True Batch Brew - APA - first timer questions........

[oinkely]

Hi Folks,

First post and frist effort at home brewing.

I have a True batch brew APA kit adn I'm going to get stuckk into it on Sunday.

I have read the instructions numerous times, and also done a bit of research on the interweb.

I do have a few questions though, which are probably very dumb newbie ones...........

1) I mash.........seems straightforward enough, then I sparge, also seems straightforward.  However at the sparge stage do I use a collander or a seive? and if a seive, does it need to be very fine?

2) Boiling the wort - again the instructions seem pretty straightforward: boil for 60 minutes, adding hops at various intervals and stirring regularly.  Am I missing anything important?

3) Cool the wort - going to drop the pot into a bucket of iced water for this stage, might look at a wort chiller in future if this batch comes out OK.  Should I stir it to speed up the cooling process or just let it sit?

4) Strain it into the supplied demijon which seems fine, I have purchased a funnel with a seive attachement, should i use the seive? (it is very fine).

5) The yeast comes in a pack, should I activate this first or just pour it into the demijon as a dry powder (per the instructions)?

6) The instructions say that the demijon should be vented through the supplied syphon tubing into a glass of sanitiser.  This is fine, but the syphon tubing has a rigid plastic section, about 12 inches long attached to a flexible rubber hose.  Do I just stick the end of the plastic bit into the bung with the hole in it and leave it sticking up in the air and then run the rubber tube into the glass?  (This bit is baffling me!)

I'm sure i'll have plenty of questions wwen it comes to the bottling stage but for the moment I'll get it to the fermenting stage before annoying you all with more questions!

Thanks

oink

[Garry]

Welcome to the NHC oink.

There are two great reviews of these kits here:

http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.com/forum/index.php/topic,5825.0.html
http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.com/forum/index.php/topic,6245.0.html

1. I think a sieve would be better than a collander. It doesn't need to be super fine. The grains will form their own filter too.
2. There's nothing special about the boil, just add the hops at the specified intervals.
3. Stirring the wort will speed up the cooling but you don't have to if you're feeling lazy.
4. I'm not sure about the sieve on the funnel. You don't need it in my opinion but if you want to try it? It might get blocked easily if it's very fine.
5. It's usually best practice to re-hydrate the yeast but on a small batch like this I'd say there is plenty of yeast in the pack to just chuck it in dry.
6. Run the tubing into a glass of water like Brian's pic below.

[oinkely]

Thanks for the detailed reply Garry, very much appreciated.  Sorry I didn't get back to thank you sooner.

Right so - a quick update on progress and a question or two for next time!

Brewed up the APA and having sampled the leftovers in the bottling pot I have to say it tasted mighty good - we will see how it turns out in a few weeks!

For anyone interested in trying this I would say give it a go - I had never brewed anything before and found this to be quite easy. 

Things I would point out  - from a total novice persepctive so might be obvious to others:
1) have two pots that can take the full volume (7 litres) for the sparge.  I bought a 10 litre pot as the biggest I had at home was 6 litres.  Sparging through the grain into three smaller pots a few times is a pain and makes a mess!  For my next attempt I will get the cheapest 10 litre pot I can find, or maybe just a plastic bucket.  Anything would be better than trying to do it into smaller pots.
2) don't put the seive insert into the funnel when pouring into the demijon!  I wasn't planning on doing it but popped it in at the last minute, made pouring the liquid in really slow as the seive kept getting blocked up.
3) figure out exactly how to get a syphon going before you have everything ready for racking and bottling!  I thought I knew what I had to do........ wasted a bit of beer realising that I really didn't!  Got it sorted after a few tries though and managed to get 7 500ml bottles done.

A question for next time:

The instructions say to top up the demijon with water after the boil if needed.  I added a small bit but was worried about filling it up too much.  Any idea how much is too much in a demijon?  I went up to the shoulder, where it starts to narrow in, there was probably room for another litre or so.  Would it be OK to fill it up to the neck?  It seems that this batch is about 5.25%, would that have been affected if i had added more water before the fermenation started?

thanks all

[johnrm]

Normally you leave some headspace in your fermenter, although if you have a blow off tube you would get away without it.
Just because you can does not mean you should...

[oinkely]

Normally you leave some headspace in your fermenter, although if you have a blow off tube you would get away without it.
Just because you can does not mean you should...

thanks John

the Kit instructions do say to use a blow off tube into a glass of sanitiser for the first three days.

I might try fill it up a bit more next time so.

Not right to the top but maybe another half litre or so to offset some of the space lost to sediment, though i am guessing this is an inevitable part of brewing all grain in this way.

[johnrm]

Concentrate on getting quality beer, don't worry about the volume so much.

[oinkely]

Concentrate on getting quality beer, don't worry about the volume so much.

Good advice........ I'll do well to remember that.

cheers

[neoanto]

My question about the True Batch Brew kits is that they dont seem to mention water quality at all.
I would have assumed like any all grain batch that water quality would be an important issue for these kits also?

[mr hoppy]

At it's simplest for all-grain your mash needs certain amounts of minerals (within a broad range) in the water for the enzymes in the malt to do their thing.

With a kit the grain has been pre-mashed so if your water is drinkable it's probably fine. With an all-grain kit probably the worst that can happen is that your efficiency is off unless your doing a pilsener or your water is really hard.

All the books say that water is the last thing you should worry about after you've got everything else down.

[johnrm]

Some say it's the first thing...

[mr hoppy]

Seriously? Name and shame!

[johnrm]

Well, it's in my sights right now, but is something I should have looked at years ago.
KH if nothing more.

[oinkely]

Hi Folks,

So this has been in the bottles in the attic room (which sits around 18 degrees most of the time) for a week now.  No explosions, which I am happy about.

Question - is 18 degrees enough for this stage of the process or should I move them to somehwhere a bit warmer?

Can't wait to try one..........almost did at the weekend but got distracted by a Bordeaux!

[oinkely]

Quick update.  Tried two of these this evening. Fecking delicious...... Wow, I am one happy bunny with how that turned out.