ACE Microbrewery IPA Brew Day

[BrewDorg]

Thought it might be useful to put up a brew day thread for me new machine. I've based a lot of figures on the Grainfather, so we'll see how that goes.

Here's how I've set up the system. Similar to the Grainfather I think.



Here's the recipe I'm using. Pretty simple IPA but should be good. I've also added 4g Gypsum, 4.5ml 33% CaCl and 1.5ml phosphoric acid to the water. I use Bru'n water so those aren't included on my Beersmith pic.



I have all the grains laid out and all ready to go. I started heating my strike water at 11:30 starting at 9º, it's now at around 58º. I'm going to mash with 25L and sparge with ~10L to hit my pre boil.

I made a quick YT video last week briefly showing the different parts of the system. I'm probably going to stick with pics today cos I've learned I'm pretty useless at holding a phone and brewing at the same time 

[DEMPSEY]

Those numbers for a grainfather set up are not as accurate as these one. First did you do this,

Water to Grain ratio should be set at 2.7L/kg when selecting a mash profile
Default grain absorption should be changed in the Beersmith Advanced settings (tools->options->advanced). The default setting is 0.96 fl oz/oz. This will need to be changed to 0.7669 fl oz/oz (0.8 L/kg) to line up exactly with the Grainfather official calulations

[BrewDorg]

Yep I saw that calculation alright. Only issue is that the ACE is a bit wider, so if I used that calculation, I'm worried that there will be loads of mash water under the grain basket, but not a lot to cover the grain fully. If this doesn't work properly, I'll definitely be using the GF calculation to see how that goes.

Strike temp of 70º hit @ 12:14. So that's around 45 mins 9º to 70º @ 2500W.

On thing I've noticed that's love to have is graduation markers inside the grain basket too. I filled my 25L (5x Ashbeck bottles) in without the grain basket but the markers on the inside of the kettle only showed around 23.5L. I was a bit annoyed at that but I realised that maybe they have accounted for the grain basket volume too.

[DEMPSEY]

This is the profile set up.

[DEMPSEY]

Sorry I though that you were using a grainfather

[BrewDorg]

Ah no worries, cheers though I think it'll come in handy. Just mashed in and the level was right at the top with just over 6kg of grain. I could definitely get away with a thicker mash, so the GF mash calcs sound about right.





I attached a small length of silicone tubing so that the return water isn't splashing down. Seems to be working nicely.

[DEMPSEY]

Make and take alot of notes about water additions, absorption,wort pre boil and post boil, shrinkage after boil These will help you to set up a more accurate equipment profile.

[BrewDorg]

Gonna try my best anyway. Hopefully this will save some other people having to do it.

One thing I've noticed so far. The controller has allowed the temp to drop by 2º before clicking on to bring it back up to temp. Would rather it did this sooner to be honest. I wonder if there's a way to set this hmm.

Here's the wort so far, 20 mins into the mash.

[molc]

Love how portable these setups are. Throw it on the floor and off you go - dead easy and handy.

[BrewDorg]

Quick video of the recirculation in action. Coming to the end of the mash now.

Heating up the sparge water

[BrewDorg]

Love how portable these setups are. Throw it on the floor and off you go - dead easy and handy.

Probably the only way I'd have been able to get into all grain brewing. So practical when you don't have your own place.

[BrewDorg]

Took some pH readings at the start of the mash.

05 mins in - 5.31
20 mins in - 5.39

Here's a pic of the pre-sparge wort. Gravity reading (corrected for temp) is 1.074. Lovely and clear too.



Sparge is done and dusted too. I used a jug to gently pour on top of the grain bed. In future I'm going to look into raising the sparge pot high enough to gravity feed the sparge water. Would save a bit of effort.

I ended up taking the top part of the center pipe off for the sparge and slightly pushing the plate on top of the bed. Had no trouble with the sparge running through.

Plate is off here, just before I remove the top pipe.


Top pipe removed and top plate put back on top for sparging.


Hand sparging!


Here is the volume pre sparge. I took out the malt pipe for a quick look once all the water had drained.


And here is the post-sparge volume. Like I said before, I'm not sure ho accurate these marks are without the grain basket in place. I also lost a bit by not being patient waiting on the sparge water to fall. I can see there's an extra ~1.5L in the bucket I put the basket in after I was done.. feck

[BrewDorg]

Pre boil gravity measured 1.058.

Missed a trick with bringing up the boil and it took around 35 mins. I used the manual mode at 2200W to bring it up, but I should have used the auto mode with 2 steps. 1st step to bring it to boiling at 2500W, then 2nd step drop down to 2200W to keep the boil going, but not too vigorous. I'll know next time.

[BrewDorg]

Having a small issue with the boil not hitting 100º. Seems to be getting stuck on 99º despite a nice boil going. So on with the lagging jacket..



Even after putting the lagging jacket on, it was sticking on 99º. So I scraped around the temp probe a bit and voila, we hit 100º. It's still hopping between 99 & 100 now though, but the boil is going nicely so it doesn't really matter.

Hop spider is in and first addition of magnum added.

[nigel_c]

Could need calibrating or how far up a mountain you live.
If it's boiling, it's boiling regardless of what the display says.