National Homebrew Club Ireland

Ok, I've decided to skip extract altogether and go straight with a SMaSH

I've ordered a load of gear and have been punching in the numbers to Beer Smith

Have bought a 15L Stock Pot so reckon i'll be able to make 10L Batches.

Now, i don't fully understand Beer Smith but this is what i'm thinking of doing.

2kg Maris Otter
60 Min Boil
10g Citra 45 Mins
10g Citra 15 Mins
14g Citra Flameout
US05

Am toying with Dry Hopping too - but the Beersmith is giving me an estimated ABV 5.7% within Classification of American Pale Ale. I've a west coast yeast to trial too.

Main questions, is that enough grain? What length mash? 60, 75, 90 Minutes? Thankfully I can set my oven to 65 Degrees to maintain temp.

Any other hints?

is that enough grain?
yes, if you're aiming for that strength.

What length mash?
I'd go for 60

Any other hints?
You could avoid the oven completely by putting a few layers of cardboard on the ground, mashing on that and wrapped with a couple of duvets/sleeping-bags

Cheers - got my stock pot in Dunnes - its a 20L Ham Pot for €6!
Just need to get my mash bag I forgot to order it from HBW when ordering stuff - so ordered one seperately.

Quotegot my stock pot in Dunnes - its a 20L Ham Pot for €6!

Nice find !!! I was only in Dunnes today looking for a stock pot, largest one I could find was 6.1L  :( Would love to know where you got the larger one?

Got it in Navan it was the last one
Maybe try one of the big ones and they call it a ham pot.
Good luck it was a steal at that price

Thanks IrishBeerSnob ;), I'll drop by the one in Maynooth tomorrow - fingers crossed I can find one!

Bargain of the century  :P

Is that an aluminium pot?

If so are they ok for brewing?

I don't know if its aluminium here's a picture of it anyway
its 15 Litres not 20

I don't think you are allowed to use Aluminium pots for cooking anymore. I think I read that it causes alzheimer's but I can't remember ???

Quote from: DEMPSEY on January 05, 2015, 05:06:21 PM
I don't think you are allowed to use Aluminium pots for cooking anymore. I think I read that it causes alzheimer's but I can't remember ???

Stop, stop, eject ...

Age has a much closer link to Alzheimer's disease, the only 'link' aluminium has, is this regurgitated myth.

http://m.alz.org/myths.asp

Yep, the aluminium cookware thing is by all accounts a silly, but persistent, myth.

If you do decide you are ok with aluminum it's good for BIAB with direct heat because it has better heat conductivity than stainless.

Good thread here on pros and cons of aluminum and SS:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/faq-aluminum-pots-boil-kettles-49449/

Thanks for all that

Another thing (mentioned way down that thread) is that oxy / w5 are bleach is not recommended for aluminium.

Worked with aluminium for years (windows) and one thing is it is real soft for drilling. Glad to know about the alzheimers as me maa used to have one and cooked with it for years. Guess I will just have to find something else to blame when trying to explain to the Wife :P.

Heh, i'm sure about using the stock pot - at 6 quid of course I am!

I can't read the symbols on the tag to see if stainless or aluminium to be honest.

Just have to get a mash bag now and the grains and am sorted.

Just looking at the first post again - I know you talk about skipping extract, but there no shame in using a wee bit of the stuff. If you add a kg or two of extract 5 mins before the end of the boil and top up your fermenter with tap water you can do a full 20l brew length without to much hassle and minimal flavor impact: just make sure that you have enough base malt in the mash for it to convert!

I never got the point in partial. If your mashing, what's the difference in just mashing everything as its the same time and also cheaper to boot. Enlighten me :)

It's all about the volume of grain you can handle. Long before biab became popular people were using partial mashing to mash grain in pots.

Yep, all-grain is cheaper if you ignore the cost of the equipment.  :)

You can do a 10 - 15 litre partial mash on a stove top whereas a full BIAB mash might be pushing it which means an electric boiler or gas which (in the short term) costs more than a bit of extract. I never did kits and I transitioned from extract to all-grain by doing a couple of stove top partial mashes using the exact same equipment as for extract. In fact I continued to use a little DME to true things up til I got a handle on my all-grain efficiency so it was a fairly seamless transition.

