2014 batch #1: American Pale Ale

Malt in bag

Our first all-grain batch!

Beer: American Pale Ale from Vestbrygg (recipe here)
Brewing date: 8. august 2014
Bottling date: 25. august
Alcohol content: 5.0%
Yield: 25L: Ended up with 24L

Some notes from the brewing process follows here. This night we were mainly unexperienced brewers present, but well helped by Iselin and the book Ølbrygging fra hånd til munn. Still, the process took quite a bit longer than we had planned. We chose to blame the low effect on the stove we used.

17:32 – First 5L of water in the pot. Used water boilers to heat the water faster.
17:45 – Water temperature ~69^oC (15L)
17:53 – Mashing commenced.
18:02 – 80^oC (Probably measuring error)
18:03 – 60^oC (stably)
18:10 – 67.4^oC
18:27 – 71.1^oC
18:41 – 70.5^oC
18:58 – Heat off.
19:12 – Moved the mash bag to the fermenting bucket, which contained 17L of 80^oC fresh water.
19:27 – 1000W (turned on the heat)
19:34 – Took the mash bag out of the flushing water, and poured the water into the pot.
21:18 – Boiling at last!
21:48 – First bag of hops added after 30 minutes boiling.
22:07 – Original Gravity of the wort poured before boiling was measured to 1.051. Clearly more temperature dependent than we thought.
22:18 – Second (last) hop bag added after 60 minutes boiling, now ready to cool down. From this point on, everything is (supposed to be) sterile. We boiled the wort cooler with the wort for the last 10 minutes.
22:30 – Cold water coming out of the wort cooler, ready to pour into the fermenting bucket. Tapped directly from the pot into the bucket, while adding the yeast. OG measured to 1.056 Oe (6 too much) in the finished wort. Will let it ferment for a few days extra (more than 14 days).

Note: Avoid putting the thermometer plastic parts into the pot (probably not waterproof).