All Grain Brew #2 - Courage Directors

Since my first brew day and the lessons learned then I have upgraded some of my equipment before brewing again. This time, everything went like a dream and was a lot more relaxed and enjoyable than my first brew day - possibly this was also due to somewhat knowing what to expect this time around.

Brewing Equipment Upgrades:

Additional insulation to my Mash Tun

Larger Wort Boiler / Copper

New 9.2kW Gas Burner (3 valve taps)

Modified sparging device - Original was fitted in the lid which made it awkward to see it in order to adjust the flow rate.

I was very happy with the performance of all my home made stuff, especially the mash tun this time around. Only 1C temperature loss over a 90 minute mash. The other star of the day was my homemade Wort Chiller - I fired it up to get the boil down to 80 to add the post boil hops, before I had chance to fill in my brewing record and grab the thermometer to check it was close to 80, the temp had been brought down to 70C! Less than 3 minutes!!!!!

Anyway, on with the brew... it was a later start than I'd planned thanks to some boring, work stuff (I'm supposed to be on holiday).

Courage Directors from Graham Wheeler's superb Brew Your Own British Real Ale a book I can't put down or recommend highly enough.

Target volume 23l - I only ended up with 20l so there was more lost during boil than allowed for. I didn't top up this time, the gravity was a little higher than target but I decided to leave it alone - one of my biggest mistakes on brew 1 was to top up the post boil hopped wort with freshwater... This brew may be stronger than the recipe suggests or it may be a bit sweeter if the excess sugar is fermented out but I'm just going to wait and see.

Target OG 1046 - Actual reached 1050 (I still don't know how to calculate brew house efficiency)

Grain Bill - Maris Otter Pale Malt, Crystal Malt & Black Malt

10:00 As well as the above mentioned malted grains the recipe called for Target bittering hops and Styrian Goldings post boil aroma hops. Irish Moss copper finings and BruPaks Top Fermenting Ale Yeast which I re-hydrated and started off with a little of the wort from the first runnings of the mash. (It was going like the clappers by the time came to pitch the yeast later that day)

HLT coming up to 75C for the mash.

11:30 This time I heated the liquor in the HLT to 75C and preheated the mash tun with a kettle full of boiling water.

Transferring 10.3/10.4 litres hot liquor (water) to the mash tun - fitted in the PU foam insulated box

11:40 I got my strike temp in the mash tun after hot liquor transfer at 72C which was about what I was aiming for. After the addition of the malted grains and doughing in the mash temp was bang on 67C that I was aiming for.

Doughing in the grains and hot liquor in the mash tun.

pH test strip showed 6 (possibly 6.5) after a couple of minutes and just prior to putting the lid on.

11:45 - 90 minutes mash time gave me time to go into the office and get some work done. I was really pleased to find the mash temperature had only dropped to 66C in the 90 minutes and the smell, on removing the mash tun lid was awesome!

13:15 Running off the sweet wort. It quickly got darker than it looks above.

13:15 As before, the first run off was a tad cloudy and contained a few bits of debris but I was ready for it this time, caught it in a jug and returned it to the mash tun. The filter bed established quickly and after maybe a litre and a half in the jug I began to run the wort off into the brewing copper.

New sparge system in place and connected to the HLT

13:20 While the sweet wort was running off into the copper I set up the modified sparge system (shown above seated on the top lip of the mash tun) and heated the sparging liquor in the HLT to 80C

Beginning to sparge the mash bed. Gorgeous colour and the smell was fantastic!

13:30 Began sparging the mash bed with liquor at 80C. The new version of the sparging system worked well but need a bit of help to keep it level to ensure the hot liquor flowed out of all the holes around the tube matrix to cover the grain bed surface area. My mash tun just rests on a chair for now and is slightly off level. Run off temp of the sparged wort was 60C.

13:55 Finished the sparge as the run off (now 58C) was no longer tasting sweet and was virtually colourless. Total wort volume ready for the boil, 22.5 litres. I topped this up to 30l with the remaining liquor from the HLT and got ready for the boil.

30l wort in the copper and approaching the boil. Break material forming.

The new gas burner again came into its own for the boil. Starting temp of the sweet wort was 58C and a vigorous rolling boil was achieved in 30 minutes! Brew 1 took almost an hour to begin boiling and never actually reached a proper rolling boil.

14:20 Rolling boil and the hot break begins.

14:20 There was a lot of things happening very quickly once the rolling boil began. I had to adjust the burner quite a bit for the first 10 minutes or so to avoid a boil over. The break material on the top came very close to the brim of the copper - even before I'd added the bittering hops. Having read that the hop addition can cause a big surge in the surface activity I waited a few minutes for things to calm down a little before adding them.

14:23 Bittering hops added. The effect was minimal the surface of the boil behaved.

