[Closed] Brewers of STW

To open Peter’s file just click on “File-Open – [Select Folder where you saved it] and click Open.

This will open a new tab in Beersmith with all the correct info.
When you open a new recipe (My recipes – on the left hand-side), you can then click the “Scale Recipe” button to get the required levels for the Massive Brewery kit.

I found (after much frustrated clicking - probably would have been quicker just to retype it all!) that with the new profile tab selected you can click on "Edit > Copy" on the menu, then bring up the Equipment tab and click "Edit > Paste" on the menu. I could then use Peter's profile to scale recipes.

Overall Beersmith is very unintuitive (especially the cloud function!) but it's fine once you understand how it works. Very powerful bit of software, and great fun playing around with various recipes and ingredients!

Brewmate is good. Quite easy to use and change scale. From www.brewmate.net - PC version only IIRC. lots of recipes there too, although there is a lot of repetition

yeah zilog, just a wee "set as default profile" button would have solved a lot of issues. All credit to the guy though, its a better app than i could design 🙂

You're right Zilog it doesn't work that way! I've had a good think and I'm really not sure how I got mine/Peter's in. Definitely didn't do it manually and I don't think I did it your way either! Not so intuitive at all!

On another related note; does anyone know what kind of profile I would use to add recipes from a brewing book like [url= http://www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/bookazines-MFM-1/Lifestyle-bookazines/the-homebrew-handbook/ ]this one[/url] into Beersmith?
All the recipes are for 23l batches but apart from that, there's no other batch information. I'd like to be able to input them and then scale down for the Massive kit. There are some interesting clone recipes in there provided by some pro brewers.

Brew day tomorrow, have had a starter going since Sunday afternoon (brewlabs slant in spraymalt broth, in the airing cupboard at about 20º). Not having used a starter before, how do I know it's good? I've got a packet of S-06 'just in case'.

The starter doesn't seem to be doing much. There's a tiny bit of froth on top. At what point do I chuck it down the sink and use the packet?!

Bottled the first batch with the Massive kit yesterday! Got 15 bottles at 3.9%. Tasted quite hoppy but a bit watery and lacking in bite. Not unpleasant though! Hopefully the bottle conditioning will improve it!

Already got ingredients (and a couple of extra FVs) for the next 2 batches and will hopefully be brewing both up at the weekend!

quick bump as I'll be pitching in an hour or so. The starter (see above) is cloudy, looks like wheat beer but with a bit of loose bubbly head. Some dead yeast on the bottom. Smells like beer, not bad in any way, haven't tasted it though.

Pitch it or bin it?

Yeah, my first batch from the massive brewery is ready to bottle. Final gravity was 1.010 this morning, will test again tonight to make sure.

Had a wee taste. It tastes like beer. Not very good beer, but definitely in the right ballpark. We'll see how it goes in the bottles.

quick bump as I'll be pitching in an hour or so. The starter (see above) is cloudy, looks like wheat beer but with a bit of loose bubbly head. Some dead yeast on the bottom. Smells like beer, not bad in any way, haven't tasted it though.

Pitch it or bin it?

EDIT: rousing starters, giving them a shake, regularly ensures more oxygen gets into the starter beer and results in a bigger, healthy cell count. Have a look at DIY stir plates if you plan to use liquid yeasts and yeast slants regularly.

Cheers,
Jamie

So Bob, did you pitch the starter?

Cheers,
Jamie

Hi Jamie, thanks for the tip. I'll pitch it, still got half an hour of boil to go yet (took far longer to get a rolling boil than I imagined!). I tasted it - not foul, a bit like flat non alcohol beer. It looks like this (after 48h-ish), though not sure what you can deduce from a phone photo. The black specks aren't dirt, they're remains of a marker pen measuring line!

[img] [/img]

Probably didn't shake it enough. Ironically I built a magnetic stirrer plate with a mate last month but our brew days coincided and he got dibs 🙁

Looks active enough, as it tastes fine I'd pitch it- you can always bung in the dried yeast if the gravity doesn't move much after 3/4 days.

Cheers,
Jamie

Hope so, I panicked when I checked it this morning and it was dead flat; that head (not sure it counts as krausen!) has developed since.

Next drama is that I've lost the connector to hook up the wort chiller to the tap! It's about 12º outside so I'll stick the kettle on the window ledge with a wet towel over it.

