Anyway here is a run-down of my setup:
Equipment: "Phil mill" grain mill, 50L stainless mash tun, 40L aluminium boil kettle/fermentor, copper pipe lauter manifold with silicone syphon hose, 10kW outdoor paella gas burner, corny kegging system, +other odds and ends.
Ingredients: uncrushed grain and whole vacuum packed hops from 'the malt miller.com'. Dry yeast strains used for convenience (liquid yeast used only a few times). Grain stored at room temp loosely closed bag, yeast packets in fridge, hops in freezer.
Water: realised pretty quickly that portsmouth water is not really suitable for anything apart from Stout so I have been treating my tap water since I started. I use brun 'water spreadsheet calculator to determine phosphoric acid additions to both mash and sparge water and also add equal amounts of minerals to both waters depending on beer style. End goal is a room temp ph of about 5.5. Rarely this is checked with a ph meter but mostly assumed by the spreadsheet.
Process: I have tended to attempt shortcuts in my all-grain process over the years. I started off brewing as described in 'how to brew' by John Palmer. Typical 3 vessel homebrew method of infusion mashtun ----> kettle ----> fermentor with rapid cooling to ferment temp using a copper immersion chiller. But for the last three years I have been using a cut down method in order to try and save time and simplify. This consisted of two mayor changes.... (1) I don't chill the wort after the boil. (2) I do not rack to a fermentor. I ferment directly in the kettle.
So I would mash in the 50L pot for at least an hour, sometimes more, stirring about every 15mins. Then syphon into the boil kettle for a 60min rolling boil (90 for pilsner malt), with hops added as required. Protofloc/Irish moss tablet added last ten minutes. Then I cover the pot with a few layers of cling film at flameout and then let cool for about 20 hours at room temp. Final temp adjustment before pitching yeast is done in a temperature controlled fridge.
I feel this method saves a lot of time but more importantly it guarantees an almost sterile wort and fermentor as it has been boiled for at least 60 mins.
For the dry yeast, I always rehydrate the packet using the manufacturers datasheet and use an online calculator to tell me how many grams of yeast are needed. I will then add the yeast, swirl the fermentor for a few minutes and after that I will add air using a medical syringe filter and a small aquarium pump for about 30 - 60 mins. Sometimes I will aerate with the pump first then add the yeast (30 mins) But sometimes I add the yeast first and just aerate longer (60 minutes). My logic for this is that air can only saturate wort to about 8ppm so in half an hour the yeast will have taken up the 8ppm present and then by keeping the pump on there will be another 8ppm still in the wort when the pump is switched off after 60 mins. So the yeast will see a total of about 16ppm.
Then I would ferment at 17 - 20 deg C depending on the beer in the controlled fridge for 7-14 days. After day 4 I raise the temp about a degree a day until day 7 to increase yeast activity and then hold that temp until packaging into a corny keg and carbonated with a CO2 cylinder . Fermentation temperature is measured and controlled with a thermocouple stuck to the side of the fermentor with tape and a sponge over the top to insulate the sensor from the external influence. I'm told this gives an accurate beer temperature but I have never confirmed this by measuring directly inside the pot
Topic: Ethyl acetate or fusels? (Read 4248 times)
