Brew # 6 - Homemade Pale Ale Take 2

Ingredients

• 2x Morgan's Master Malt Extra Pale Ale malt extract
• 250g Crystal 80L malt grain (milled)
• 16g Chinook hops (11.8% AA)
• 18g Cascade (6.2% AA)
• 17g Amarillo (9.2% AA)
• 1x Safale US-05 Dry Ale Yeast

Method

• Fill stockpot w/ 12L cold filtered water and start to heat
• Boil 1.5L water in kettle
• Empty one of the Extra Pale Ale LME into pot and rinse tin with boiling water
• Tie one end of the grain bag, fill with grain, then knot the bag closed, and tie the end to the stockpot handle
• Fully immerse the grain bag in the wort to steep
• Continue to raise temp of wort until within the 49-77C range and steep the grains for 30 mins at this temp - because of the time it took to heat the wort, the grains were steeped for a total of ~45mins, approx. 30mins of which was within this temp range
• Remove the grain bag, giving it a light squeeze, but do not fully drain the bag
• Cover the stockpot and bring to the boil

• After 10mins at boiling temp, add first hops (Chinook)
• Boil for 45mins (watch for boil over) - the new stockpot has enough head room to make this unlikely if I leave a 1cm gap in the lid
• During this time, boil 500mL of water, pour into sanitised container (jar), and cover - this will be used for the yeast hydration later, but needs time to cool
• Add second hops (Cascade)
• Boil for 15 mins
• Remove from heat
• Add final hops
• Add second tin of LME, stirring continuously
• Hops and LME are allowed to sit for 15 mins to pasteurise, but not boiled
• In the meantime, add ice to sink

• Whilst the second ME addition is standing, add 12L cold filtered water to sanitised FV (this should give a total volume of ~22L as some of the wort water would have boiled off)
• Place stockpot in ice bath in sink
• Once wort and FV water temperature equil is <30C, pour hot wort into FV using sanitised funnel (no need to add filter)
• Aerate wort in FV by sloshing around - make sure the dip tube hanging under the float
• Add dried yeast to pre-boiled water at <30C (24C) and allow to rehydrate for 10 mins
• When wort temp is <=24C, take SG reading with hydrometer
• Gently stir yeast and allow to sit for further 10-20mins
• Give the wort another slosh and check temp
• If temp of wort is +/- 1C of yeast, pitch yeast
• Seal FV with sanitised pressure lid
• Move to warm fridge at 22C

Coming next...

• Allow to ferment for 8-14 days
• Attach sanitised collection bottle filled with CO2
• Move FV to keezer to crash cool
• After 2-3 days, remove collection bottle and discard contents
• Clean and sanitise collection bottle and add to the FV again
• Take a sample and measure FG
• Transfer beer to cold, pressurised keg
• Tweak carbonation
• Drink

Improvements for next time

1. I used 80L Crystal malt grain for steeping so the beer is quite dark, even with the extra pale LME - use lighter malt next time (CaraPils, CaraMunich?)
2. There is quite a lot of trub in the bottom of the FV, probably because of the use of hop pellets, so might be worth filtering wort on the way into the FV
3. FV is dripping from butterfly valve (closed) - double check o-ring and other seals (I've added the collection bottle to catch the drips)