Brewed up beers 2 & 3 with the Massive kit over the weekend!

Noticed a big difference in my own kitchen on my puny stove as opposed to my mate's place with his massive range burner type thing. The first brew (with the lid on) took long enough to get up to boil but the second one took forever (45 mins!) as I'd filled the pot to the brim so had to do it with the lid off. Plus I can only get a really gentle boil going on my stove as opposed to a really aggressive one on my mate's, assume that's OK though!

Tempted to get a slightly bigger stock pot so I can brew up the same volume but have a bit of headspace so I can stick the lid on. Aldi have a 12L one (slightly bigger than the one supplied with Massive) for £20 at the moment, it seems a little bit more substantial as well.

Secondly my mashing efficiency seemed a little low (63% for the second brew). I am using a single bigger bag as suggested above so I can stir it properly (although I didn't stir it mid-way through and perhaps I should have). Have read online about people routinely getting 80%ish. Any tips? I've read that size of grind is critical for BIAB efficiency and that smaller is better - anyone grind up their grain any smaller?

Both brews seemed to go well though and the fermentation seemed to kick in quite a bit earlier than the first attempt, within 12hrs. I used an electric whisk to aerate the wort whereas I didn't do anything the first time. Seemed to do the job, although I notice online almost everyone is taking about using cordless drills with paint stirrers for aeration (could be because people are doing it away from a power source though I suppose). Was interesting to see the visible difference in fermentation between my two brews, using WB-06 and US-05 yeasts.

Buy a fish tank bubbler and stone for aeration and sterilise it in your kitchen kettle.
Leave it bubbling away for an hour or 2 after you have pitched your yeast.
Keeps the yeast up in the wort better as well.

63% extract is awful, but I am unfamiliar with BIAB . Generally most crushes are a little course but should yeild more . Try raising your strike temp 2' if poss to give you some temp to allow for stirring and get this done at the begining of the mash stand. No point ( IMO ) in stirring it halfway. Overstirring is bad though as it can seperate flour from husk. Your problem might be sparge related though . Taste the spent grains , should be no sugar and not like a cereal bar , just roughage if that makes sense.

Thanks, I'll mash hotter next time, I was right on the bottom end of what I was shooting for temperature wise.

re: the sparge. Brew 1 I used a dunk sparge (as recommended by the instructions in the Massive kit) and for brew 2 used a batch sparge (think that's what it's called, basically pouring 80 deg water through the grains a few times). That seemed to work better. Didn't think of tasting the grains though!

The wort coming off after batch sparging was obviously sugary but noticeably lighter than the main mashed wort. I was a bit worried about carrying on sparging and diluting the wort too much. Is that a problem or should I literally be trying to get as much out as possible and just boiling for longer in order to hit the correct OG?

Room for improvement with 63%, certainly, but at least you've got a lower benchmark and can take things from there. Did you do a mashout? That can extract a bit more sugar.
Probably need to experiment with how you're handling the sparge process or equivalent (not a sparger myself), see if that has an impact.

Just opened the first of my latest. Mainly crystal, with a little chocolate malt, Goldings hops.

It's a belter! Rich, deep flavour. Really happy with it.

Sounds good Captain! Cheers! I'm not a big fan of big malty beers but I was thinking about having a go at the Original Ringwood Old Thumper clone from Graham Wheeler's recipe, (5.8% - as opposed to the lesser Marston's 5.1% version) for my Dad's birthday present.
Got to say, after my 6th brew now, I'm really enjoying the whole brewing lark and have got it down to a 4 hour window including clean-up now. I reckon a small water boiler/urn might be the next purchase to cut a little more time off.

Just opened the first of my latest. Mainly crystal, with a little chocolate malt, Goldings hops.

It's a belter! Rich, deep flavour. Really happy with it.

Will be bottling batch no. 2 tonight probably, it was supposed to be Hoegaarden-esque but I was a bit disappointed with the taste - my fault, low efficiency as mentioned above. However I've been dry hopping it for the last 3 days which seems to have rescued it to some extent so we'll see how it turns out after a week or 2 in the bottles.

Batch no. 3 (pale ale) on the other hand is tasting great at the moment! Been in the FV for 2 weeks now, will give it another week then dry hop and bottle.

It's a belter! Rich, deep flavour. Really happy with it.

