April: The brewening [wedding brews]

[Clinton Ebadi]

Steve Killen <steven.f.killen at gmail.com> writes:

> Greetings,
>
> So I am ramping up to prepare for the small brews on my stovetop, and plan to
> begin this or next weekend. I formally invite your participation! I'm thinking
> either tomorrow or next Sat./Sun. for starting a basic pale. If I start
> tomorrow, I can bottle that and have another one going next weekend even!

In theory you can do a batch in seven days, but I'd try for 9
minimum... some of the cleanup processes don't work as well in a closed
environment.

> Given the constraints, I should probably get a thing of DME and do the
> specialty grains in the oven rather than trying to do an all-grain mash in the
> tun. OTOH, with a mash I could probably get away without diluting the wort,
> instead siphoning some of the runnings into the fermenter directly and doing
> the wort boil with the rest. Would that affect the quality of the beer?

Yes. There are chemical processes that require a full sixty minute boil
when starting from fresh grain. With extract those processes have
already occured.

> One nice thing about small batch is that it costs less up front for grain :)
>
> I'll work up a final recipe for a pale today now that I have brewtarget up and
> running. I guess the two axes I should twiddle are AA and the types &
> proportions of specialty grains, yes? Your opinions on this will be most
> appreciated.

In brewtarget you'll want to create a new set of equipment for your
kettle and fermenter.

There is a 5 gal extract - half boil profile already in brewtarget, you
can copy that and scale it down to 3 gal. The "mash tun" in this case is
whatever you intend to steep the grains in.

Unfortunately creating a new equipment profile in brewtarget is a
heinous PITA--when you switch equipment to look at the other profile you
lose your changes! I worked around this by just taking a screenshot of
the profile I wanted to copy (a hack, but it works) vs memorizing one
field, saving mine, reopening the dialog, repeat.

Brewtarget will then correctly calculate the decreased hop utilization
From the more concentrated wort. Which, if you are doing a 2.5 gal batch
(you don't want to fill the 3 gal fermenter up to its neck!)  might not
be too much.


-- 
                         Ruled by the ebb of my oceans                         
                        Slaves to the dusk and the dawn                        
                         Your petri dish civilisations                        
                             Are buried and born                              
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