Ruddy's Malting setup

[RuddyCrazy]

G'Day Guy's,
Well it is that time of year to get another AG going only this year thinking those AMG enzymes a forum member gave me and just use that barely I have left over from last year. So I'll just put it all thru my corona mill then heat up some strike water to 74C then chuck the grains in with 3ml of AMG.

Now after that quince episode my refractometer has gone south :angry-banghead: and when I asked the bird at my HBS about a new one she said she just had this digital one for 68 bucks thinking next week I'll grab it as it may come in handy for me. I just hope she is in the mood for more bargin times while the boss is away as my quirk for beer is coopers europeon lager then a kilo of wheat malt so she said buy 2 tins and kilo of malt and the second malt is free so looks like 60 litre beer ferments are the go and do have a couple of hundred longnecks stored out the back for times like these. :laughing-rolling:

Now as I'm working a 6 day week the plan is do the mash after work on Saturday then Sunday after it's cooled down get ferment started with the hope next week will be time still :happy-partydance:

Cheers Bryan

[RuddyCrazy]

G'Day Guy's,
Well being a long weekend here and worked Saturday I told SWMBO Sunday was mash time :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

So with that :laughing-rolling: 10kg's of barley crushed I added 3 kg's of rye and put 30 litres of strike water in the mash tun and raised the temp of the water to 75C to add the grains, well man what a thick glob of grain :angry-banghead: :scared-eek: so used my 15 litre stock pot to bring about 8 litres of water to 75C to add to the mash tun and did that 3 times to get that 70C grain temp right so i could avoid using my 2 ring gas burner which may scorch but my old big shed 1/2" drill just keeps hammering on with my my paint stirrer :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Dumped the grains in at 1.30 pm and it's now just after 4pm and still no conversion and man is it a thick gluggy solution. :scared-eek: So wrapped it up and tomorrow i'll see if I made a treat for the horses or the conversion finally took place. Just decanted a dram from that corn barely attempt that went to angel yeast to save and after that dram this batch will go to the horses and if any local member wants 1/2 a moccona jar of that yeast it's yours as atleast I can I used it once :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

Cheers Bryan

[RuddyCrazy]

G"day Guy's,
Well this morning that failed mash was a warm sticky mess so decided as I did have 6 kg's of sugar here decided to invert the sugar and add it to the fermenter. :handgestures-thumbupleft: As I only have my hydrometer stuck that in the fermenter only to find nope it aint going to sink as this mush is just so thick :angry-banghead: Well after adding all the sugar submerge the hydrometer then roll a smoke while waiting for it rise :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

Took several readings of1060 and rather than open up that US-05 yeast I'll just use some Lowan's Bread yeast and get a few generations going :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Cheers Bryan

[RuddyCrazy]

G'Day Guy's,
Well had to do some jobbies for SWMBO and when I got back upto the shed the airlock was sounding like a machingun :laughing-rolling: with so many bubbles a second :handgestures-thumbupleft: I don't think mixing the yeast in when it was 32C had anything to do with this :laughing-rolling: but it may just mean next week after work I'll running this over 4 plates to down for a year to age and let the generations begin.

Cheers Bryan

[RuddyCrazy]

G'Day Guy's,
Well last night I came up to check on my ferments and after 2 weeks my shed lager is ready for bottling and the grain ferments air lock was dry and void of water :scared-eek: So sprayed some water in and it started bubbling away.

This arvo no action on the air lock so opened it up and thru my hydrometer in only to see yep this is a thick wash and I mean a thick wash :laughing-rolling: submerged the hydrometer and it came to 992 3 times so tried the top down approach and well started that 1/2 an hour ago and sitting on 1070 and maybe dropping a few points every 10 minutes.

So this wash i :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: like that quince ferment and look like I'll be setting up the chain block so the BIAB can be raised and rotated so all the goodness can be squeezed out then I'll put the BIAB thru my grape press so it can get it's maiden run :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I am tempted to throw my repaired thumper on the still and setup a 4" pot still and do a stripping run and keep the generations going until i have enough low wines to do a full spirit run in the bubbler over 4 plates and the thumper.

Well a different twist this year and more fun making next years Whisky :laughing-rolling: and time to get a bag of barely and start malting :laughing-rolling:

Cheers Bryan

[RC Al]

What's your max strip speed with your burner?

