Barrel Project - Summary Thread

[Shane Phelan]

Thanks for the update. I'm brewing my two in the morning. There will be pics!

[Bubbles]

Well, my fermenters are now free. Tomorrow is D-day: Brew #1 for the barrel.

Bring it on!!!! 

[Shane Phelan]

I have only ground one bucket load so far...too late to do another one.

[Shanna]

Hi Shiny

I ground mine using a hand mill like yourself and it took me nearly an hour to do it.  I was knackered after it but I felt strangely fulfilled. See attached image.

Shanna

[Shanna]

Got my sight glasses and thermometers fitted to my boilers last night. Discovered some leaks but should be able to fix them today with a view to doing my first all grain brew tonight. Fortune favours the brave,  lucky and the stupid or in this case an idiot like myself doing his first all grain brew with 11.5 kg of grain :-)

Hints,  spells or assistance all welcome.

Shanna

[Shane Phelan]

I'm half way though grinding the second one. Even with a drill I'm wreaked.

I'm definitely going to use one of these the next time:


First boil of the weekend is well underway, not too far off the numbers with 1.093 pre boil. Given that it was an overnight mash, I'm not as confident that I will hit them again with the second batch today. 

[Shane Phelan]

Ah ffs. That doesn't fill me with motivation to face into the 3rd bucket full of grain. 

[Shane Phelan]

Its ok. Compared to doing with hand like I did for my last imperial stout it isn't too bad. I was just having a moan. 

I have been distracted by a simultaneous leak/kettle element cut out in the mean time, which conveniently happened on the 89th minute of a 90 minute boil! Didn't even need to fire up the 2nd element.  :

[Shane Phelan]

23L @ 1.097 in the fermenter, I overshot and had to add some boiling water half way though to bring it back down.  *wipes brow.

Strike water on for 2nd brew.

[Ciderhead]

And?

[Shane Phelan]

23L @ 1.097 (SDB) - This Morning
21L @ 1.093 (SDB) - This Afternoon
20L @ 1.096 (CB) - This evening

I am absolutely fucked. My first triple brew day!

*crawls back to boiler from pc....


Edit I also now don't trust my refractometer for anything. All over the place.

[Ciderhead]

Great numbers, Any tips, just ground my grain, omg.
How much water did you use in mt and sparge with?

[Rossa]

Great numbers, Any tips, just ground my grain, omg.
How much water did you use in mt and sparge with?

Tips? Pay someone else to brew it. I did two in one day and it took nearly 11 hours. I'm beat today.

[Shane Phelan]

BeerSmith defaults to 2.5L/kg for the mash. I dialled that back to 2.1L/kg.
With that and a 35L (33L with the lid on correctly, 35L with it on upside-down) mash tun I used 25L (1L less than what BeerSmith recommended) of strike water. If there was still room after that, I added extra water and deducted it from the sparge water. 

I didn't put in all the water at first like I usually do, I added ~4L then added a few kg of grain and stirred while keeping the heat on in the HLT/Kettle.
I kept the small water/grain/stir combo going until nearly at the top, took a look at my temperature and then either added the remaining water from the HLT or cold water depending on how close I was to hitting 150^oF. There was absolutely no way I was going to start pissing around with decoctions yesterday.

The first mash was overnight and was pretty much bang on, the second one undershot a bit and the 3rd one undershot a lot and had to be topped up with 600g of DME towards the end. The difference in colour between the South and Capital brews is very striking, I actually thought I had accidentally added too much black malt when I was taking the first runnings. The CB is definitely the darkest beer I have ever made, its like crude oil. The South Dublin one smelled absolutely amazing, I have never used brown malt before. I'm really excited to see how they turn out!

You wont be able to convince me to ever do a triple brew day (or even a double) again. I'm still not the same today after it.

[Bubbles]

The amount of brewing that's going on is epic. I did a double brew day at Christmas time and I was a basket case at the end of it. Too much like hard work, never again.

I've just started my second mash. The wort is so thick it coats the back of the spoon. It's like soup!