Number XIII Brewing process

The brew started very late in the day caused by a trip to Richelbrau on Richelstr in Munich, then a leaking tap on the mash tun.  Fortunately all problems were solved and Bob & Tim came round for moral support and help with milling the grains.

Friday 28/10/2011
15:00 heated 10l water in boiler, started to repair mash tun & prepare milling grains.
16:45 Ran water onto grains in insulated mash tun, temperature easy to stabilise at 65C but the mash is very thick -18l water would be better, as according to the 3:1 rule I read about
17:15 Still stable at 65C, fantastic.  Heated 5l water to 95C
17:40 Added to grains, reached 72C with some extra heating of drained wort.  Not sure what happened here, seem to have lost half an hour somewhere, I think my notes are confused as my memory tells me the mashing was supremely easy and well co-ordinated.
18:15 Up to 76C, looks good.  The temperatures have been achieved by adding hot water, and draining and heating wort as required.  Not sure how much water got added but the mash was too thick so I tended to add quite a bit of extra water to maintain the temperature, and the temperatures seemed pretty accurately to the plan.  Heating to 76C seemed to require quite a bit more effort, must watch out in future - even though it's only 4C rise there's a lot of liquid to heat.
19:00 Iodine shows almost complete, but I realise I don't know how to read an iodine test.
19:30 Iodine test shows bad, heat again to 76C
19:45 Stable at 75C, iodine still showing starch, or is it?
20:15 Must be done now, and I'm bored.  I realise I don't know how to read an iodine test so I'll assume this is OK.  Apart from the mash being too thick everything has gone according to plan.  Sparge with 3x1.5l boiling water until kettle is full.  Saw at Richelbrau that sparging and rinsing wort through trub is a good idea to filter the wort, tried this a few times and it seemed to help, but probably didn't do enough.  Also I would usually have boiled the sparge water separately and used two kettles (one kettle, one large saucepan on cooker) but I didn't use enough water at the mash start.  Next time use much more with 6+Kg of grain.
20:45 Sparge done, start heating to boil.  Lost a lot of heat in sparging & rinsing.
21:45 Boil starts, with lid off and boiler on max it works ok.  Add hop 1.
23:00 Add hop 2, Irish moss.
23:10 Add hop 3
23:15 Boil finished, filter Irish moss & hops.  A bit easier with hop bags but still necessary.  Need to find a better way to filter before cooling.
Start cooling - plate cooler works fine with very slow wort flow - OG1065@24C, barrel approx half full.
Added 4l of cold water, forgot to remeasure OG!
Dry hopped with 20g Cascade
00:30 Yeast pitched.

Saturday
09:00 Slow fermentation @22C, I'm a bit worried it has all gone wrong, that my mash didn't work. 
12:00 Fermentation looks slow, but it is fermenting.  Let cool to 20C as yeast will work better there, asked at Giesinger who sold me the yeast.
19:00 Fast fermentation at 22C, air lock plops every 10 sec
00:00 Fast fermentation at 22C, as before, scraped kreusen off.
First taste with Bill - very good, full bodied malt but still sweet as the fermentation isn't done yet but a good bitterness and hop flavour & aroma with a fruity hint. I'm very pleased!

Sunday
10:00 Fast fermentation at 22C, air lock plops every 10 sec
15:00 Fermentation slowing


Notes
Lauter tun worked well - 4 x 3mm silver coated insulation is fine.  All fittings are pretty water tight, it all works well.  Plastic pipe on boiler not ideal with boiling water, will look at a copper attachment there.
Boil was too slow to start and difficult in one boiler as it is over full and can never achieve 30l to fill the fermentation barrel, will try to find a second - aha Bielmeyer, made in Germany.  Everything else (mash tun) is ready for 30.
Giesinger are great for the ingredients in an emergency but they're expensive at 3.50/Kg of malt, still the guys are great and Florian was more than happy to chat about beer for a bit.  Better get malts at Richelbrau, they'll sell for closer to 1.00/Kg.  The ale yeast at 3.50 for a huge vial is good though.