G'Day brewers,
After a year and a bit of kit and partial brews I have jumped into the AG way over the weekend, made heaps of mistakes but had truck loads of fun.
The plan was to brew a James Squire Amber Ale clone, I came up with the following
4.50 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 94.94 %
0.20 kg Carafa II (412.0 SRM) Grain 4.22 %
0.04 kg Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 0.84 %
15.00 gm Williamette [5.50 %] (70 min) (First Wort Hop) Hops 10.3 IBU
40.00 gm Williamette [5.50 %] (60 min) Hops 24.1 IBU
20.00 gm Williamette [5.50 %] (15 min) Hops 6.0 IBU
1 Pkgs SafAle English Ale (DCL Yeast #S-04) Yeast-Ale
Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out Total Grain Weight: 4.74 kg
Leasons lernt
1- Should have halved the choc malt, I finished up with a dark dark porter coloured wort (no style point for me) but crikey it smells and tastes delicious like fresh floral laced expresso
2-I wasnt able to hold my mash temp, was out by 1.2 degrees, i think thanks to the lovely Victoria weather/rain/wind on saturday arvo
3- Used williamette hop flowers, without a bag or a strainer on the kettle....so I blocked the outlet valve over and over and over again, not much fun trying to pick out hop flower bits at 90 + degrees
4-Forgot to use the Irish Moss at the end of the boil, could have been the few ales consumed during the brew process
5-I no chilled overnight in a 20 litre willow cube on the tiles outside (thanks Victorian weather) until about 10pm got the wort down to 14 degrees, fantastic, but today I decided to transfer from the cube to the frementor at bench hight in the laundry againt my better judgment and during tipping the cube upinto the frementor I projected about 2 litres of sweat sweat wort over the brand new washing machine and down the walls.....DDOOOHHHHHH I ended up getting about 18 litres into the frementor.
I measured the OG with a refractometer as I was transfering from the kettle into the cube at 1038 but today before pitching the yeast it was 1055. Why is it so?? Could the level of the sugars increased overnight in the cube? Was the heat of the wort at the original measure the culprit?
Does anyone else first wort thier hops before the sparge? I have read different articles that say it gives you a smother overall hop flavor? Can you really tell the difference?
After all was said and done and cleaned I have had a ball of fun, I have some kind of dark, coffee, hoppie magical liquid currently doing battle with the english ale yeast in the laundry and I cant wait to do it all over again.
Cheers
Holla.