Incidentally I scratched the feck out of a ceramic hob with an aluminum pot one time, so be careful if that's what your thinking of doing.

You also have some of the advantages of all grain (especially the full range of grains which have to be mashed) without having to heat large volumes of water, saves time, power, cleanup effort etc.

Partial mashing produces just as good results as all grain for many beer styles. The big drawback is the cost of malt extract and lack of control around mash temps. For me, partial mashing was a huge leap upwards from extract/steeping in terms of beer quality.

Consider me enlightened. :) A world without BIAB *shudder*

I was considering BIAB but went with a mash tun so I could mash bigger beers as well. Got a second element for my boiler over the Xmas so finally full volume boils are not taking an hour to get going. The difference is like night and day! Now I'm just waiting for the Eureka moment when I taste a superior all grain batch :)

Well BIAB is just PM with a bigger pot

Yeah, people were doing BIAB before some clever aussie decided to put a name on it!  :)

@ IrishBeerSnob - sorry, I seem to have derailed your OP with all this talk of stock pots  :)

No joy getting one in Dunnes though, I even had the long suffering Mrs Parky look in the branches in Dublin city centre, but alas to no avail. I decided to bite the bullet anyway, and ordered a 13.5L SS pot from Amazon, which will be ideal for 5 - 10L batches.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Buckingham-Deep-Induction-Stock-Glass/dp/B0049MPIJ8

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Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...  :)

I plugged the recipe in the OP into Brewmate and came up with the following -

Citra SMaSH Pale Ale


Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L):           10.0
Total Grain (kg):         2.000
Total Hops (g):           34.00
Original Gravity (OG):    1.044  (°P): 11.0
Final Gravity (FG):       1.011  (°P): 2.8
Alcohol by Volume (ABV):  4.32 %
Colour (SRM):             5.5   (EBC): 10.8
Bitterness (IBU):         40.6   (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 70
Boil Time (Minutes):      60

Grain Bill
----------------
2.000 kg Maris Otter Malt (100%)

Hop Bill
----------------
10.0 g Citra Pellet (11.1% Alpha) @ 45 Minutes (Boil) (1 g/L)
10.0 g Citra Pellet (11.1% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (1 g/L)
14.0 g Citra Pellet (11.1% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Boil) (1.4 g/L)

Misc Bill
----------------

Single step Infusion at 66°C for 60 Minutes.
Fermented at 20°C with Safale US-05

• The estimated ABV in Brewmate is coming out as 4.32% rather than 5.7%, so may want to recheck the figures entered in Beersmith, maybe volume is slightly off, giving a much greater ABV. But 2kg would certainly be fine for a 10L brew.
• Bitterness is coming in at approx. 40 IBUs, which will be similar to Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (37 IBUs), if you're looking for a comparison.
• If your first hop addition (bittering hops) is at 45mins, then I would only boil for 45mins, no need for the full 60. Personally, I would boil for 60 and add the bittering hops at the beginning of the boil. This will give you slightly more bitterness (44 IBUs), so you may want to reduce the amount of hops to reach your original bittering level. That being said, maybe 44 IBUs would work out great, all depends on your own tastes.
• I've entered the Alpha level of the Citra hops as being 11.1%, but you'll have to check the AA% on your actual hops and enter that to get accurate bittering levels, adjusting the amount of citra accordingly.
• I would certainly dry hop, it can give a lovely fresh aroma, and you can't go far wrong with citra anyway.
• I find using the oven at it's lowest temp setting to be a convenient way to maintain mash temp. when brewing small batches, although I keep it slightly lower than 65^oC, as the temp can build - 55^oC or there abouts works well. I check temp. and stir gently every 15 mins also, to ensure everything's on track, but that's just me.
• The only other tip I can give you from my own experience with small batches is not to use the full packet of yeast (11.5g). Instead, for a 10L batch, use half the pack (6g) and rehydrate before use.

