Munich admiral 40L Brewing Journal

Started 24th June 2016

Both Munich Malt and Admiral hops are ingredients that I have not used in brewing to date. In order to asses the flavours that these ingredients add I have developed a fairly simple recipe. This recipe is not based on anything in particular, it is just an experimental brew.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

Recipe	Measure
Brew Length	40L
Pale Malt (EBC 4 or less)	7000g
Munich Malt	1000g
Crystal Malt	500g
Admiral Hops (Start of Boil)	32g
East Kent Goldings (last 10 Min)	32g
Admiral Hops (flame out)	10g
Goldings Hops (flame out)	10g
Yeast (Using Starter)	WLP002
Mash Liquor	22.5 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	19C
Expected OG @ 80%	1050
Actual OG	1046
Expected FG	1015
Actual FG

Water Treatment:

Recipe	Measure
CaCo3 Adjustments
Calcium Carbonate CAC03	176 ppm
Calcium Carbonate Required	30 ppm
Adjustment Necessary	146 ppm
CRS per Litre Required (Brupacks)	0.8 ml/L
Total CRS to add to Mash (22.5L)	18 ml
Total CRS to add to Sparge water (13+24L)	9 + 20ml
*Chlorine Treatment*
Campden Tablets (half in mash, half in sparge)	1 tablet
Calcium Adjustment (using brupaks calculation)
Calcium in Water	126 ppm
Calcium Required	180 ppm
Adjustment	66 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 = 22.5L using 18ml of CRS +1/2 Campden Tab
Top Up = 11L using 9ml of CRS
Final Batch Sparge = 24L using 20 ml of CRS and 1/2 campden tab

Mashing:

Managed to get initial recipe wrong as put 500g short of Maris otter. Had to adjust water by -1 litre.

Pre Heated Mash tun with warm water.
Mash water heated to 78c and treatments added.
Added 22.5L of water to mash tun which settled quickly to 72C, so doughed in with 1 tsp of gypsum.
After 5 minutes the temperature was 67C, so the lid was sealed for 1 Hour 30 Min.
The final Mash temperature was 66c.

Sparging

25L of sparge water was heated to 85C and treated
11L of water was added to the Mash tun at 85C and left for 10 minutes.
HLT filled back to 24L, treated with CRS, Campden and heated to 78C
First drain of mash tun into boiler
Mash Tun topped back up to 25L with water at 79C for final sparge, stirred and left for 10 Min to settle.
Final batch to boiler.

Boiling

Boiler switched on as soon as first few litres of wort were drained from mash Tun.
First batch of hops at once the boil started.
Last 15 minutes - inserted immersion Cooler
Last 10 minutes - Final hops and Protofloc.
SG is lower than expected at 1046. It appears that I have got my Brewhouse efficiency set wrong in beersmith, this needs to be set at 70%. I checked my figures in Beer Engine and taking into account the extra litre of wort, this predicted my OG as 1046.
41L of wort was collected

Fermentation:

A 1L yeast starter of Yeast WLP002 was started 3 days before and refrigerated overnight to ensure that the yeast flocculated. The starter was removed from the fridge about 3 hours before pitching to warm. All of the liquid was poured off of the yeast
The yeast was mixed well with 1 litre of wort and left for half an hour to acclimatize. The Yeast starter had already started fermenting before it was pitched.
25/06/16 17:50 - Yeast pitched, temperature 25C. The chiller is running so this will fall quickly to 19C.
26/06/16 09:00 - Fermentation is underway. The Krausen is forming but is not at its full thickness just yet.
26/06/16 16:00 - A thick Krausen has formed and Fermentation is going well. Temeprature stable at 19C
27/06/16 - Still going strong. The chiller is on, so it must be generating a lot of heat. Temperature is 19C.
28/06/16 - Krausen has mainly dropped to a thin bubbly layer, fermentation is slowing.
02/07/16 - Temperature set to 7C to clear
04/07/16 - 6 x 500ml bottles plus 2 corny's kegged.

Tasting Notes:

This brew was served at a summer party before it was fully conditioned. I was expecting to be using this as a backup but the guests that tried it thought that it was the best brew. The blend of malts has produced a very smooth flavoured beer with good mouth feel. Although the Admiral hops have a very high alpha acid the IBU's were kept to just under 30, so they are not overpowering. As the beer has matured it has proved to be a very clean easy drinking beer with a great balance. This is one that I will do again.