be added to mash instead

Use Beer Smith software to track details of brew. 

• Save a version against a brew day. 
• During the brew check software for user input for actual measurements.

Salt

Initially I thought that Himalayan Pink Salt would be a good option. However the pink colour is due to its Iron content. Iron is one of the minerals that is apparently not good for beer. Also, it has a broad mineral range which includes other no no's such as Iodine and Manganese.

The ideal choice is Canning Salt, which is sold as a product for pickling. If this is not available, Kosher Salt is the next best option. Unable to find either in Waitrose and Asda, I opted for Maldon Tidmans Rock Salt. A quick lookup on the internet and found that some analysis found on the web that Todmans Rock Salt contains more sodium chloride than Maldons Sea Salt. This will get me by for now. 

Process

Fill boiler and switch on
Wash mash-tun, paddle and large pan

Brought 28 liters up to 75C and added about 10 litres into mash tun to warm. 

Topped up boiler and brought to to 72C.

Dropped out most of water in mash tun.

Added 25 litres of 72C water to mash-tun. 

Waited until water came down to 68C. 

Added 5.1KG grist - salts added to full grain bill after weighing and mixed up.

Added further 8 litres of water at 72C to bring the total volume of water to 32litres.

Sealed mash tun as best we could leaving digital thermometer in place.

After 90 mins performed vorlauf using a steel pan

Drained about 20 litres of wort from mash tun into boiler and lifted it up to its position.

Switched on boiler. 

Used the steel pan to continue to retrieve wort from grain bed and add to boiler.

Took sample for hydrometer reading.

Boiled for 90 mins adding hops in bags at appropriate times.

Boil complete, added post boil hops and switched off boiler for 30 mins.

While post boil hops in progress, cleaned and sanitized plate chiller, pump, fermenter, airlock, silicone pipes and setup chiller.

Sanitized lid.

Started running wort through chiller cycling back into boiler. 

When wort reached 17C, ran off wort into fermenter.

Pitched yeast which had been hydrates for 20 mins in boiled water saved from first water batch.