First Partial Mash Recipe Advice, Please

[matr]

There's some reasonably priced pots on ebay..

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/STOCK-POT-50-LITRE-ALUMINIUM-/280491589674?cmd=ViewItem&pt=AU_Business_Industrial_Restaurant_Catering_Equipment&hash=item414e9a002a

[drsmurto]

When you get your 19L pot we can work out how to go about it.

If you lived a tad closer i would drop by and help you out.

Thanks for the offer doc. I did ask if it would be O.K for partials and the reply was 'should be'. Take that as a no next time. Right now I have a 12 ltr and a 19 ltr pot, thinking of buying another 19 ltr pot for $20 until i get my 50 ltr! I do have plenty of Amarillo, US-05 yeast though is busy for next 2 weeks until i bottle. Only other yeast I have is S-04.
Cheers

Do you have an esky?

[rotten]

Yes, convinced minister for war and finance I need old esky and will buy a new one for when we picnic etc. Will check size tonight, at least 35+ ltr though. Would need a tap if used as mashtun.

[drsmurto]

You can use the esky as an esky when its not a mash tun! i do.

And to begin with you can get away without a tap or braid/false bottom. After mashing you can strain out the sweet liquor by bucketing the mash into a strainer into a pot. Not ideal but gets you started.

You then add the sparge water to the grain and let it sit for 5-10 mins before straining again.

For info on building a simple false bottom from copper have a read of Palmers 'How to brew' - Link.

I can't build things so bought the Beerbelly falsie and got him to fit it all for me. Same goes for my kettle which is a 50L keg with one of his hopscreens fitted. Cost a bit but if i had attempted myself i would have spent loads more ballsing it up several times, sworn far too much and probably caused myself an injury.

35L is good for 20-23l batches. 4.5kg of grain plus 13L of water will fit in nicely. As will 20L of sparge water after you drain off the 1st runnings.

[PaulSteele]

I do Partials (although now I'm just doing very small AG batches) in a 15L pot on my stove, I've just woken up but I'll outline my process as best I can.

Heat up 2.3l water to 1kg grain (last batch was 3kg) in main pot to ~74deg depending on desired strike (usually depends on ambient temp, practise helps here)
Heat up 10l water in another pot to 70deg (I just find it handy to have this ready in case your mash is too thick or you miss strike temp), I usually boil the kettle here as well for the same reason, and for tea and coffee during the mash.
Mash in, check your mash in temp has hit.
wrap in towels and blankets and leave alone (when I first started I'd check the temp regularly but nowadays i'm more confident it'll hang around the right temp)
stir once or twice

when the mash is done, make sure your 10l pot is at correct sparge temp.
put a large grain bag* inside your fementer, attach with clothes pegs to the rim. Make sure the tap is shut
pour the whole mash into the grain bag**, then Vorlauf once or twice until your wort comes out clear
start slowly pouring your sparge water onto the grain bed. (again, practise is good here. just use your judgement to see when its formed a nice grainbed)
keep sparging until you've hit your pre-boil volume (i'm checking the gravity of whats coming out all the time as well)
boil***, check gravity, add Extract at end of boil to reach desired gravity (use beersmith or promash or whatever you like to work this out, make sure you change the batch size to whatever you want it to be after the mash)
cool, add to fermenter and top up to desired volume.
pitch yeast


Does this make any sense at all? I need a coffee!



*I got mine from brewcraft at about $16. seems outrageous and its probably cheaper to buy a paint strainer or something.
**I have never had a problem with "Hot Side Aeration" although this may be controversial
***Now's the time to open your first beer

[rotten]

Does this make any sense at all? I need a coffee!

***Now's the time to open your first beer

Makes sense, beers would start after strikewater in mash for me.
Cheers

[rotten]

Change the thread to 2nd Partial Mash.
Going for a Belgian Pale Ale, here is the recipe going off BJCP guidelines and what I have.

Munich 11 - 1kg
Med Crystal - 250 g
LLME - 1.5 kg
LDME - 750 g
Tettnager 4.6% 30 g @ 60 min
Saaz 3.6 % 20 g @ 40 min
S-04 yeast
20 ltr
OG 1049
FG 1012
IBU 25.3
SRM 9.7

Have set my efficiency to 60 for now. Will mash in 3 ltr still, Volouf this time. Question- Volouf through strainer, still using pot for mash until NEW esky arrives? Sparge 10 ltr at least, hopefully this will increase my dismal efficiency. I did disturb grain bed last time in strainer. BIG NO NO I know. Going for a 12 ltr boil this time.
Used Brewmate properly too this time, even understood what I was doing.
Comments always welcomed.
Cheers.

[drsmurto]

Time for a brutal reality check mate.

You cant make a belgian pale ale with an english yeast and there is no decent belgian dry yeast that i am aware of.

A large part of the character of belgian beers comes from the yeast.

It's quite hard for new brewers to get their head around just how much of an impact the yeast has on a beer.

What other hops do you have? If you switched them to something english or perhaps american and upped the IBU to 30 you could make a nice english or american pale ale.