14:23 26g of Target hops added to the boil. Totally expecting a big surge in the surface activity and further scrabbling to adjust the burner I was surprised that not a lot happened when the hops went in. The break material head (not really sure what it's called) rose up a little but settled quickly.

As you can see in the video above the rolling boil was definitely rolling this time. I got nothing close to this on brew 1. For the most part the burner wasn't on full power either, the outer burner rings turned to about 50% and the inner ring around 65-70%

15:40 Wort Chiller placed in the boiling wort, 15 minutes before the end of the boil.

15:40 Wort chiller placed into the copper - The boiling wort sterilizes the copper coils of the immersion chiller.

15:45 Irish Moss copper finings added with just ten minutes of boil time remaining. 

15:55 Boil finishes and the wort chiller is turned on. Cold water runs through the chiller and via heat exchange begins to lower the temp of the boiled, hopped wort to 80C for the addition of post boil, aroma hops (Styrian Goldings) and then further still, after a rest to allow the hops to soak a while in the still hot but not boiling wort, to get the temp ready for pitching the yeast (between 20C and 30C).

Aroma Hops added at 70C - The chiller worked so well the temp whizzed past my target 80C in the time it took me to make a few notes and rinse the thermometer... Almost 30 degrees in 3 minutes ish.

The first water out of the chiller was hot enough to fill the sink for washing up and the mash tun for washing it out but quickly cooled. The remaining "waste" cooling water barely filled 3 watering cans so the actual amount of wasted water is quite low. My homemade wort chiller is very efficient it seems :)

OG 1048 @ 30C (calculated to 1050 at 20C calibration of Hydrometer) See also how I have managed to get the background perfectly in focus... FFFUUUU!

A quick test of the gravity at 30C gave me 1.048 and using the conversion table I made that to be actually 1.050... 0.004 over the target gravity of 1.046

Running the cooled, hopped wort into the fermenter.

16:50 I only managed to get 20l of wort out of the target 23l so boil evaporation losses were higher than the recipe anticipated. I decided to leave it alone rather than top up with freshwater, even though the OG was slightly higher I didn't know how much difference to it adding 3 litres of freshwater would make. I didn't want to end up below the target gravity. Next time I'll add more water to the pre boil total liquor quantity.

17:00 At the time I thought I'd seriously screwed things up at this point. Having taken the gravity reading with the temp at 30C some minutes before while the wort was running into the FV - with me beating it vigorously to aerate it - I pitched the yeast assuming by now the temp would have dropped further below 30C...

Waiting for the froth to subside a little before pitching the yeast.

I'd got 30C in my head but that was the temp in the small hydrometer test tube, NOT the fermenter! With a grimace I found my way through the foam and dipped my thermometer into the fermenter... 32C Aaaarggggghhhhhhhhhh! After all that careful rehydration and nurturing of the yeast during the brewday had I just pitched it into the wort, too hot!??!!!?

Yeast rehydrated and mixed with wort from the mash tun (taken during sparging). By the time I pitched the yeast the froth was above the level where you can see the foil reaching.

All I could now was place the lid on loosely, take the fermenter through to our entertainment room and onto the bar (22-24C most of the time) and wait with fingers crossed that after such a good brew day I hadn't gone and buggered up the yeast.

Four hours later, I knew I'd gotten away with it...

4 hours after pitching the yeast

After 4 hours the yeast head was already better and more lively than the head on my first brew. 

I was delighted with the whole day, my equipment worked well, I felt more relaxed and in control of what was going on and ended up with a bucket of amazing smelling, superbly coloured beer.

Why are we here? For the beer! Roll the bones.

UPDATE 12/09/11 First pint of my all grain Courage Directors enjoyed :)

New, Bigger Wort Boiler (Brewing Copper)

My new wort boiler on the left sat next to my original that has now become my hot liquor tank to command my mash tun during the mash and subsequent sparging of the brew grist.

After realising too late my original boiler was too small to handle sufficient sweet wort for a 5 gallon brew (see my earlier post about my aluminium stock pan) and having to make a half size brew for my first all grain brew day I have got hold of a much larger pan and converted it into a wort boiler.

As you can see in the above photo I've used the same type of valve (less than a fiver from Leroy Merlin) and on the inside I've used the hop filter from the original boiler. I have fitted the valve slightly lower than on the original for a couple of reasons:

1) The rounding of the sides into the base of the larger pan is less than that of the smaller pan (part of the reason my tap was higher up and not so obvious in the piccy).

2) When filled with just water, the pan drained under syphon from the tap leaving only around 300ml of water behind. However during the brew - possibly due to the restriction of the hops around the filter - the syphon effect broke before the boiled wort was fully run off - losing me more than 300ml of the precious liquid.

