All grain debut.

[warra48]

Good on ya, Wrighty.

Yep, AG beer does sure taste good. You get malt flavours and body and hop flavours and aromas which are missing from many (but not all) of the commercially available brews.

Now that you've started on the AG path, you'll be walking it in your sleep soon!

[wrighty]

Many thanks Warra , Bizier ,Doc and all others who have given me the help and advice along the way.
Its in the blood now so look out for more deep and meaningfull/less questions in future.

[Bizier]

less questions in future.

No way.

Now you will be up in the middle of the night, paranoid about HSA in your mash and DO in your bottling line... And you will be making better beer than the big boys loving and absolutely it.

[billybushcook]

One of the best bits of kit I bought for doing AG was a dual probe/thermocouple digital thermometer like the one below


This way I can have one probe in the mash & the other monitoring the sparge water in the HLT. Too easy!

I use it to keep a check on my beer fridge too (which is giving me trouble at the moment) & with the plain wire thermocouples it is good for monitoring temps in two Camp ovens at the same time. Endless uses.


http://cgi.ebay.com.au/2-K-Type-Digital ... 3a56a4236d

Cheers, Mick.

[drsmurto]

That's a nice looking piece of kit Mick. Might have to investigate that myself rather than dunking my mercury lab thermometers in the mash!

I take it you need to spend the extra $$ to get the 2 probes?

Am loving buying cheap stuff from china off ebay at the moment. Just received my FM transmitter for the car to use my mp3 player. $6 landed at my door. Bargain! Also got a mini tripod for my camera for $1.24 delivered! Insanity.

[billybushcook]

I take it you need to spend the extra $$ to get the 2 probes?
.

Yep, well worth it, this one seems to be a new & improved model, it reads in 0.1 deg incriments, mine only reads whole degrees plus it will display degrees Kelvin.

No more sticking your hand down inside a hot HLT & using a torch to read the bugger, just push a button to read which ever one you want on an easy to read display!!

Cheers, Mick

[warra48]

Here's how I measure the temperature of the water in my HLT.

[wrighty]

Been a bit hectic at work atm to get another brew down.My second A.g also SNPA is just not clearing up in the bottle.
This was the brew that i had trouble with the manifold in my tun.Taste is differrent also has a, well cloudy type tannin taste to it.
Im thinking the distubance of the grain bed and missed temps at mash are my problems? Will it improve with age?

[warra48]

Been a bit hectic at work atm to get another brew down.My second A.g also SNPA is just not clearing up in the bottle.
This was the brew that i had trouble with the manifold in my tun.Taste is differrent also has a, well cloudy type tannin taste to it.
Im thinking the distubance of the grain bed and missed temps at mash are my problems? Will it improve with age?

How did these two brews turn out, now you've had time to mature them?

Disturbing the grain bed may well release fine grain particles and flour into your boil, which would account for them not clearing as well as your first batch.

Have you done any brews since then?

[wrighty]

Hi Warra.
Yes the brew did settle and clear but still had a lot of sediment in the bottles witch on pouring was easily disturbed.
Taste wise was good but i now have a pickup tube in the kettle using s/s pot scrubber wrapped around it to filter out most of the trub.
That whirlpooling and let it settle has solved my problems.Havent done to much brewing of late as change in work / life commitments
are biting hard on time and finances. Have brewed a couple of ripping ciders so at least im in the good books with the wife.

[SuperBroo]

Hi Wrighty,

How have you got your pickup tube set up ?

Using a pot scrubber intersts me, have you just got it in there like a racking cane with the scrubber on the end ?

cheers,
Chris

[wrighty]

Hi Grog .
My kettle is a converted 50lt keg i used a piece of 1/2 inch copper 10in long and soldered into my tap.
This is shaped to lay against the side of the keg and has about 20 cuts in it using a 1mm disc.
Wrap the ss pad around it and away ya go. Craftbrewer sells proper pickups made by Beerbelly that are the ducks nuts.