[rotten]

Learn something every day

[drsmurto]

Yeast esters are crucial in this style. I studied up on it long and hard for last years Mash Paddle (AG only section of ANAWBS) and entered one. Didn't do too well despite getting several other judges to taste it prior. Always a very tough competition (this years style is a California Common but i wont be entering)

Feedback was not enough yeast derived esters which was a bit surprising as i fermented it at 24C using the Belgian Ardennes strain (WY3522).

As i said before, S04 is an english ale yeast so you'd be better off complimenting it by using english hops but that's just my opinion. This yeast will produce esters but they are completely different to those produced by belgian yeast strains.

Its a bit like calling a beer a lager but using an ale yeast. Its not a lager then.

Its a learning game mate so dont stress too much about labels. And don't take offence at my advice as you aren't required to take it. I thought i would simply point out what i have done and what i would do.

[rotten]

Thanks doc, point taken. I'm trying to learn about my hobby (obsession) as much as I can for every brew, so constructive criticism is always good. Only other hops I have are Amarillo or Perle. Looks like I have to go American with Amarillo. No loss, it's my fave. US-05 is still busy, I have two fermenters, so will have to use S-04 still. Will re-post recipe tonight after adjustments.

P.S. I have 1 kg of Amber Ale UK grain. Would that be better with the Euro hops and English Ale Yeast.
Cheers

[rotten]

Thankful today is nearly over, haven't been myself all day. One of those days I guess.
I re-worked recipe for next partial mash. I won't name it but it may be similar to a English Bitter - Pale Ale which apparently theses days could use euro or american hops. Here it is anyway.

1 kg Amber Ale Malt (UK)
500g Medium Crystal
1.5 kg LLME
250g LDME
500g DDME (don't have any more light, will increae colour a bit too)
30g Tettnager @ 60 min (4%)
20g Perle @ 40 min (6%)
15g Saaz @ 40 min (3.6%)
15g Saaz @ 20 min (3.6%)
Safale S-04 Yeast
Made to 20 ltr
work on 60% efficiecy
OG 1050
IBU 38.2
SRM 15.2

It looks not bad to me, let us know what you think.
Cheers

[bullfrog]

Just my opinion, but I would've swapped the Perle and Tett additions around. I've only used Perle as a bittering addition, so not sure what it adds later in the boil, but I really enjoy it as the bittering addition. You'd also get away with using less hops that way. Probably only work out to save you like $1, so it's not really that big a deal, I suppose.

[rotten]

Thanks for the tip. I wasn't sure which way to put them, have mainly used tett for bittering so went with that. Probably brew this tomorrow with Perle for 60min bittering addition, and change yeast to US-05, racked previous partial today and aree going to attempt building a starter from yeastcake tonight and splitting it.
Cheers

[Bum]

While bullfrog's advice is sound there is no reason perle won't work well at 40 min. A beer that was one of my favourites for some time (SNPA) has a similar addition and it worked very well. The beer you're going for is quite different to that one but I don't think you've got any reason to worry at this stage.

[drsmurto]

The main concern i have with this is the 1kg of amber malt.

My understanding is that it doesn't have the diastatic power to convert itself, it needs to be mashed with a base malt.

That and the fact any more than 5% in a beer can be overpowering. I once made a beer with 10% amber malt (a brown porter) and that took a while to become drinkable, the amber malt dominated. I've remade the same recipe dropping the amber to 5% and its now my standard brown porter recipe.

The next bit is just my opinion on the overall recipe.

To be honest, if you are using US05 and making something on the darker side you could go for an american amber/brown ale in which case i would use the amarillo instead. Maybe bitter with perle and then flavour/aroma with amarillo.

Leave the saaz and tettnang for lagers.

[rotten]

So many decisions to make, no wonder it turns into an obsession.

[rotten]

3rd time lucky
It's supposed to be inbetween an American Amber Ale and American Brown Ale, Couldn't get IBU or SRM perfect for either so compromosed.

1.5 kg LLME (41%)
1 kg Caramunich (27.4%)
0.25 kg DLME (6.8%)
0.5 kg DDME (13.7%)
0.2 kg Amber malt (5.48%)
0.2 kg Crystal med (5.48%)

15 gm Perle @ 60 min (AA 9%)
15 gm Amarillo @ 30 min (AA 8.6%)
15 gm Amarillo @ 10 min
I like US-05 so will use that
OG 1049
IBU 35.2
SRM 19

She gets brewed in a few hrs time
Cheers

[matr]

I thought caramunich was crystal so doesn't need mashing only steeping?

[rotten]

Brewed now. First error I had Weyermann Munich 11, not caramunich 11 so SRM dropped to 10.9, expected gravity up 2 points. Didn't realise till too late to fix, no big deal really though. Missed strike temp by 2 degrees at 64, maintained though at 64 in oven. I used a smaller pot to mash to have 10 ltr of sparge water this time so couldn't increase temp. Had a 11 ltr boil which went fine. I used my US-05 yeast that was a lot more wore work than just my normal 1 cup of trub, It was seperated I guess over last two days from trub and then all of it pitched with 250ml wort at same temp as wort which was 22c.
OG 1042 which is still down but fine for me. At least it's consistent @ 25%
Tatses good from fermenter and learnt heaps again. Need to learn a lot more about grain, malt and yeast though.
Thanks everyone.
Cheers.