Wednesday, January 4, 2012

#18 - Ronk Torpedo [All Grain]

As I mentioned in brew #17, I got a lot of brewing presents for Christmas and this enabled me to buy the necessary equipment to transition to all grain brewing. My previous brew kettle was too small for full boils so I got a new boiler, mash tun and wort chiller. 
New All Grain Equipment and Ingredients
Another of my favourite beers is the Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA. It has a relatively high alcohol content so can only really be drank sparingly. I only ever buy it as a treat or as the last beer of the night for 'dessert'. I found a clone for this recipe on one of the American brewing forums but I think that recipe is originally from BYO.

Mashing the grain
I first started by heating my strike water in the boiler and got all my grains ready. I poured 3 litres of boiling water from the kettle into the mash-tun to preheat it so that there wasn't too much of a temperature loss. 
Once my strike water was ready I emptied the mash tun and poured in the water. I then started adding the grain slowly while stirring frequently to ensure there weren't any dough balls or clumping of the grain. Once it was all added I gave it a good stir from the bottom to the top and into the corners to ensure an even temperature distribution. 

I then checked the temperature in each of the 4 corners and in the middle and the temperature was approximately 68 Degrees C (~153 degrees F).  I poured boiling water on the inside of the mash-tun lid which had cooled down in the mean time and closed the box. I put a folded heavy blanked over the box to ensure better insulation, this proved to be a useful addition as quite a lot of heat could be felt when putting my hand in between the blanked and the lid. 
Checking Mash Temperature
After a half an hour I checked the temperature of the mash and again after an hour. It didn't lose any more than 1 degree C/F over the mashing period. I was quite happy with this result as I would often read about brewers losing several degrees over the duration of their mash. 
I first got a jug, opened the tap slightly and began vorlaufing the first runnings. BeerSmith indicated that an initial sparge of 1 litre would be necessary using this liquid. Impressively it was quite accurate, as soon as I had accumulated 800ml of water, the wort had cleared sufficiently. I then gently (so not to disturb the grain bed) added this liquid back into the mash as it was quite cloudy and contained lumps of grain. 
I then opened the tap again to drain the first runnings into my old brew pot. I couldn't drain it into my boiler as it was in the process of heating the sparge water. Once the they were drained I closed the tap and emptied the sparge water into the mash-tun as I was doing a batch sparge as opposed to fly sparging. I have the mash a good stir from top to bottom to ensure all the grain got well mixed to wash out any residual sugars. 

First Runnings in the Boiler
The photo opposite shows the boiler containing the first runnings from the mash-tun. I left the sparge water to sit in the mash-tun for another 20minutes before collecting the rest of the wort and adding it to the boiler. 

The final boiling volume was just over 26 litres with about 3 litres being lost to evaporation and 4 lost to break material left in the end of the boiler. After finding the pre-boil gravity I found my mash efficiency to be about 61% which I was relatively happy with given that it was my first attempt at all grain. I will probably add an extra 500g of grain in future to counteract this inefficiency.  

This was my third brew in 3 days and yesterday I made an extract brew. The difference in the smell of the wort from grain compared to malt extract is unbelievable. The smell was fantastic and seemed very fresh. The whole process of mashing and boiling seemed physically cleaner overall as there was no messing around with grain bags for steeping or malt extract spilling all over the place. Usually the kitchen was a sticky mess after an extract brew but not after the all grain brew. All this was contained within the mash tun which was the only messy additional item to clean. Cleaning it in the bath seemed the easiest thing to do as I could use the shower head to wash down the sides etc.....

Ginger Beer, Ronk Island IPA and Ronk Torpedo IPA
The post boil gravity of the wort was 1071 so I would expect an alcohol content of at least 8% if the beer attenuates down to 1010 as it should with the WLP001 liquid yeast. The adjacent image shows the 3 brews from the last 3 days. I added a blow-off tube to the last brew as all grain batches are apparently known for their vigorous fermentations and the fermentation bucket is also quite small.

This recipe can be seen below:

Recipe: Ronk Torpedo IPA TYPE: All Grain
Style: American IPA
---RECIPE SPECIFICATIONS-----------------------------------------------
SRM: 19.0 EBC SRM RANGE: 11.8-29.6 EBC
IBU: 64.2 IBUs Tinseth IBU RANGE: 40.0-70.0 IBUs
OG: 1.068 SG OG RANGE: 1.056-1.075 SG
FG: 1.014 SG FG RANGE: 1.010-1.018 SG
BU:GU: 0.946 Calories: 427.1 kcal/l Est ABV: 7.1 %
EE%: 62.00 % Batch: 19.00 l      Boil: 26.21 l BT: 60 Mins
Total Grain Weight: 6.80 kg Total Hops: 148.00 g oz.
---MASH/STEEP PROCESS------MASH PH:5.40 ------
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
6.00 kg               Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel (5.9 EBC)          Grain         1        88.2 %        
0.50 kg               Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (78.8 EBC)    Grain         2        7.4 %         
0.15 kg               Munich Malt (17.7 EBC)                   Grain         3        2.2 %         
0.15 kg               Wheat Malt, Ger (3.9 EBC)                Grain         4        2.2 %         
Name              Description                  Step Temperature  Step Time       
Mash In           Add 20.23 l of water at 72.5 66.7 C            60 min          
---SPARGE PROCESS---
>>>>>>>>>>-RECYCLE FIRST RUNNINGS & VERIFY GRAIN/MLT TEMPS: 22.2 C/60.0 C
Batch sparge with 2 steps (0.93l, 14.35l) of 75.6 C water
---BOIL PROCESS-----------------------------
Est Pre_Boil Gravity: 1.057 SG Est OG: 1.068 SG
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
35.00 g               Magnum [14.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min         Hop           5        53.5 IBUs     
0.25 tsp              Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins)              Fining        6        -             
28.00 g               Crystal [3.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min          Hop           7        2.1 IBUs      
28.00 g               Magnum [14.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min          Hop           8        8.5 IBUs      
---FERM PROCESS-----------------------------
Primary Start: 01/01/2012 - 4.00 Days at 19.4 C
Secondary Start: 05/01/2012 - 10.00 Days at 19.4 C
Style Carb Range: 2.20-2.70 Vols
---NOTES------------------------------------
Mash at 67 C,Ferment at 20 C,Dry hop for 10 days to 2 weeks

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