National Homebrew Club Ireland

 :o

Tried to put together a brew yesterday. I called it #1 cus I know it will need a lot of attempts to get right.

I want a blood red ale, with toffee and caramel notes but hoppy on the nose.

Here's my recipe:

(http://i.imgur.com/hdTyt42.jpg)

It went ok, i think I had the mash tun tap on full which drained it quite quickly and meant that I was getting down to 1.010 after about 23 litres so had to stop sparging then. I'm thinking if i had of drained the mash tun slower, then the gravity would have stayed up and i would have got more volume.

It also turned out  too brown, but thats because the crystal I ordered was way too dark as well!

This is the colour it was running from the mash tun, i think it might turn a little lighter.

(http://i.imgur.com/DtTF9rw.jpg)

I also tasted the wort and it was very treacely and a little bitter but I'm hoping this will change after conditioning.

I'm really just flying in the wind here trying to find my fight so any thoughts would be much appreciated!

A bit high with the mash temp I would have thought :o.  This is above the range so you will have a high finishing gravity. :). The bitterness will mellow a bit after fermentation.

Yeah the temp flummoxed me cus I actually went for 69and that was the temp when I first mixed the mash but an hour later it was sitting at 71. Its a bit high but I'd like it a bit sweet.

The chocolate malt is pure black yeah!

Any thoughts on why I ended up with a low volume. Would it be because I drained the tun too quick hence the low gravity of the runnings.

Tell people it's a porter.

Hah this might have to happen. It's happily bubbling away now so fingers crossed!  :)

Quote from: beanstalk on January 04, 2015, 08:17:08 PM
Yeah the temp flummoxed me cus I actually went for 69and that was the temp when I first mixed the mash but an hour later it was sitting at 71. Its a bit high but I'd like it a bit sweet.

The chocolate malt is pure black yeah!

Any thoughts on why I ended up with a low volume. Would it be because I drained the tun too quick hence the low gravity of the runnings.

You probably left some sugars behind when you sparged too fast. Did you do an iodine test to see if all your sugars were converted.

An iodine test? Didn't realise I could do that. Must check it out!

Get some from the chemist and use it  to test if you have fully converted the mash as in all the starch has being changed into fermentable sugars :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjQSbnjerKI

I was just wondering, if I were to do this again, colour wise, how would this recipe work out?

4kg pale
250g crystal 80
50g chocolate 1060
50g roasted barley
100g carafe special II (i don't have flaked barley or anything like that)

how would this work out colour wise?

is there anything I could leave out?

appreciate all your help folks!

ps i tasted the first batch there about four days into fermenting, and the bitterness has really melted away, there's a just a lovely aftertouch at the end but its very caramelly. really pleased so far!

hmm...the fermentation has stopped at 1.026. :( is this because of the high mash volume?

should i try adding more yeast to re--start it?

Give it a gentle shake to try and rouse the yeast, might finish out a bit lower.

High mash produces more Dextrins which are not fermentable sugars so it might mean that it finishes there. But try re rousing first and leave it another few days to see if it drops any lower.

Quote from: beanstalk on January 07, 2015, 12:52:54 PM
hmm...the fermentation has stopped at 1.026. :( is this because of the high mash volume?

should i try adding more yeast to re--start it?

Might be due to the temperature you're fermenting at? Take a temp reading with a sanitised thermometer and check the optimum fermentation temperature of the S-04 yeast. If it looks low, then move your fermenter to a warmer spot, and rouse the yeast as suggested above.

Apart from temperature, the yeast floccing out too early usually suggests lack of oxygenation, or not pitching enough yeast. But that's unlikely to be the problem here.

As a matter of interest, how did you add your Whirlfloc? From your recipe, it looks like you added it along with the yeast..?

Ok thanks folks I'll give that a go! I the the whirlfloc in twenty mins before end of boil, just forgot to write it in so added it in after!

Remember the acronym:

M.A.L.T

More Alcohol Lower Temperature

If you mash low you get more fermentable short chain sugars - so get a drier cleaner lighter beer.

Higher temp leave some longer chain and so unfermentable sugars - this gives sweetness,body and mouthfeel to the beer

Thanks!

Bottled that first batch anyway. It sure is dark! nice and choclately, will see how it turns out in a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile I put on another batch this morning, I'm a bit under the weather and was all over the place but got through it. Forgot to add the whirlfloc but its not the end of the world i spose.

(http://i.imgur.com/ZP00830.jpg)

Unfortunately the same thing happened again! slowd down the mash runnings to a trickle, kept it topped up, had to stop when the runnings were hitting 1.002! Still only 17.5 litres. Can't figure out what I'm doing wrong!  :(

hopefully the beer will be nice though.  ;D

the projected EBC for this one is 46 so i'm hoping it will be a real dark ruby red colour but i might have gone too far...

Sometimes it's the beers you make "accidentally" that are the best, where the recipe didn't turn out as expected. I've done this several times and ended up keeping & re-brewing these recipes without any changes.

If you make the effort to understand why the recipe didn't give you the results you expected you're learning great skills and you'll end up a better brewer for it.

Quote from: Bubbles on January 07, 2015, 01:11:30 PM

Quote from: beanstalk on January 07, 2015, 12:52:54 PM
hmm...the fermentation has stopped at 1.026. :( is this because of the high mash volume?

should i try adding more yeast to re--start it?

Might be due to the temperature you're fermenting at? Take a temp reading with a sanitised thermometer and check the optimum fermentation temperature of the S-04 yeast. If it looks low, then move your fermenter to a warmer spot, and rouse the yeast as suggested above.

Apart from temperature, the yeast floccing out too early usually suggests lack of oxygenation, or not pitching enough yeast. But that's unlikely to be the problem here.

As a matter of interest, how did you add your Whirlfloc? From your recipe, it looks like you added it along with the yeast..?

I'm afraid your high finishing gravity probably isn't a yeast issue that's fixable, your mash temp at 71C is by far the most likely culprit.  You've made very unfermentable wort with your very high mash temp. -Especially when dealing with MO as base malt which, depending upon which maltster it's from and the particular batch of malt can have pretty low diastatic power and will be rather unforgiving when it comes to mashing too high.

I agree with everyone else that an iodine test would've helped on this one and you might have still had a "black" iodine test at the end of your 60 minute mash (not just large chain unfermentable sugars left but even some unconverted starch).

Next time decrease that mash temp! Target 65C or even 63C next time AND do an iodine test to make sure you're getting conversion. (If you do an iodine test after 20 minutes and you're still mashing at 71C and not getting anywhere it's too late to fix it -once you denature an enzyme it's uncoiled and its never going to do its job.)  -Don't dump the iodine sample back into the mash either, remember it's poison at any significant dose.


Adam

@beanstalk, What software is that? Love the font!

Hah thanks! Twas before the days of ms-dos or even BASIC. :) (they're actually just scanned pages from a personalised leather recipe journal my girlfriend got me for Christmas!) :)

@ biertourist: thanks for the sound advice, I'll def keep a closer eye on temp in the future.

@ bubbles: that's great advice, I'll let yous know how both turn out!

@beanie, Adams pointers are to be digested. There's wisdom in that lad! Context: the beer you just chucked.  :-(

Ok well I just tried a bottle of the first batch!

Very dark, lots of chocolate and a smooth bitterness. Really pleased!  :)

(http://i.imgur.com/ZGgO74l.jpg)

Bet it's way better than a typical red.

i'm just really pleased at how smooth it is. I imagine after the two week mark it will be much better.

Looks great

That's a fantastic homely pic. A dog to lick your toes and all!