Since I have the vast experience of having brewed twice, using extract with steeping grains, I decided a wonderfully illogical next step would be to brew an high alcohol, all-grain, BIAB, no-chill test batch roughly similar to the above recipes yesterday. (Way, way too many notes and thoughts follow the recipe.)
Because of the small amounts of hops at this batch size, I switched to metric for measuring, but am noting the non-metric numbers as well.
Type: All Grain
Date: 12/11/2009
Batch Size: 1.56 G/6.00 L
Boil Size: 2.43 G/9.35 L
Boil Time: 90 min
Ingredients
4.40 #/2.00 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 74.07 %
0.88 #/0.40 kg Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 14.81 %
0.55 #/0.25 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 9.26 %
0.11 #/0.05 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 1.85 %
0.39 oz/11.00 gm Northern Brewer [9.80 %] (First Wort Hop) Hops 27.9 IBU
0.42 oz/12.00 gm Centennial [8.00 %] (First Wort) Hops 27.6 IBU
0.63 oz/18.00 gm Cascade [5.40 %] (First Wort) Hops 27.9 IBU
1.06 oz/30.00 gm Centennial [8.00 %] (40 min) Hops 81.6 IBU
0.71 oz/20.00 gm Amarillo Gold [7.50 %] (At 170 F post-boil) Hops 25.3 IBU
0.71 oz/20.00 gm Cascade [5.40 %] (At 170 F post-boil) Hops 18.2 IBU
0.71 oz/20.00 gm Centennial [8.00 %] (At 170 F post-boil) Hops 27.0 IBU
0.53 oz/15.00 gm Cascade [5.40 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
0.53 oz/15.00 gm Centennial [8.50 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
0.53 oz/15.00 gm Amarillo Gold [7.50 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
0.13 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min)
1 Pkgs Dry English Ale (White Labs #WLP007) Yeast-Ale
Est Original Gravity: 1.090 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.099 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.023 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 9.93 %
Bitterness: 235.6 IBU
Est Color: 17.9 SRM
Mash Profile:
Total Grain Weight: 5.95 #/2.70 kg
Grain Temperature: 65.0 F
Pot Temperature: 166.0 F
158 F 75 min Mash, add grains to 11.50 L of water at 166 F
168 F 10 min Mash Out, heat to 168.0 F over 5 min
I purchased the grains in pounds and had the shop throw in a bit extra. This was good; when I converted to metric I needed a little more of each. Because of this I ended up using slightly less Crystal 60 and slightly more Crystal 80 then I had intended, but the color still seems reasonable.
I did the “brew in a bag” using a 32-quart tamale cooker and a five-gallon paint strainer. The tamale cooker has very thin walls, and despite putting a cardboard box over it, the temperature seemed to vary slightly depending on where in the pot I put the thermometer. Because of this, I stirred it every five to ten minutes. Keeping the burner heat on low seemed to hold the average temperature at 158 F, but it varied by +/-2 F depending on when and where I was taking the temperature.
I used pellet hops throughout. I tossed the first wort hops into the tamale cooker just before turning up the burner to mash out. I intended to just leave these in for the full boil, but some stuck to the grain bag when I removed it; I’m not sure how much.
After ~75 minutes, I turned up the burner to raise the temp to ~168 F to mash out for 10 minutes. I then removed the bag to let it drain while I began the boil. Following what one of the interviewed Australians said on the Basic Brewing Podcast, I squeezed the grain bag “until I got bored with it.” I then added the wort from draining and squeezing back to the brew pot.
I ended up with 2.47 G/9.35 of 1.065 wort into the BK. Using Beer Smith, my actual efficiency was 73%. (This surprised me, because the grind was relatively coarse. I asked the LHBS to grind it fine, but they were worried about the beer being bitter. For this round I was more into the experimenting than certain results, so I just had them do it at their normal grind. From reading, I thought I might end up about 60 to 65%.) I ended up with 75% efficiency into the boiler, and 65% (after trub losses, etc.) into the fermenter.
I was nervous about boiling in the thin-bottomed tamale cooker with a diffuser, so I move the wort into a SS three-gallon kettle to boil (using a pitcher). I did a very low boil for 90 minutes, and ended up post-boil with 1.65 G/6.25 L of 1.099 wort. (I had targeted around 1.090 using the lower efficiency.)
I tossed in the bittering hops at 40 minutes. After turning off the stove, I slid the pot off the burner and let it cool naturally. When the temp hit 170 F, I added the “whirlpool” hops. (The cooling was rapid at first, and very slow as the temperature approached the environmental temperature. I should have expected this, but for some reason was thinking it might be more linear.) Because of the no chill, I did the IBU calculations using 30 minutes for the FWH, 60 minutes for the 40-minute addition, and 15 minutes for the “whirlpool” hops.
Once I added the final hops I let the BK sit for 10 minutes or so, and then moved it to the garage where the temperature was in the high 40s. About five hours later the temperature was in the mid 70s, and I moved the wort into my 3-gallon Better Bottle. I tried to rack it to the fermenter, but the level was low enough in the kettle that I couldn’t get the auto-siphon started. I ended up just pouring it, using a paint bag set in my strainer to catch the trub.
There was a lot of liquid caught in the paint bag with the trub, so I mashed on it a bit with my hand to squeeze some out. I figured that my hands had been covered in sanitizer long enough to be relatively safe, but as I was mashing I noticed the gunk caught under my fingernails. Next time I’m bringing a surgical scrub brush and some surgical gloves home from work. (I’ll need to have some boiled or sanitized water to rinse off the powder.) I’m not sure if it is critical, but I’ll sleep better.
I use a water bath with an aquarium heater to temperature control my fermentation. I had the temperature at 65 F. I moved the Better Bottle there, and aerated the wort for ~45 min with filtered air from an aquarium pump.
The pitching calculator on Mr. Malty for my original recipe said that I would only need the one vial of yeast, so I didn’t make a starter and just dumped the contents straight into the fermenter. Putting the new numbers in today, including the higher specific gravity and “best by” date on the yeast vial, I should have (Mr. Malty shows I would need 1.3 vials). Ah well, next time. I did use some Wyeast yeast nutrient though. After pitching, I shook it well to aerate a bit more and mix the yeast in well.
I plan on three days at 65 F, then a week or so at 68 F, and a diacetyl rest of around four days at 70 F (depending on how the fermentation goes). I then plan on dropping the temp back down to 65 F to dry hop for a week. I may add more hops and go a second week depending on the taste.
I really appreciate the threads where brewers post both what they did and the results, so barring something catastrophic I’ll be sure to update you down the road. Hop Henge has been a January release in the past, so hopefully I’ll be able to do a direct comparison. I know it’s a moving target that they keep experimenting with, but hopefully they don’t make radical changes.
