Home Brewing with ProperBeerMate Part 1

Hey Guys I'm going to show you how I brew my beer at home here in Australia. Today I'm doing an all grain brew using the Brew In A Bag method (BIAB)  I'll be brewing a Czech Dark Ale Version of one of my all time favie beers Budvar Dark!

Here's my Grain bill and Ingredients which is a recipe from my local Home Brew Shop-- Marks Home Brew  here in beaut Newcastle Australia!

Grains:
Cracked extra fine (0.9mm) for BIAB
Premium Pilsener  3.230 Kg
Munich Dark 0.586 Kg
Cara Munich T2  0.586 Kg
Wheat Chocolate (yummy!) 0.220 kg

Hops:
Saaz Czech (T90) 79g @60mins boil time

Yeast:
Safale US-05 (I'm using Muntons Prenium Gold this time)

Here's my Equipment & Grains


From Left :

1. Thermometer -decent scientific one.
2. Hydrometer  to calculate abv and gravity
3. Whirlfloc tablet- finning/to clear the brew at end of boil
4. Saaz Hop Pellets-Yay- Hops!
5. Grain bill-Malty goodness!
6. Burner- Mine's an Italian spiral type

More Equipment:


-My good 'ol faithful brew bag that holds 5 kgs of grain no worries! Cleaned and ready for action!



My Brew pot that I picked up In Thailand last year- 36 litre capacity and does the job. Filled up with just over 20 litres of good 'ol H2O.



Here's some Spare Pots from previous brewing adventures along with a strainer and my mash paddle which is also great for stir frys too!



I prop the burner up onto my old barbie (BBQ) for safety reasons pop the pot filled with water on top  and connect the gas up to the burner and let her rip! Aiming for 50 degrees Celsius strike water temp I grab the thermometer and monitor the temp.



Woo-hoo! After about 10 mins the water temp nears 50C strike temp-- time to get the bag and grains ready!



So after the temp hits just over 50c I turn off the gas and take the pot down off the burner (with oven gloves on- as I don't like getting burnt) . Now the bag goes in the pot followed by the grainy goodness being poured in nice 'an slow.



Now the grain is given a good stir making sure I get all the lumpy bits mashed and all the grains are wet.
Oohh it smells good! Once thats done I pull the tie on the bag to seal it up and pop the top on the brew pot.



Now I'll put the brew to bed for 60mins to let it mash--- have a beer and read some beerbeer.org and properbeermate!



What I use to wrap the pot up to maintain the mash temp is a towel and some old clean bed covers -does the trick!
In Part two the which will be posted  next week we'll start the boil and add the magic that is HOPS!!
Cheers till then!