3v Brewing setup complete

just started playing with it now, thats looking pretty close though.

Your grains look like they hit the mark , it may be a little sweet from all the crystal and carapils
and the 40min hop addition is a waste. I'd remove the 40 min addition and up the 60 min addition till you get the same bitterness

half the carapils at least, and raise the 2row to your desired OG, I reckon, thats just my 2 cents

with the hops boil more then 20 mins and you arent getting flavour just bitterness, so thats why the 40 min is waste. by dropping it back to the 60min mark you will find you may use slightly less hops but get the same bitterness , and just one less step to forget about on brew day. check it out in brew mate and see what happens.

Cheers mate,

Ill give it a go and ill bring a couple down for ya one night


Ill fix her up and start it in the recipe db

we can have a chat about it if you want , skype or whatever. Cheers!

hop boiling sorta goes like this

Although I usually do my additions 60,15,5,1 not for every beer of course but they are my usual timings

Gave the system a run on the weekend, My HLT shit itself being a bucket of death im actually happy it did it before i plugged it in....

it wasnt a big deal though i quickly made a calibrating stick for my boil pot and used it to heat water for Mash in, Mash out and steps, then my batch Sparge....

and i used a 20l bucket to catch the runnings, after the sparge water went in i got the first runnings heating and then put the 2nd runnings in once it had finished....

Now as it was a first brew we had a few hiccups, I had Gash over for the brew day, and we had a lot of fun playing with a new first run setup...

We ended up with a 2 step mash then a mash out, purely as my first mash temp ended up dropping to 62 as we had to duck and get another bottle of gas while it was mashing was in a bit of a hurry to leave and was a bit slack with the themometer....

NOTE: Did not pre heat mashtun and the Grain happened to get a bit cold as i put it in my fermenter fridge and when i took the fermenter out the temp probe was in mid air and the fridge fired up for about half hour before i realized.

62 mash for about a hour (added 13 L @ 72c) (such a large drop due to the note above)
Stepped upto 67 for 20 mins (Added 3 L @ 75c)
then mash out at 72 for 10 mins (Added 3L @ 78c)
then a 72c sparge (16L @ 72)

Fisrt runnings we got 16.5 L @ 1078

2nd runnings we got 15L didnt test sg....

Pre Boil was 29 L (i didnt add all the last runnings as i was getting too high in the pot and recipie called for 29L)

60 min boil and we chilled it in a ice bath.

Final Volume was 23L @ 1045 which was exactly what recipe called for.....

Final Recipie:

3kg 2 row
1kg wheat malt
0.25kg Carapils
0.25kg Crystal (60)

25g Pride of ringwood (8.7aa) @ 60
15g Cascade (5.2aa) @ 20
15g Cascade 5.2aa) @ 5
25g Cascade (5.2aa) @ 1

Irish Moss 1/2 Tab @ 15


Dropped onto a US05 Cake that was used once previously

Its now got a 3 inch Krauzen on it and is blowing my water out of the airlock in 1-2 min so iv cracked my lid to take the pressure off the airlock...

I know its an old topic, forgive me! I just had to mention that Carapils provides Dextrins, not Dextrose.

Dextrins are caramelised and long chain sugars, they are unfermentable. They add body and higher Final Gravity. Malto-Dextrin is a powdered form of Dextrins and is usually found in cooopers brew enhancer packets!

Dextrose is a highly fermentable simple sugar, and will ferment completely out, providing no body, it will actually lighten the body due to alcohol being lighter than water! (0.789 where as water is 1.000).

Mashing higher achieves longer chain sugars.

For head retention, adding higher amounts of hops can also increase the head, a step mash if using wheat malts or other malts high in protein, just a very short one, as it breaks down the proteins into smaller particles (this is what the head in the glass is made from) and when the etching on the bottom of the glass creates the bubbles (pushes the co2 out of solution from turbulence) the bubbles bring to the top the proteins in the beer!)

If you have too long of a protein rest, you destroy those proteins and there will be no head.

yep I agree, usually for beginners I'll explain cara-pils as a Caramel/crystal malt for Pilsners.
Well I tell them that cause its easy to remember. Its like a very light coloured/flavoured crystal malt.