The lower tap means I've had to turn my hop filter sideways due to the two, copper 90deg elbows connecting the filter pipe to the tap. I have seen other coppers with the filter to one side so I don't think this is an issue and my wort chiller still fits no problem.

Old hop filter fitted into new wort boiler. Tilted to the side to allow for a lower fitting of the tap valve.

Testing this new setup with water, I achieved a virtually total run off (less than 150-200ml left in the pan) and that was without having a length of tubing running from the down pointing outlet pipe.

Looking forward to getting a second brew on this week although I may be brave and wait until next week when I have a friend visiting us who's bringing some more grains from Blighty.

New Gas Burner For Wort Boiler/Copper

I saw these gas burners in a branch of Gamme Vert in Limoges a couple of weeks ago going for 75 Euros each and was going to get one this week. Luckily I called into our local branch in Ambazac today and picked one up for just 42 Euros!!!

3 ring 9.2 KW Gas Burner - Cast iron and brass manifold with taps.

Here's the website for the makers http://www.sonarema-fondex.com/rechaud-8004.php for those of you who don't have access to a Gamme Vert although of course it might be worth checking out eBay etc

The savings alone have more than covered the gas regulator and tubing (not included) as well as leaving some left over to go into my new (insulated shiny) Mash Tun fund.

This, with my new, larger capacity copper (post coming soon) means I shall be getting another brew on very soon. I ordered a load of bottles and capping gear last night from Brouwland (bit of a dodgy Frames based website - so no links to individual products as the browser address bar only shows the homepage url... SEO? I think not. - but good payment handling and order confirmation service so far)

New Stock Pot - Time To Upgrade My Wort Boiler

After realising too late my stock pot I'd bought for my wort boiler was too small!!! Argghh! - (see this post about my supposed 34l wort boiler) - I have got hold of another, much larger one. Unforetunately I've got a very busy week ahead - the joys of freelance and no holidays - so I don't think I'll get it converted until next week.

Lessons learned from pan 1, I'll be fitting the hop strainer a bit lower in this one. Although when empty it syphons to virtually empty the interference of the hops around the filter caused my last brew to stop as I was draining it to the FV costing me around 500ml of hopped wort.

My existing wort chiller also still fits perfectly so no need for any adjustments there.

Watch this space for my second brew. in case you missed it, here's my first all grain home brew.

Hop strainer and mash tun filter changes...

With regard to the filter systems I built into first my mash tun and then my dual purpose boiler/copper I have had some great feedback from a couple of fellow brewers on Jim's Beer Kit forum.

Whereas I had drilled holes all the way around the piping, I would have been better just to drill the lower sides and bottom of the pipework.

The slotted filter in the mash tun isn't such a problem as all I need to do with that is simply turn the pipework over - another reason I chose not to permanently fix all the parts together just yet.

This isn't so much a case of the filtration not working but the dead space or rather the amount of liquid that would be left behind after draining and in effect, wasted. Less dead space = more beer at the end of the day.

Building My First Home Brewing Boiler

10th July - I have amended some details. See this post re grist filter & hop strainer

For brewing using the full, malted grain and hops method we need hot water and quite a lot of it. Not only that but after the wort (the raw unfermented beer if you like) has been mashed and sparged (see my post about building my first mash tun) it is then brought back up to the boil (the boiler becoming the copper) before the bittering hops and later, the aroma hops and any other adjuncts are added.

For my first foray into the world of full grain homebrewing I shall be heating my boiler simply using a gas burner. Although I see how much more practical it is to have a heating element within the boiler itself I can see that bringing a large volume of water to temperature and sustaining it at a rolling boil for an hour or more would be quite costly on the old leccy bill... I haven't dismissed it and my plan is to ultimately work a heater into this setup, but for now...

34l (7.5 gallons-ish) stock pot with a nice fitting lid
Tank connector
Valve - to act as my tap
14mm (note: I may increase the size of this*) copper pipe
5x 14mm 90deg elbows
1x 14mm T
2x silicon fairy cake moulds LOL - I cut the bases out to make two heat resistant washers to seal the valve fitting.

Tools:
Pipe cutter - you can use a hack saw but you might have to file the rough edges.
Hand drill
Pedestal drill
Spanner (for tightening the valve against the wall of the boiler)
3mm drill bit
10mm drill bit
Steel reamer (I haven't got a drill bit large enough to drill the stock pot wall to 20mm for the valve/tank connector)
Steel countersink bit
PTFE tape, for the valve to seal onto the tank connector pipe - it leaked like a bugger during my mash tun building.
Hand vice, not sure what it's really called but you clamp the pipe in it when drilling the drain holes.
Center punch
Flat file
Round file
Wire wool

*I decided that I'd like the internal plumbing to be interchangable - the 14mm piping set up can be removed and swapped for a larger bore 18mm single pipe with larger diameter holes drilled. Why? To my thinking the initial boil is just fresh water and from the boiler to the mash tun we need to get the hot water in there quickly hence the 18mm large hole piping. However, after mashing comes the sparging which requires a slower flow (yes I suppose it can be controlled by the valves but the ones I have are a little bit ON or OFF with even the halfway cracked point being virtually off.) and then after boiling the wort and adding hops the brew need transferring to the fermenting vessel and one thing I remember about brewing from kits in the past is that if the brew flows fast you quickly end up with a frothy mess that you have to wait ages for to settle. I want it to be fairly quick process all in all.

