New Guy from NSW, Australia

[Parrankin]

Hi all,

Just joined the HBT site, by way of intro... looking to get back into brewing. I have brewed for a short while in the past, and now pulling out the old bits and pieces and getting my act together. This time looking to establishing a full grain process and investing in a GrainFather unit (only just now convinced the wife!!). I have completed my water heater tank yesterday from a 18gal keg and clearing some room in my shed. Found all my beer bottles that have been saved from the past and cleaning gear.
I live in rural NSW, Australia and the home water supply is tank water and bore water, so doing some research on water etc for the fermentation conditions.

This blog looks to a wealth of knowledge.. looking forward to getting to know a few like minded people.

PARRANKIN

 

[Cyclman]

Welcome to the group, from Colorado

 

[Manufacturedevolution]

 

[TKWoody]

Welcome from Minnesota

 

[MaxStout]

Welcome to HBT, from another Minnesotan!

 

[rossscottnz]

Hi there from across the ditch, out of curiosity what part of rural NSW are you based I was over that way harvesting wheat back in 2012 and was around the QLD and NSW borders

 

[Parrankin]

Hi Guys thanks for the welcome..... the grainfather arrived yesterday, so things and starting to come together. Will post an image of my setup once complete (I have a bit to do this weekend).
Hi rosscottnz, I live about 45min South East of Canberra (no wheat around here!). I lived and worked over in NZ back in the 80's for about seven years, love the place. Also spent some time working in Colorado some time ago.

Thinking of my fermentation process, with winter coming on here I'm not sure how I'm going to maintain fermentation temp... a bit of design work to do. My fermenters are the plastic barrels, I have a heat ring that may help.. see how I go.

regards
parrankin

 

[doug293cz]

Welcome to HBT. You can learn a lot here, and be part of a community.

As to your post about looking at your water: Water chemistry is actually most important for the mash step when all grain brewing. Check out the "Brew Science" forum here to learn all the gory details about water chemistry. Start with the sticky threads at the top of the forum, particularly this one.

Brew on

 

[Parrankin]

Thanks for that.. some very good information. I'm interested is getting set-up and start experimenting.

parrankin

 

[Parrankin]

Hi Guys.. I have a brew underway, a simple pale ale and looks to be going well. The story goes like this:
Decided to go the full hog and to add to the grainfather the conical fermenter and sparge water heater and gain mill.. prompted by reading about the products and researching as much as possible.
All arrived and assembled well, spent a few days cleaning up my shed, building a hopper for the shiny new roller mill.
Ordered a few more things including a hop spider, a refraction meter and couple if other bits (stainless buckets etc).
Planned and configured the shed including a bit of welding, made stand of sparge heater over the grainfather, also a washing area.
Located all my old bottles and did some cleaning, planned my water supply process and decided to get underway.

The day before brew day.. I drove to the local home brew shop and discussed the status and highlighted intention of doing a brew, they assisted in putting together a package of gains and yeast etc for a good pale ale. Picked up some cleaning agents and brushes as well.
When arriving home I started working out my recipe based upon the kit and typical ales on the net. Also started the gainfather app and entered my recipe details on my tablet. Found I didn't have any hops or bottle priming sugars. Back to the shop and some further additions (1hrs drive)
The next day:
Identified the grain bill and water amounts using the grainfather calculator, and loaded the sparge water heater with water and grainfather with desired amounts. Started the app and connected to the Grainfather, seemed to connect however I did not have control of the unit from the app at all... seemed I could go through the steps of the recipe manually and when prompted change the settings manually on the Grainfather. I don't think this is the way it is supposed to work. However I was underway and I would sort this out later!!
Temperature control was working well impressed with the kit so far..
While water heating I decided to mill the gain, I recall the Grainfather does not like fine filled situations, so ran a few grains through adjusting until a had what looked OK (still finding it difficult to set-up clearances on fluted rollers). The best I feel is run through some grain and inspect the results!! (another thing to work on).
The water came to temp, in with the gain slowly and stir... all good. This was filtered rain water... so I added a small amount of calcium sulphate to the water while heating and stirred.
All good, mash went well, sparge went well no problems with water flow through grain bed (possibly a little course mill!).
I possibly removed the grain tube a bit too quickly as there seemed to be a collection of liquid under the gain bed tube some time after.
Started the next phase getting to boil... there was a thick layer of proteins developing on the top as it heated, I removed most of that using a flat ladle (... I seem to recall a video where that was done!).
Added the hops and boil completed without to much trouble. While that was going on I cleaned and sanitised the fermenter and setup my counterflow chiller.
The counterflow chiller was set-up the run the wort through to sanitise, worked well. Started to the cold water to chiller and when monitored the outgoing temperature. Has a small leak with the cold water connection to the chiller... a bit of tread-tape fixed that. Successfully moved the wort to the fermenter very close to the desired temperature. Set-up the temp 18 deg C. Worked a treat I thought!
Stirred the wort and added the yeast packet, locked it down and added the airlock. (The temp control seems to maintain wort within 1/2 deg). Fermentation started well about 24hrs after.

This where I think I have stuffed up.... I remember watching a video where an expert (!) highlighted draining spent material from the bottom of the fermenter every three days or so. I did this and managed to remove what looked like active yeast material as well.. bugger!!
The ferment has reduced slightly from a vigorous bubble to one bubble every minute. I was tempted to put the extract back in .. however thought better of it do to lack sterilised container.
Couple of notes:
Having a few issues in reading SG ... the refraction meter works well, however at the critical time, indications are that I need to calibrate using distilled water, not as though I had that on hand right now! Í zeroed to my supply water and a reading came out at 1.051 for pre-boil gravity. Reverted to my hydrometer seems to be about 1.050.. having some difficulty with my hydrometer interpretations, need for improvement. I like the refractometer, however need to workout calibration and use when alcohol is present.
My shed dropped down to -5 to -6 deg C during the night here (mid winter), I felt sorry for my fermenter with the 30Watt heater, so put some clothes around it... working well!

Some picks attached..

Regards all, advice appreciated, will let you know the results.

Parrankin