Tail Ender 40L Brewing Journal

Started 14th June 2020

When planning this recipe I was not sure what type of beer that I wanted to brew. There were a few malts in my cupboard that needed either using up or throwing out, so I just combined most of them to produce this beer. Pale Malt, Munich Malt and Pilsner Malt were the core grain ingrediants and these will all combine well. For Hops, EKG, Fugges and Challenger were available so I mixed these up too. The only yeast that I had was WLP002 that was harvested from a previous brew but this should be OK.

The name Tail Ender came from using up all my left overs.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

Recipe	Measure
Brew Length	40L
Pale Malt - Marris Otter	9750g
Munich Malt	1000g
Pilsner Malt	700g
Crystal Malt (EBC 150)	300g
Challenger Hops (Start of Boil)	32g
Fuggles Hops (start of Boil)	35g
East Kent Goldings (start od boil)	26g
East Kent Holdings (Last 10 Min)	40g
Yeast (Using Starter) WLP002 harvested	WLp002 + Gervin
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	1065
Actual OG	1059
Expected FG	1017
Actual FG	1014

Water Treatment:

Recipe	Measure
CaCo3 Adjustments
Calcium Carbonate CAC03	176 ppm
Calcium Carbonate Required	30 ppm
Adjustment Necessary	146 ppm
CRS per Litre Required	0.8 ml/L
Total CRS to add to Mash (25L)	20 ml
Total CRS to add to Sparge water (8+23L)	24.8 ml
*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	54 ppm
Gypsum	1 Tsp

Water Schedule:

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

Mash = 25L using 20 ml of CRS +1/2 Campden Tab
Top Up = 9L using 6.4 ml of CRS
Final Batch Sparge = 23L using 18.4 ml of CRS and 1/2 campden tab

Mashing:

The volume of grain being used was more that my HLT can cope with so the Mash was planned to be a bit thicker in order to coipe with this.

18L of water at 78C added to mast tun for the pre-heat.
HLT topped back up and set for 78C
Water treated with 20ml CRS and 1/2 Campden tab.
Pre-heat water was pumped into fermenter to re-use and save time/energy
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 66/67C. which is perfect.
Measured temperature with Thermapen and mash was showing as 66/67C, mash tun probe is still showing 67C in middle of mash.
mash will now be left alone for 1.5 hours.
Warm Pre-heat Water that was stored in the fermenter was then pumped into the HLT and topped up for sparge water.
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.
Top Up of 8L was added to the Mash tun and stirred in.
Recirc started and run for 10 minutes.
HLT topped back up to 23L mark.
Pumped wort into boiler and stopped once it cleared the bottom of the Mash Tun sight glass (before any trub was evident).
Added 23L of sparge water at 85C to Mash Tun, stirred and recirculated for 10 minutes.
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.
Bittering hops added at start of boil
Last 15 minutes. added Immersion coil inserted to ensure sterilised.
Flame out.
Recirc started - When the boiler tap was opened, the flow was only a slow trickle. Once the pump had filled, switching this on/off a few times cleared the blockage
Remining hops added for last 10 min.
After allow 10 minutes of boliing wort to sterilise the pump and pipes, the chiller was switrched on. Recirculation was left running while chilling to avoid hot spots.
Post boil gravity = 14.4 brix, 1059, which was a little under the planned.

Fermentation:

A 1.8L yeast starter of harvested WLP002 was started 2 days before. This only just started at the last minute which was a bit of a concern but seemed to be fermenting well the night before 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.
16/06/20 Yeast pitched at 20C.
After waiting 2 days Fermentation failed to start. I was unable to get any liquid yeast at short notice so had to get some Gervin yeast from Wilko. I put 2 packs of this in the fermenter.
Over the next 10 days Fermentation was slow and never really reached high Krausen but it did finish.
The beer was cold crashed and treated with Gelatin. However, the yeast was not that flocculant and was very watery, so a lot ended up getting into the Kegs.

Tasting Notes:

Given that this beer did not ferment very well and even after treating with Gelatin was not as clear as I would have liked, it has not turned out too bad. It is quite a high strength beer and very smooth tasting. There is a strong malty flavour which is very easy to drink. I think I will have to try this recipe agfain with some fresh WLP002 yeast.