[RuddyCrazy]

What's your max strip speed with your burner?

Mate it's been years since I set up a 4" pot and never with the thumper and after decanting all the goodness maynot leave any time on Sunday to run the still so the goodness will have to stay in the fermenter for a week.

Cheers Bryan

[RuddyCrazy]

G'Day Guy's,
Only worked until lunch time today as I'm not like the other guys at work that work 13 days straight doing 12 hour shifts :scared-eek:

Finally got upto my shed and found that hydrometer had stuck at 1030 :scared-eek: and the wash had settled enough to use a 50ml beaker to fill 250ml measuring cylinder to get a true reading, well 1018 :scared-eek: Now the temp of the wash was 17C so the cold nights here didn't help :angry-banghead: So gave wash the wash a good stir and added a sprinkle more bread yeast in. Also put both of my 5 star heating belts on and wrapped a sleeping bag around so the temp can get back up there and it can sit for a week to finish.

Cheers Bryan

[RuddyCrazy]

G'Day Guy's,
Well another week ends and Saturday arvo in the shed with a few Pale Ale Longnecks and the first lasted over an hour :scared-eek: but got the stepson coming better to make it a longday instead of smashing it :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

Last weekend got my Lager bottled and put another one down where I left the trub from the S23 lager yeast ferment and added the next batch. Left it for an arvo and no action on the airlock so a bit of fun put one of those 7 gram satchels in. Well what difference did that yeast make :scared-eek: Original SG 1038 and checking now it's sitting on 1014 and Thursdays reading was 1017 so it aint finished yet so let another week go bye and check again.

Now as no action on the airlock even with 2 heating belts on so setup my siphon only find this is worse than that quince :angry-banghead: So had go by setting up my comealong and do the twist just like the quince and snap :scared-eek: drop :scared-eek: and splash :scared-eek: :angry-banghead: got covered in the syrup I mean I left a 2 litre beaker in the fermenter and it won't sink :laughing-rolling:
g
On the second Pale Ale thinking this aint working and the thinking got to auger mince plate and a few horsepower :laughing-rolling:

Cheers Bryan

[RuddyCrazy]

G'Day Guy's,
I was in Nairne this morning so went to the local hardware to get a fresh 20kg sack of barely :handgestures-thumbupleft: Got the last one too so that was some luck :laughing-rolling:

Decided on 4kg's of grain each run as that is the optimum setup using the bucket and my SS trough and as I'm home for a couple of weeks turning the grains everyday will hopefully yield more malt.

Also got some rye here so after the barely is done I'll do a rye malt or two done which will be the first time I've done rye so I'll bet some fun is in store.

My hotbox will dry the grains in short order and I will be wetting down the net batch to keep the ball rolling.

Cheers Bryan

[hjubm2]

You still haven't used that rye yet? Definitely time for you to pull out your finger haha

[RuddyCrazy]

Well with all that hot weather over the last few days sure got the rootlets growing :handgestures-thumbupleft: and when I gave it a stir around yesterday the grains were hot as :scared-eek: Had a look this morning and a few grains had a bit of fluff around them :angry-banghead: so straight into the hotbox they went :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Got another 4Kg soaking and with the cooler weather this week will help the next batch to start so getting there.

Cheers Bryan

[RuddyCrazy]

G'Day Guy's,
Well that first batch will be ready to process in the morning as a few days in the hotbox has dried them out nicely, the best I saw on the temp gauge was 80C and giving them a good stir everyday helped.

The one in the shed is ready so that will go in the morning and with the around 38C it will give a good kickstart :laughing-rolling: to getting the next batch dry.

So another batch to put on then got to 10Kg's so may just do the rye malt then once thats done it's time to get a mash going.

Cheers Bryan

[RuddyCrazy]

Well with the cooler weather that second batch took 5 days and with that warm weather we have for the weekend I put the last barely batch in there. Gave them a stir last night and saw the temp gauge in the hotbox get upto 90C., now with another even hotter day tomorrow these grains will dry as after only just over 2 days.