You can take the above with a pinch of salt - most important thing is to just give it a go and find out what works for your own tastes and your own setup. Sounds like it'll be a really nice brew, let us know how it all goes on brew day  ;)

Cheers lads - i don't have the space for a full AG set up yet -
So want to dip my toes in with BIAB

I'm aiming to make 10L batches appx - fill two demijohns and use US05 for one and West Coast Yeast in the other to see the difference.

I'm using gas hob to be honest.

I'm not that au fait with Beersmith to be honest so it's possible i've input stuff wrong. luckily we've a Homebrew meeting tonight and i'll get John (Blueshed) to talk me through it

Here's a recipe I did recently for an all citra brew. It's not a smash though, so not sure if it will suit you. http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.com/forum/index.php/topic,8463.0.html

Thanks mate

Looking forward to experimenting with SMASH then go onto other things

Quote from: mr hoppy on January 05, 2015, 08:16:16 PM
Another thing (mentioned way down that thread) is that oxy / w5 are bleach is not recommended for aluminium.

Bleach is not recommended for stainless either.  Probably the ONLY sanitization method that I can think if that you're not supposed to use with stainless.  -It pits stainless.


Adam

No citra, so substituted out for Amarillo
And, using 2.5Kg of grain to bump up abv

Revised Recipe

2.5KG Maris Otter
12g Amarillo @ 9.2% 60 Mins
12g Amarillo @ 9.2% 15 Mins
2g Irish Moss 10 Mins
12g Amarillo @ 9.2% 0 Mins
Mangrove Jack US West Coast Yeast

Beersmith Giving IBUs of 44, ABV of 5.4%

Nicely done, looks like a pretty solid recipe, and with the Amarillo in there, it'll be tasty brew!  ;D

Wort cooling now.

Big learning curve with this method.
After boil, only had about 8L - meaning OG was 1.072.
Need to figure out the Volumes on the pot - probably make marks to mark the litre's.

Congrats on the first brew!

Re: missing your target volume & gravity - Dilute with water to hit your target OG. Otherwise your brew will be out of whack. You'll have a 8% IPA with only 40 odd IBUs.

Thanks mate. ;D
Too late now - its capped up and in the carboys!  :o
You live you learn!

Definitely going to make marks on inside of kettle with a sharpy to let me know what is 13l pre boil and 10l post boil

Doing something like this, http://imgur.com/a/dCvS5 (http://imgur.com/a/dCvS5) might be safer than using a sharpie. I've yet to try it out but it looks fairly easy.

That is excellent. Gotta love science

That is ingenius!

Make yourself a dip stick. That'd work too.

You could add isomerised hop extract to your fermentor to bump up the IBUs if yer arsed.

I've read if you do etch your kettle like this then you need to passivate the ether surface after to stop it tarnishing. You can use a strong starsan solution. Don't have the concentration to hand.

Think a dipstick is a great idea - easy to do too!
Bubbling away nicely now in the fermenters.
Beersmith says leave in Primary for 2 weeks? With kit i usually move to secondary after about 5/6 days.

Ok, just done gravity check - its gone from 1.072 to 1.021 in 6 days, More to go i'd imagine.
Tastes really good - nice level of bitterness.

Even though airlocks have slowed right down is it safe to assume it is still working away?

Yeah don't worry too much about the airlocks, should still be plenty of work for the yeast to do. You almost certainly will end up with a much higher FG than anticipated though since your OG was so high.

So i just follow standard procedure - take a gravity reading a day and when its the same two / three days its done?

You pitched yeast on the 11th I see. So primery is complete but you will need to leave it some time for secondary to clean up the beer.

Will do another reading this evening and move to secondary if still the same.

I just bottled a Citra/M.O. SMaSH APA two weeks ago, and already at this early stage I'm very surprised with how good it tastes - there is an unbelievably juicy tropical fruit flavour from the Citra. I'm going to brew a bigger batch of it this week as I actually have to keep the bottles hidden from my housemates!