| Ref | 2023-12 Bernsdorfer | Brewer | Pain & Patience |
|---|---|---|---|
| Style | Kölsch | Type | Beer, all-grain |
| Started | Fri 22nd Dec 23 | Status | Archived |
| Packaged | Fermenter | Fermzilla |
| Handle | 2023-12 Bernsdorfer |
|---|---|
| Brewer | Pain & Patience |
| Style | Kölsch |
| Type | Beer, all-grain |
| Fermenter | Fermzilla |
| Status | Archived |
| Started | Fri 22nd Dec 23 |
| Packaged |
I just put away a full 19 litre keg using standard gravity transfer into a purged Corny. There looked to be about 2 or 3 litres left over, but instead of going for a second mini keg I just dumped it into a plastic PET bottle. No issues.
We’ve had 2 days at 20℃ now to give the yeast a chance to finish, let’s start cold crashing to see how well this clears.
Good brew day today with no hiccups and nothing unusual to report. 100g of rice hulls seemed perfect amount, sprinkled in from a separate tub at regular intervals during dough-in, maintaining flow perfectly through mashing and allowing mash temperature to get close to kettle temperature quite quickly.
As a downside the sparge ran quite quickly, and this got me thinking: if HSA is to be minimised or even avoided, do I need to raise the malt pipe fully before I start the sparge? If I had a winch then I could bring the malt up while the sparge is in progress, getting to a point where we have just half an inch submerged when the HLT is empty, and eliminating a good amount of splashing. Unfortunately I don’t have a winch, but since we’re only talking about 40 litres here we should be able to knock up some kind of removable frame arrangement. Food for thought.
Just logging this retrospectively to note that the starter was produced almost exactly 24 hours before pitching, spending roughly half that time on the stir plate. When the spinner was switched off there was a small amount of foam but that disappeared and it all looked pretty dead, except for some occasional yeasty bubbles coming up from the bottom. Once pitched, fermentation started within seven hours – I’ll take that.