Basic all grain brew day procedure

[fizzypish]

Hi all,
I made myself a basic instruction set for my first all grain brew. My terminology is off but I'm satisfied with the method. I stuck it up in case anyone else may find it useful or in case some of my method is very flawed. Feedback appreciated.


Original suggested recipe

Recipe: Johns Cascade Blonde TYPE: All Grain
Style: Blonde Ale
---RECIPE SPECIFICATIONS-----------------------------------------------
SRM: 7.4 EBC SRM RANGE: 5.9-11.8 EBC
IBU: 21.5 IBUs Tinseth IBU RANGE: 15.0-28.0 IBUs
OG: 1.046 SG OG RANGE: 1.038-1.054 SG
FG: 1.011 SG FG RANGE: 1.008-1.013 SG
BU:GU: 0.463 Calories: 554.2 kcal/l Est ABV: 4.7 %
EE%: 75.00 % Batch: 22.00 l Boil: 27.50 l BT: 60 Mins

---WATER CHEMISTRY ADDITIONS----------------


Total Grain Weight: 4.30 kg Total Hops: 65.00 g oz.
---MASH/STEEP PROCESS------MASH PH:5.40 ------
>>>>>>>>>>-ADD WATER CHEMICALS BEFORE GRAINS!!<<<<<<<
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
4.30 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (4.8 EBC) Grain 1 100.0 %


Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 12.01 l of water at 77.4 C 67.8 C 60 min

---SPARGE PROCESS---
>>>>>>>>>>-RECYCLE FIRST RUNNINGS & VERIFY GRAIN/MLT TEMPS: 7.0 C/7.0 C
>>>>>>>>>>-ADD BOIL CHEMICALS BEFORE FWH
Batch sparge with 2 steps (6.44l, 14.15l) of 75.6 C water

---BOIL PROCESS-----------------------------
Est Pre_Boil Gravity: 1.038 SG Est OG: 1.046 SG
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
25.00 g Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 2 15.6 IBUs
15.00 g Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 3 4.6 IBUs
1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 4 -
25.00 g Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 2.0 min Hop 5 1.3 IBUs


---FERM PROCESS-----------------------------
Primary Start: 08/11/2012 - 4.00 Days at 19.4 C
Secondary Start: 12/11/2012 - 10.00 Days at 19.4 C
Style Carb Range: 2.40-2.80 Vols
Bottling Date: 22/11/2012 with 2.8 Volumes CO2:



Boil 30L of water in the brew kettle. Weigh 4.3kg of Pale Malt.

3L of water will be soaked by the grain and dead space in the mash tun.
Water to grain ratio of 3.5 L per KG.       3.5(4.3) + 3 = 18.5 L for first run.

Calculate water quantity required for first soak in the mash tun and strike temp manually or with a brew calculator i.e. brew mate
Get temp of grain of the grain on the day!


Pre heat mash tun with a kettle of boiling water.
Add grain to the mash tun
Gently add total mash volume (calculated previously) water @ initial strike water temp (calculated previously), litre by litre, and gently stirring to circulate the liquid properly. Do not stir roughly (avoid aeration).

Near last few litres of water to be added, begin taking temperatures. If temp is high, gently stir and leave lid off while adding strike water at a cooler/cold temp. If temp is low, add hotter water (stir in hot water quickly dissipate the heat) and get the cooler lid on ASAP. Let sit for 60 min. Take temp readings every 15min. If cold temp, top up with hot water. Record temps and top up water quantity. Top up will need to be subtracted from second running through mash tun. Temp drop of 5 deg cel in an hour is OK.

After an hour, drain out a litre (or until the wort is golden clear) of sweet wort and re circulate. Slowly (opening the tap too much could lead to a stuck sparge) drain into a bucket and avoid splashing. Record gravity. Note, Brew kettle is needed to boil water so I'm draining the sweet wort into a bucket and siphoning it back into the brew kettle when its no longer needed to boil water. Not ideal.



Once draining is finished measure wort quantity. To calculate second running quantity:
sweet wort + sparge qty + 2L = 23L      (2 litre's is water lost during boil)
Add sparge qty to mash tun @ strike temp. Stir, take temp and let for 15 min.
Use ratchet straps to secure mash tun lid to avoid temp loss. Cover with a blanket between temp reads and place mash tun on newspapers to avoid cold contact with floor.

