Beer Forum

Afternoon all.

Its a sunny, but cold day here in Melbourne Australia and its a brew day.

After a bit of advice from Oz and others I am brewing a brew that I have designed more or less to teach me how my system works, and what I am doing right and wrong.

A simple ale where errors, faults (and I suppose triumphs) will show up rather than be masked by a lot of "stuff" going on.

Heres what I'm doing

Teacher's Pale Ale (12 litre batch)

2.5kg 2 row pale ale malt (powels Aust)
100g light crystal approx 50EBC (powels Aust)

dough in @ 40 deg C bring up to 55 deg C
rest for 30 min @ 55 deg C (protien rest)
bring up to 68-69 deg C rest for 60 min
bring up to 77 deg C then batch sparge with water @ 77 deg C
shoot for 14lt water into kettle

15g Pride of Ringwood (9.7 alpha) 60min
5g POR @ 20min
5g Cascade @20min
5gPOR @ flame off
5g Cascade @ flame off

ferment with Safale US56

I'm hoping for a fairly light coloured beer with OG around about 1043.

I know that I probably dont need the protien rest, but I have a HERMS and figure I might as well learn how to use it to do step mashes. Can it hurt??

What do you all think? Will I get the nice simple beer I am looking for? Will it be balanced? Is there other stuff you think I might try to do? Should I "Just get a life and brew for christ's sake, learn from your mistakes doofus"

Anyway, I hope it might turn out something like a Coopers Pale Ale which is a beer I quite like. So it might be worth brewing just for its own sake.

I'd appreciate any opinions or advice you all out there might have.

Thanks

Dan

Thirsty Boy wrote:I know that I probably dont need the protien rest, but I have a HERMS and figure I might as well learn how to use it to do step mashes. Can it hurt??

Depends on the malt you are using. With overmodified malts (pale malts are usually like this) the protein rest can actually hurt the head retention since it degrades to much of the medium chained proteins. An the more modified the malt is, the less longer and medium chained proteins are in the malt to begin with.

But you are doing the protein rest at 55 C instead of 50 C. This rest is better suited for more modified malt. Since I understand that you want to test your system, I suggest having the rest, but shorten it to only 10 min (BTW, do you have a SNR (soluble nitrogen ratio) number for this malt?). If your HERMS can do the 1 K/min mash temp raise, you will be in the protein rest range for ~10min just while you raise the mash temp.

The benefit of the protein rest is one of the big discussions between brewers these days. I some say it's still benefitial, other recomend to dough in above it. I think it's benefitial for lager malts, but keep it short and at 55C unless the malt I'm using is undermodified, which is hard to find these days.

Kai

Thanks Kai,

I was already boiling the wort when I posted my question, so it was a bit too late to take your advice. Next brew Day.

My system probably does around, or maybe a bit better than 1 deg /min but it depends on the temp that I am holding the HLT at. HERMS excahnger is in the HLT. I suspect that you are right and that I would be in protien rest range for around ten minutes anyway if I just raised the temp from dough in at 40C to Sach rest. That would certainly cut a few minutes off the mash time, so it sounds good to me.

I did pick the 55 deg mark for protien rest because I knew about the medium chained protien thing though.

I have no idea what the SNR of the malt might be, or even what the SNR in fact is in the first place. I crave enliightenment.

Thanks for your reply

Dan

So. Here's what I learned so far.....

I learned a bit from Kais answer.

I learned that my HLT cools down faster than my mash tun, which renders the HERMS ineffective unless I remember to turn the damn power back on. Maybe insulate.

I learned that I need some high temp hose that doesn't collapse under vacuum.

I learned that I need a new burner. My camp stove just doesn't cut the mustard. Also that the immersion element I use in my HLT does do the job for boiling, really quite well, but is a pain in the sphincter to use.

I learned that the HERMS when filled with ice makes a damn fine chiller (down to ptching temp in under 20 mins), but doesn't work if you connect the input and output pipes the wrong way around and try to pump against a check valve.... swearing at it does not help.

