Brew Day - Wooly Jumper bitter

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onelegout

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Feb 17, 2009
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Hi guys,
I work from home, but don't finish until late so brewing can be a bit hard to fit into my day - Today however, I'm trying a 'no hassle' brew, the focus is on making a non-herms brew with basic equipment while only putting in the minimum amount of effort. The idea being to make my brew day so easy that I am able to do it whilst working, spending only a few minutes here and there to complete each stage of the brew. I got everything prepared and ready last night, and I've just started the mash

Here's my recipe:

Wooly Jumper (recipe from Barley Bottom - Homebrew Shop, Homebrew Supplies, Hops, Grains and Sundries)
Style: ordinary bitter
OG: 1045
IBUs 33.9
ABV 4.5%

Mash 90 minutes with 3 gallons of water, then sparge with 5 gallons
4kg Maris Otter
200g Crystal Malt 120L
150g Torrified Wheat
10g Roast Barley

Boil:
42g Goldings, East Kent 5.8%AA 90 min Boil
12g Goldings, East Kent 5.8%AA 15 min Boil
25g Bobek 5.2%AA 1min boil
1 Protafloc Tablet 15 mins boil

Cool with dodgy homemade immersion chiller
Pitch 1 sachet of rehydrated US-05 yeast.

10 days primary
5 days secondary
crash cool in kegerator last day of secondary
bottle half, keg half
bottle condition 3 weeks
keg for 3 days

DRINK!
 
This barleybottom.com all-grain recipe kit comes pre-measured in vaccum packed packages. The grain is crushed and mixed well, and it's all very simple and hassle-free.
This is my second all-grain recipe after my first one (a weiss) turned out very spicy after I added a load of cloves, bananas and cardamom pods to secondary!
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Here's my low-budget mash tun that I built. Yes, I know what you're thinking - that tap is completely wonky! Well I was so dumb I didn't think that the thread would expand under heat and so I screwed in the tap mounting point with the tap screwed into it cold, and when I mashed with it the tap was suddenly loose! So now it's wonky :D but it does the job fine.
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Here's my new 5 gallon boil kettle - it doesn't completely hold the 6 gallons that I get from the mash but I add the extra gallon as it boils off during the boil.
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The grains added to the MT; this is going to be a tight squeeze with the 3 gallons of liquor!
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Heated the liquor to 73*C or 162*F, added it to the grains and hit 68*C or 154*F which is a little higher than I was going for (66*C/150*F) but it shouldn't be a problem should it?
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Now the clock's ticking as I wait the 90 minutes for the mash to finish, before adding the sparge water which is heating as I speak.

- oneleg
 
sweet!

although I also work at home, I have to dedicate 4 hours to do a brew.... no multi-tasking for me!
 
45 minutes in and the mash has only lost 1*C - sitting quite comfortably at 67*C/153*F :)
 
Sparge water is up to temperature.
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The hose on the end of my mash tun is too long so I have to wrap it round the chair to keep it in check!
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The first few litres of wort contain grain particles so I put these back into the top of the MT.
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Once the lautering wort is running clear, I let it lauter into a bucket so that I can measure the volume. I'm aiming for 6 gallons here to compensate for evaporation during the boil.
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I sparge the water by gently pouring it over the grain using a jug. I sparged at 70*C/159*F.
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When I get near to the 6 gallons of wort, I check the SG of the wort that's being lautered just to check that I'm not going below 1.010. I've been told that you risk getting nasty tannins from over-sparged wort.
12.jpg


Here's the 5 gallons of wort in the boil pot. I said I was aiming for 6 gallons of wort, and I usually use the last gallon to top the boil off as it evaporates, but somehow I forgot about that and stopped at 5 gallons! so now I'm going to top up with water as it evaporates and see how it goes; should this be a problem?
13.jpg


Next is the 90 minute boil, which I thought was a 60 minute boil, so my girlfriends expecting to go out for dinner to celebrate our 2 years since we met anniversary, but she's gonna have to wait an extra half hour now... shes going to be aaaangry :D
 
After much hilarity when my mum managed to spill a big glass of red wine all over the table, the wort reached boiling point and I added the first hop addition.
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We're now 10 minutes into the boil and thick chunks of trub are circulating in the wort
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I just set up my dodgy-home-made-immersion-chiller and it's ready to go as soon as the boil is finished - I like to put the IC in the boil for the last 15 minutes, to make sure it's fully sanitized - remember that when you do this, the water in the hose will heat up and shoot out the end, so make sure you've got the out-hose in the sink or in my case, in a bucket!
 
Haha yeah! Well, I did tell you guys that that was only a fun experiment - I'm not sure many people believed me when I said I was going to properly get into brewing :)

- H
 
Just a quick update - I didnt get any more pics of the brewday as my phone ran out of battery, but it's in the fermenter and bubbling away! I was in the kitchen the other day when I heard a 'POP...tink, tinktinktink' and sure enough, when I went to investigate I found part of the airlock on the other side of the room! not sure how it could have happened but somehow it must have jammed the airlock shut while bubbling, built up pressure and fired it off across the room :D
 

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