It's done! As of Sunday afternoon, I'm an AG convert! Hopefully I’ve done reasonable justice to drsmurto’s famous golden ale recipe.
Scaled up to 22 L batch in Beersmith. Expecting efficiency of 70%, which it appears I managed to exceed. I also guessed at things like the "loss to trub and chiller" and boil off evaporation rate, but it looks like I got lucky, as I pretty much exactly hit predicted volumes.
My Beersmith figures (presumably including my efficiency) might be off, as I added the pre-defined ingredients that seemed closest to what I actually got from Craftbrewer. E.g. I entered UK pilsner in Beersmith when I bought Aus pilsner and the recipe calls for Weyermann.
I’m not sure what happened with my mash-out step. After the duration of the mash, which ended up being 80 minutes, I dumped 6.83 L of boiling water in. Stirred well and measured the temp all over, but it only got to 67 when I was aiming for 77. It didn’t seem to hurt anything, though.
My pre-boil SG was 1.027 at 63 degrees, so 1.044, making for 82.1% efficiency… seemed ridiculously high for my first attempt, but was checked and double checked.
No chilled in a cube, first in the swimming pool, then in the fridge. Strained into fermenter on Monday morning and pitched a packet of US05. It tasted fantastic even then!
Here are the recipe details as copied from Beersmith:
Recipe: drsmurto's golden ale
Brewer: Matt
Style: Extra Special/Strong Bitter (English Pale Ale)
TYPE: All Grain
Recipe Specifications
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Batch Size: 22.00 L
Boil Size: 26.32 L
Estimated OG: 1.053 SG
Estimated Color: 14.9 EBC
Estimated IBU: 38.0 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 82.10 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
Ingredients:
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Amount Item Type % or IBU
2.64 kg Pilsner (2 Row) UK (2.0 EBC) Grain 56.41 %
0.88 kg Munich Malt (17.7 EBC) Grain 18.80 %
0.88 kg Wheat Malt, Bel (3.9 EBC) Grain 18.80 %
0.28 kg Caramunich Malt (110.3 EBC) Grain 5.98 %
22.00 gm Amarillo Gold [8.20 %] (60 min) Hops 19.9 IBU
16.50 gm Amarillo Gold [8.20 %] (Dry Hop 3 days) Hops -
33.00 gm Amarillo Gold [8.20 %] (20 min) Hops 18.1 IBU
Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 4.68 kg
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Single Infusion, Medium Body
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Mash In Add 12.21 L of water at 73.5 C 66.0 C
10 min Mash Out Add 6.83 L of water at 100.0 C 76.9 C
Pictures of the whole messy ordeal:
Ghetto tiering system with Fridgemate being used as thermometer in the background. Trying to get the strike water to the right temp.
Grains just added. Temp is a little over at 69, but a bit of vigorous stirring got it down to 66 in about 3 minutes, at which it stayed for over an hour – good Esky!
Design flaws: The tap is below the base, and has to hang over the edge of the counter; plastic used in too many places (although I leak and taste tested with boiling water prior to breaking it in, and all was good).
Draining the mash and vorlaufing:
Somewhat later (after sparging), a rolling boil is achieved:
After the first addition of Amarillo. I'm led to believe that now is the appropriate time to crack open the first beer
Yes, this is some time after sparging and the mash tun is still full of spent grains
Cube hot-packed, on its side to sterilise the top and handle, along with plenty of mess to clean up:
The cube just hanging out, chilling in the pool
Thanks for reading!