Went up the shed just now and put 3Kg of rye to soak for the evening, with tomorrow like I said the rye should take off :handgestures-thumbupleft: so once that is done time to either make a grain grinder or just buy one :laughing-rolling:

Cheers Bryan

[RuddyCrazy]

G'Day Guy's,
Well I did leave a couple of inch's of head room with the rye so they could have a good soak and when I looked this morning they had soaked every drop :scared-eek: so straight into the malting box where I noticed some had already sprouted and the grains are over twice the size :handgestures-thumbupleft:

So back to this fridge hooked up the old reg for the fridge after I took the top off and saw a heap of dried gunk and cleaned it all up only to find no flame but gas leaking. :angry-banghead:

So took the out put fitting off and couple it to a 1/8" bsp to 1/4" bsp so I can connect the hose, the original fitting was bspp :angry-banghead: and wouldn't go into the fitting so grabbed a 1/8" bspt tap and wound that right thru then screwed in the fitting until dead tight. Found it had a vacuum so no leaks then I hooked it up to my HP reg running at 20kpa :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Cheers Bryan

[Wellsy]

Boy oh boy Bryan you sure sound busy. No bloody idea what you are doing other than trying to fix something that is broken but I bet your missus won’t complain because it sounds complicated.

Just keep vacuuming and cleaning and she will love you for ever :laughing-rolling:

[RuddyCrazy]

Boy oh boy Bryan you sure sound busy. No bloody idea what you are doing other than trying to fix something that is broken but I bet your missus won’t complain because it sounds complicated.

Just keep vacuuming and cleaning and she will love you for ever :laughing-rolling:

It aint rocket science mate :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

The gas reg on the fridge clapped out over a decade ago so tried to burn my shine to get the heat to run the fridge.

Old reg was stuffed so just needed to sort out fittings so I could connect the hose to the burner and gas HP reg.

Got a burn going and as it is a hot day upped the pressure to 35Kpa and got the fridge working overtime to cool down. I did have 1/2 a bag of ice in the house freezer so that went into the freezer to help it out.

The aim was a nice cold lager this arvo but it may have to wait until I get home from work tomorrow night :obscene-drinkingchug:

Cheers Bryan

[RuddyCrazy]

G'Day Guy's,
Well today I did the mash on that 10 kg's of barely with 3kg's of rye and Harold01 came up for visit bringing a 3 roller grain mill :scared-eek: after a few tweaks we got a nice crush with the grain so roughly 28 litres of water was put on to heat up to 74C for the strike water.

When it reached temp threw all the grains in gave it good mixing and after mixing to a refractometer reading and 1030 :scared-eek: so in the end only had to do one reheat and got a full conversion with the iodine test showing the conversion was done.

Got 1075 so I'm happy with that :handgestures-thumbupleft: and after transferring to my 60 litre fermenter I can still chuck a few more litres of water in and to keep the OG to 1075 I'll invert 4kg's of sugar in the morning as the mash will take ages to get to 30C I just sealed up the fermenter and wrapped it up for the night then after the water/sugar addition I'll re-hydrate some US-05 yeast and let the ferment begin.

Now I will do a couple of generations and yes corn will added along with some barely/rye so with the cracked corn I buy it will be fun to see if Harold01's 3 roller crusher can handle it :laughing-rolling:

Cheers Bryan

[RuddyCrazy]

G'Day Guy's,
Well got that 4kg's of sugar this morning inverted it and chucked it in the fermenter and topped it up with rainwater and the OG is 1078 :handgestures-thumbupleft: Had a look at the PH and it was sitting on 4 so added some bi-carb soda and got the PH to 5.

Got a yeast starter going using US-05 and when it was ready pitched then gave it a good stir with my paint mixer to get some oxygen into the wash :handgestures-thumbupleft: sealed the lid and topped up the airlock and the airlock was kicking away straight away. :scared-eek:

It will be interesting to see how long this ferment takes and the temp was 30C when I pitched the yeast.

Cheers Bryan

[RuddyCrazy]

G'Day Guy's,
Well the weeks are flying by as I'm working away thru the week so after my fist caffine up to my shed to get the siphon going for this AG wash at 7.30 am :scared-eek: :laughing-rolling:

So the wash finished on 1010 which makes it a 8.7% wash, I did have those angel yeast spirits sitting there for yonks so added them for a bit better yield and let that angel yeast be gone forever :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

Anyway put my BD burner on while siphoning to speed up the warm up time as at 11.30 I have to be a social secretary :angry-banghead: so this may end up being a 2 part run and going into town will let me get a bag of corn :handgestures-thumbupleft: so the first sour mash generation can start.

Cheers Bryan