cresta pale ale

cresta strong pale ale

today was the day for my cresta pale ale brew. i had told my supplier that i needed the grain for today but nothing had arrived yesterday. i still had faith though so i heated up the water (liquor) to the strike temp of 73 deg and just as it hit the mark the doorbell rang and there it was.

in went 7lbs of pale malt and the temp dropped to the required 67deg.

then on went the coat, this will keep the temp more constant rather than messing around trying to keep it stable.

after 3 hours the mash was done.

the grain was then tiped into a bin lined with a grain bag. a normal mash time would be about 2 hours but this recipie from dave line wanted 3 so thats what it got .

i then let this sit while i heated up more water in the boiler for sparging.

this was then poured into an empty barrel , the water was about 80 deg and i made up about 4 gallons.

this is my three tier sparging set up , the usual arrangement for most brewers. i poured the first couple of jugs back over the grain to enusre that a filter had established then cracked open the tap to allow the level to fall just below the level of the top of the grain.

then the sparge water is allowed to run through very slowly to maintain the level. when i have collected about 4 gallons i shut the water off and let the rest just run through ending up with about 5 gallons of wort.

this is the sparge arm, as the water runs through it spins creating a fine mist of hot water to wash away the wort from the husks, too quick and the water wont collect the wort on the way .
i put a hop strainer onto the tap in the boiler as well.

as soon as the wort covers the element in the boiler i turn it on full to get the boil started.

then the boil gets going, i add 2 oz of hallertau hops and 1 1/4 oz goldings hops as well as a lb of demerara sugar . add the sugar slowly so that it doesnt just run to the bottom and melt onto the element.

2 hours of boiling and its ready. i open the windows to minimise the sauna effect .

20 mins before the end i added a whirlfloc tablet and my cooler. the boiling will steralise the cooler for me.

ive now got 4 gallons of wort as 1 gallon has been boiled off. i let it settle for 30 mins . once the hops have formed a filter bed in the bottom i turn the cooler on. 30 mins of cooing and its down to 22 deg ready for the yeast. before i started cooling i drew off about 250 mls of wort and cooled it under the tap to make a yeast starter as well. you can add it dry but this gets it off to a good start.

i drain off the wort into a steralised fermenting bin , as you can see the hops have formed a nice bed to strain out any dregs.

then i add the yeast and stir it all up with a steralised paddle. the lid goes on and 10 days of fermentation starts. the sg was 1060 so this should be a good strong brew. next blog will show the racking off process.