10mm hole drilled in my brewing boiler

My first task was to drill the boiler wall for fitting the valve.

Not having a drill bit larger than 14mm and needing a hole size of at least 20mm, I had to first drill a 3mm pilot hole, then up it to 10mm so I could get my reamer in and then carefully ream out the hole until the tank connector (threaded brass pipe) could turn in.

I purposely wanted it tight to aid with the seal as much as possible.

The reaming was quite a steady job, it's easy to go too fast and end up with an oval hole... this is a bad thing.

Reaming the hole up to 20mm for the tank connector

Next came the fitting of the tank connector and valve. I had pondered about how to seal this without using rubber washers as surely they could impart some dodgy flavourings/smells (this I don't know for sure so please do comment if you know) and I wasn't sure they'd stand up to the heat for long.

With perfect timing I stumbled upon a thread on the superb Jim's Beer Kit forum about using cut up silicon baking sheets to use as heat resistant washers! Genius!!!

Rather than risk the wrath of the current wife by chopping up one of her sheets, I nicked 2 silicon fairy cake cases and legged it to the workshop.

With a little scissor action you too can ruin 2 perfectly good fairy cake cases.

The result was surprisingly <bil-and-ted>most excellent dude!</bill-and-ted> the locking nut on the inside tightened up and pulled the valve assembly tightly against the wall superbly. I did use a silicon washer inside and out - although theoretically there should be no need to use one on the outside. All my life when it has involved water or liquids and plumbing I have been plagued by leaks so, f**k it! 2 washers.

The valve fitted and sealed with a fairy cake case washer.

Some text here to stop the next picture shooting up to the top of this post... WTF!!!

Inside sealed up lavverly jabberly!

Right, now comes the fiddly bit... The filter. Using the 14mm elbows, T and pipe make the following device.

14mm Copper Pipe Filter for Homebrewing Brew Boiler (undrilled)

The sizes above are to fit, as you'll see below, into my 34l stock pot. Maybe it's a bit over the top but I basically wanted a low level drain that would sit on the floor of the brewing boiler. The fact the tap is about 80mm up the side of the boiler means I needed some way of getting the liquid below that level out.

The filter (undrilled) fitted into the base of the brewing boiler

Also, come the time it has boiled wort (I will gradually learn the real terms for these things) and hops in there I want as many exit holes as possible to avoid blockages when draining it to the fermentation vessel.

Now comes the really tedious bit, drilling the drain holes. Lot's of them. I marked the visible parts of each pipe ie the bits that aren't pushed into the elbow and T fittings 10mm apart and then turn the pipe 1/4 turn and marked again at 10mm points but staggered between the first marks as shown rather badly below...

The rather grotty drawing shows markings for the staggered holes, if the pipe were rolled out flat.

Once all your pipes are marked - NOTE you only have to mark twice as detailed above because when you drill it, the bit will pass through the pipe and take care of the opposite sides anyway - take a center punch and tap each mark - this will stop the drill bit dancing around all over the surface of the pipe when you begin drilling the holes... lots of holes... oh my God so many holes!

Center punch the marked pipes ready for drilling.

So many holes :( Now, using a 3mm bit drill all those holes. it'll be as rough as hell no doubt and be careful handling the drilled pipes. Look out for burrs and rough edges.

HANDY HINT ALERT!!!

Use a steel countersink to de-burr the copper pipe. It not only takes the sharp edges off, it gives a nice looking bevel to the edge of the hole too. {applause} Thank you very much, I'm here all week!

After several months of drilling, de-burring, filing the inside burrs off with a round file and finally finishing with steel wool you'll have something a little like these.

Holey, shiny copper pipes Batman!

And finally as this epic ramble draws to a close, fit it all together and hey presto...

As I mentioned towards the start of this post I am also making a larger bore (no not me) version using 18mm pipe.

Still to do with this device:

Fit a thermometer - I want one of those groovy looking, steampunk dial types that stick out of the front like weird looking eye clock thing.

Fit a heater... maybe. We'll see what gas bill/electric bill comparisons are like.

Fit a graded sight glass thing for use during the liquor (water) boiling so I can see the liquid level without having to take the lid off and accurately dispense the hot liquor when mashing and sparging.