I learned that I need to make a "Check List" on a whiteboard or something. Forgot to put in the Irish Moss, forgot to put in the yeast nutrient, forgot to re-hydrate the yeast until after I had whirlpooled...

Lets see what I learn about fermentation in the next week or two

I learned that it wasn't a fluke the first time. I really really do like this brewing stuff. Hooked now. Better get the wife into brewing as well or marriage could be in trouble. Luckily she likes good beer so it might work out alright. Better learn to make it good though.

Thanks for listening to me gush. I need to calm down and have a beer.

See ya

Dan

Hey Thirsty boy the chalk board is always a good idea, especially if your drinking when your brewing. I have been teaching some friends how to brew recently and one of them asked me why I didnt modify the water this time. I said aahhh yea I forgot that and this and that. It doesnt help when you have 2 beers on tap a few feet from where the brewing action is.


One thing I have learned is its always important to plan out what your going to do and if you change the plan, then document it and have a good reason. Having a repeatable recipe and methodology is one of the most import things. I learned this the hard way a long time ago when I made a chocolate stout but did not document how much additives we put in. I drank some of them about 4 years later and they were incredible but it was an unrepeatable recipe. I now use promash to document everything.

Thirsty Boy wrote:Better get the wife into brewing as well or marriage could be in trouble. Luckily she likes good beer so it might work out alright.

Daniela had a beautiful tirade about that in the El Toro show with Big Chooch's wife. It was awesome and brought a tear to my eye. I'll be playing it for my wife.

Push Eject

Thirsty Boy wrote:I have no idea what the SNR of the malt might be, or even what the SNR in fact is in the first place. I crave enliightenment.

Dan,

SNR (soluble nitrogen ratio) is usually cited when the necessity of a protein rest is evaluated. It is measure of the protein break-down that has already been done during malting. The higher the number, the better modified the malt is. Protein rests (at least at 50F) should be avoided for well modified malts (SNR > 38%). This is true for most ale malts and nowdays even for most pilsner malts. If this interests you and it is not to hard to get, get a malt analysis. If not, don't worry about it at all

BTW, yeast nutrient and irish moss are not really necessary anyway.

Kai

Results: Just kegged and bottled the Learning to Brew Brew the day before yesterday and the kegged version seems properly (maybe a little over) carbonated now.

With such a simple recipe and a fairly low grain bill, it's not exactly an exciting beer, but its not too bad at all, and it has certainly done some of what it was supposed to do. That is, teach me about the way I brew and give me an uncomplex base brew, to which I can make single variable changes to my process and ingredients, in order to learn their effect.

Clean nose with a slight malty sweetness, the little bit of cascade in it standing out fairly prominently because of the lack of competition. No off smells or flavours that I can detect, the bitterness is light, but because of the low maltiness, just about balanced and nice and clean finishing. A little bit watery in the mouthfeel and not much grunt to the flavours although whats there is quite nice. Its hazey as buggery and not just because of yeast, although there is a fair amount of that too.

Head and head retention is FANTASTIC... I guess that I am definately a convert to the 55 C protien rest

So I think that I've got a good start on the basics. First thing to work on (maybe) is the clarity and also on my syphoning set-up and technique (sucked some big chunks out of the fermentor) Next time I might keep the grain and hop bill the same but change the brand of malt to a more "premium" variety and see what happens. Or something like that anyway.

Its turned out to be quite an acceptable session beer, which is kinda handy with the world cup on at the moment All in all I'll take it for my second AG batch; and drink it with a grin.

Heres a pic, because thats as close as I'll get to being able to send most of you guys a sample, and cause I kinda want to show it off a little. Look at that head would ya Its actually also quite a few shades lighter than it came out under the flash

Presenting Teacher's Pale


Thanks for listening to me gush and for the feedback you have given so far about the learning to brew brew idea. Cheers.

Dan