Summertime Lager Pt 2.
Gloves on if you dont want burnt sticky fingers and let's get sparging. Oh and if you've got a furry brew assistant watch out for the microbial attack from flying brew thirsty suicidal dog hairs!
I swear I find them dammed little dog hairs everywhere
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Yes cute brew assistant/Wort drinker/ spent grain consumer hee hee hee!
Right mash is done sparg is heated to 75c time to get me hands dirty a work for my beer!
Keep everything within hands length I find is best when lifting sticky hot grain I use a pot with holes drilled in bottom to sit my grain bag in for the sparge. Just one of many options you can batch sparge in a whole separate vessal then pour that back I just found this was easiest so far for me...
I use a small jug to ladle in sparge water.
Once sparge is done I squeeze the heck outta the bag to get that last Liter or so of wort.
All this time the flames been lit and the FWH addition is soaking its hoppy goodness inti the wort. Now it's time to take your pre boil gravity sample. I give the whole kettle a good stir and pour and decant some wort through the tap and keep about 200ml to go in the freezer to cool down so I can take a pre boil gravity reading. When taking hydro reading try and take them at hydro calibration temp mines 20c if not use the Brewers friend hydro temp calculator.
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A nice respectable 1.044! Sheesh I love gladfield malts great extract potential.
Now is when you also log in any notes into the brew session log. Mine is pretty basic but record any differences from recipie like actual mash temps PH ect any big break or wort taste, aroma...
Now dont forget to set that timer I'll set mine at 40mins I've got a hop addition at 20 min mark then Imersion chiller at 15min and the delta flock at 5 mins to go before cooking. In the meantime it's time to get cleaning up that brew bag, sparge pot, gloves and the all important fermentation vessal.
I pop the Imersion chiller in at 15min it takes 5 min till the boil starts again so that allows 10min sanitation give or take.
Today I'm using a little 12v solar pump to recirculate pool water through the chiller it's been raining non stop why add more water to the already soaked yard. I can run this as long as I want without a guilty I'm wasting water Aussie concience comming from the driest habitable continent you'll understand
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The ferm chamber has been occupied by my strawberry wheat bier and I'm not fermenting this lager out in ambient spring weather so before boil is done Ive got to rack that to clear the fermentation chamber. This is also a great way to utilize cleaning and sanitizing solution and kill 2 birds with one stone. I cleaned out cube fermentor first then cleaned receiving keg poured cleaner from cube fermentor into bucket- boiled transfer hose used boiling water to clean recieving and fermentor then filled both with recieving keg and fermentor with sanitizer. A lot of juggling but most brewers might find themselves in this position especially brewing on a whim like I've done...
whilst mucking around doing keg transfer the kettle was chilling I timed it @ 24 mins STC read 26c. I take a final gravity reading now before transfer into fermentor or you can also take one before pitching yeast it's up to you. I also transfer the lot into fermentor trub and all so this can be a pain when taking samples. I find collecting a 200ml volume allows for trub to settle so it doesnt scew hydrometer readings later.
1.054 10 predictable points from the boil volume was around the 21 lt mark cant tell as no marking on cube. Wort is nice light straw colour what I'm aiming for here. According to the calculator that's 90% efficiency wowie
my best but I'm gathering Final volume maybe a touch under 21lt anyhow let's not ignore the Gladfield Malts give them a try every time I've used them I get an extra couple percent extraction out of them.
Well I'm going to go watch come Footy whilst this wort chills down to 12c pitching temp. I'll aerate and pitch next. Hope this had been helpful to you as a new brewer. And disclaimer I'm in no way a professional Brewer this is just a glance at the way I conduct a brew session. Cheers
Summertime Lager Pt3....