Fuggly Dog 40L Brewing Journal

Started 30th December 2018

This is a fairly standard bitter using fuggles hops but is the kind of beer that is easy drinking and well liked by guests. The estimated ABV is 5.00%, so this is not too strong as a regular session beer.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

Recipe	Measure
Brew Length	40L
Pale Malt (EBC 6)	9200g
Crystal Malt (EBC 150)	800g
Chocolate Malt (EBC 950)	30g
Challenger Hops (Start of Boil)	70g
Fuggles Hops (start of Boil)	15g
Fuggles Hops (Last 10 Min)	30g
Yeast (Using Starter)	WLP002
Mash Liquor	25 Litres
Strike Heat	72C
Mash Temperature	66C
Mash Time	1 Hour 30 Minutes
Sparge Temperature	77C
Mash Efficiency (estimated)	75%
Boil Time	1 Hour 30 Minutes
Fermentation Temperature	18C
Expected OG	1055
Actual OG	1050
Expected FG	1015
Actual FG	1015

Water Treatment:

Recipe	Measure
CaCo3 Adjustments
Calcium Carbonate CAC03	171 ppm
Calcium Carbonate Required	30 ppm
Adjustment Necessary	141 ppm
CRS per Litre Required	0.9 ml/L
Total CRS to add to Mash (25L)	22.5 ml
Total CRS to add to Sparge water (8+23L)	31 ml
*Chlorine Treatment*
Campden Tablets (half in mash, half in sparge)	1 tablet
Calcium Adjustment (using brupaks calculation)
Calcium in Water	122 ppm
Calcium Required	180 ppm
Adjustment	58 ppm
DLS (using GW Calc it suggests adding none)	1 Tsp

Water Schedule:

This brew will be batch sparged, so the water will be scheduled as follows:

Mash = 25L using 22.5 ml of CRS +1/2 Campden Tab
Top Up = 8L using 7 ml of CRS
Final Batch Sparge = 23L using 20.7 ml of CRS and 1/2 campden tab

Mashing:

I am using my SS Brewtech infussion mash tun for the first time. This is a large chunk of stainless steel so I will need preheat.

12L of water at 78C added to mast tun.
HLT topped back up and set for 78C
Water treated with 20ml CRS and 1/2 Campden tab.
25L of water added to the mash tun, which settled quickly to 73C, so stirred until 72c
Doughed in + 1 tsp of gypsum
Temperature dropped to 66C. which is perfect.
Measured temperature with Thermapen and mash was showing as 65C but mash tun probe is still showing 67C in middle of mash.
mash will now be left alone for 1.5 hours.
10 minutes left on the clock and mash tun thermometer is showing as 66.5c
Final temperature was around 66C

Sparging

25L of sparge water was heated to 85C and treated.
Recirc started and run for 10 minutes.
Forgot to top up and drained mash tun to bolier instead
Pumped wort into boiler but last 2 pints were very turbid. Need to stop pumping just before final runnings.
Added 25L of sparge water to mash tun and stirred and recirc left running for 20 minutes.
heated remaining 6l of water and added to mash run
Pumped to boiler and stopped just as the turbid last runnings appeared in the pipe.

Boiling

Boiler switched on as soon as first few litres of wort were drained from mash Tun.
Challenger hops added at start of boil
Last 15 minutes. added Immersion coil inserted to ensure sterilised.
Recirc started - Air locks were a challenge but as soon as i stopped the gas it was fine. Recirc was run while cooling takes place to ensure wort is filtered and aid cooling.
Post boil gravity = 12.5 brix, 1050. This is a little under the planned 1055 but this may be due to me messing up the sparge schedule. It is still a reasonable figure so is not of concren.
A lot of trub made it into the boiler again but this was because I was not careful enough when transferring from the mash tun as I missed the point that tun ran the last few dreggs.

Fermentation:

A 1.8L yeast starter of Yeast WLP002 was started 2 days before and refrigerated the evening prior to brew day.
Yeast was removed from the fridge around 1 hour prior to pitching and the main volume of liquid poured off.
When the wort was at a suitable temperature, some was transferred into the starter flask to acclimatize.
Wort is at 22C, so Chiller set-up to continue cooling.
30/12/18 - 17:20 - Yeast pitched at 19.5C. Target temperature is 19C but this will soon be reached as the chiller is running.
30/12/18 - 10:00 - Checked the temperature and realised that I had plugged he chiller into the mains rather than my temperature controller, which had chilled to around 13C. This was corrected and the heater on but as this was now working overnight it would struggle a bit.
31/12/18 - 09:00 - The temperature was now at 19c but the yeast had not stared vigorous fermentation. There were signs of fermentation starting as spots of yeast were on the surface and a thin film of foam was evident. Normally i would expect fermentation to be well under way but the cold start obviously slowed this.
31/12/18 - 16:00 - There is now a thick krausen head, so fermentation has properly started.
01/01/19 - There is now around 3" of Krausen so i will leave alone for the next few days as everything is proceeding as expected.
04/01/19 - Temperature is stable at 18.9c, the Krausen is now very thin. The brix reading is now 7 Brix, which equates to an SG of 1015, so fermentation is finished. I will check again tomorrow to see if this falls any further.
05/01/19 - Brix reading has remained at 7. Chiller switched on and set as low as possible.
09/01/19 - Temperature is now at 2.5c. Gelatin was added for finings, 1 heaped tsp dissolved in 300ml and then heated to 65c. This was gently stirred into fermenter.
10/01/19 - Planned kegging day

Notes For next Brew:

Ensure that first sparge pumping is stopped as soon as liquid is below the sight glass.

After second sparge, be careful to stop as soon as any trub appears, or stop slightly early as there is no dead space so little loss anyway.

Tasting Notes:

This has turned out to be a really smooth tasting beer, the mouth feel is really good and the head retention is excellent. Bitterness is at a respectable level and leaves a good aftertaste in the mouth. Hop flavour and aroma from he Fuggles hops is great and is one of my favourite hops. The Crystal and Chocolate malt additions have produced a very rich pleasing colour. Definitely one to do again.