Empty brew kettle of water. Siphon sweet wort from bucket into brew kettle. Avoid splashing. After 15 min, drain the second run into brew kettle. Once again re circulate wort until golden clear. Take constant gravity reading's of the wort. If gravity drops too far below the recipe requirements (1.038 in this case, 1.010 is the floor =< watery piss + tannins). If sparge gravity goes low just don't use it. Objective is good beer not quantity. Less may be more. After all drainage has completed, measure wort quantity. Hope fully == 25L with a gravity reading of 1.038 pre boil.

Quantity and gravity can't be changed at this point so work with what you have. Also, remember to take temperature into account when reading gravity. Use brew mate calculator or work it out or calculate it manually (see palmer, how to brew). A low gravity can remedied by boiling for longer. Boil the wort for an hour. ~2L should be boiled off.

Add hop's and finnings in the qty and times specified below.

25.00 g Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 2 15.6 IBUs
15.00 g Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 3 4.6 IBUs
1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 4 -
25.00 g Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 2.0 min Hop 5 1.3 IBUs

After an hour, perform a cold break with copper coil. 27 deg cel is the temp to cool the wort to ASAP. When this is reached, drain wort into fermentation vessel.

Splashing is required at this point as for the yeast to operate properly, some oxygen is required in the water. Vigorously shake the shit out of the wort in the fermentation vessel. Shake until your back hurts and shake some more.

Add yeast and seal fermenter (see palmer, how to brew for details). Leave for 1-2 weeks. Check gravity and record. Use brew mate calculator to decide how much priming sugar is necessary for bottling. Bottle and leave for at least a month.

[JD]

Mostly on the ball but I have a couple of points:

* The recipe you have will work but with just base malt and the specified hop additions, it will not be swimming in the deep end of the flavour pool. I'd add some other malts such as biscuit, munich, vienna, or a liitle bit of light crystal to deepen the flavour. Given that your aiming for a blonde ale, I'd not be too heavy handed with these (say 250g of your chosen addition). I'd add 50% more hops to rebalance the BU:GU a bit more. I'd also dry hop in secondary to enhance the cascade aroma.

* To speed it up a little, just heat enough water for mashing. While the mash is in progress, you can be heating up the sparge water. This will be a little quicker than heating all the water together.

* No need to let the sparge water soak for 15mins. Sparging  just rinses the grains. It's not more mashing. Once stirred and settled you can start drawing off the wort.

* When measuring gravity of the wort, remember it is hot. You need to make a temperature adjustment of all gravity readings of hot wort.

* At 15mins to go in the boil, put the chiller coil into the boiling water (no water should be running through it). This will sterilize the coil. It would be good if it was somewhat clean before being immersed.

* 2L boiloff is a little low in my estimation. You've not made any allowance for hop soakage and trub. I'd go with at least 5L wastage. Better to have too much than too little. You want to avoid having too much head space in your secondary fermenter and having excess wort is useful.

* For a light coloured beer, avoid boiling for to long or too vigourously. Maillard reactions will darken the result.

* Vigour shaking of fermenter is not recommended doe to risk of breakage and/or spills (assuming use of glass carboys). If the wort is drained turbulently from a height of a few feet and gently agitated in the carboy for a couple of minutes, ample oxygen will be dissolved.

* I like to do the old 1:2:3 trick: one week in primary, two weeks in secondary and three weeks conditioning in the bottle. If not using secondary and you're keen to taste as soon as possible, one week conditioning will give you an idea of what you've brewed.

/J

[Tom]

Only the Health and Safety aspect of shaking 40odd lbs of wort. Unless you're brewing above 1050 1060 or so, pouring the wort from the kettle to the fermenter is plenty of aeration. The wort will have a really frothy head when you pour it in (I've yet to take an accurate OG measurement for that reason), and that's quite a lot of oxygenation occurring within that process.

:Another 'no craic' answer from Tom.

[rukkus]

Just to comment on the recipe, I've made some great beers with just MO and a single hop (cascade being a great choice)

It's very simple and you should end up with a very nice beer. If this is your first all grain brew keep the recipe as simple as possible and focus on the process.

[fizzypish]

Cheers lads. I'll let ye know how I get on!