Do you marvel at the contents of the glass as you reach the half way mark? I do 🙂

My little mishap when producing my last batch (tap water leaking from the cooler tubing into the pot) has unfortunately resulted in a useless batch 🙁 It seemed "ok" when I bottled a couple of weeks ago...however I recently opened a bottle and could barely swallow a mouthful. Ah well!

contaminated? I feared the worst when I read about that, as it's happened to me too in the past.

Sadly for me, the water leaking into the boiler (a) topped up the boiler so I didn't get the required boil off and (b) was in contact with an unsanitised part of the copper coil and bringing all sorts of cr@p into the wort.

I managed to crimp up the hoses where they attach to the copper, but it wasn't long before it started leaking again.
So I switched to a counterflow wort chiller, which also has the added advantage of using [i]a lot less[/i] water. Rather than running cold water through the chiller for 30-40 minutes (to get 23 litres from 100 down to 25 degrees), it only takes as long as it takes to empty the boiler

I think it must be john. When I tasted it before bottling it was ok (although there were off flavours galore!) and so I still had hopes that it would turn out alright.

I had a look at a counterflow chiller when you mentioned it last time, it's on my shopping list. I'm planning a more semi-permanent set up when i move house, so keeping everything on hold until then. Plus, the longer I spend with the smaller kit, the more experience I get, so i'm in no real hurry.

Just finished brew #4 and am pleased to say that I have improved my process a lot!

Everything went very smoothly this time, hit all my expected temps/volumes/numbers - actually exceeded expected mash efficiency with 78% (massive improvement from before so happy with that). Managed to get a much better rolling boil as well (possibly down to my new Aldi stock pot which is a lot more substantial than the Massive Brewery one).

Minimal faffing around too as I managed to get everything ready for each stage ahead of time which was good too! Loving a bit of Star San as well - made sanitising for bottling yesterday and brewing today a doddle (assuming it's as effective as it's supposed to be)!

Wow!

Just had a proper tasting of the Black IPA I brewed a while ago. It's incredible! Even mrs PF is loving it, despite not really being a fan of dark beers.

Definitely worth a bash if you like the malt complexity and richness of dark beers, but with a sharpness/refreshment of a hoppy IPA. Works far better than I thought it would.

Don't substitute the Carafa III Special

lbs 12.4 oz Maris Otter
7.0 oz Carafa III Special
5.0 oz Munich Malt - 10L
4.7 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L
0.4 oz Northern Brewer [8.5%] - Boil 60 min
0.2 oz Centennial [10.0%] - Boil 60 min
0.4 oz Centennial [10.0%] - Boil 30 min
0.4 oz Northern Brewer [8.5%] - Boil 5 min
0.8 oz Centennial [10.0%] - Boil 0 min Hops
1 pkgs California Ale yeast (I used Safale 05)
0.8 oz Centennial [10.0%] - Dry Hop 7 days

If anyone is local to Guildford and fancies getting their own ale brewed by a professional........
http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/can-you-help-find-taste-6892132?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

First brew didn't go too well. A lot of the bottles were flat.
Spoke to the local homebrew shop and put all the beer back in the fermentation vessel with more yeast for a few hours and rebottled it.
Will give it another ten days and see what happens.
Tried some out of a bottle that had carbonated - was good!

carbonation can be a bit of a dark art! John's idea of bottling some into a PET (plastic) bottle is a good one, since it lets you see when the batch has carbonated.

A few thoughts:

Did you leave for 10 days? I tend not to touch the beers for 2 or 3 weeks these days. I've had bottles which have carbonated in a week, but i've also had ones which took weeks.

Where did you store them when carbonating? If it was somewhere cool/cold, you'd need to leave for longer. Try to keep at room temperature for carbonation, it speeds up the process.

How long was the beer in the FV for and what were your gravity readings? Sometimes, there can be no active yeast left when you bottled, which can be a sign of having underpitched in the first place. I've had beers sitting in primary for 2/3 months which have carbed up fine though.

How were you adding sugar? If it was by adding a small amount into each bottle, can I recommend adding it to the whole batch before bottling? I make a sugar solution (boil about 40-45g of sugar in some water for a few minutes, let it cool) then add it to my bottling bucket. Then I siphon in the beer on top. This has given me really even carbonation across all my bottles since I started doing it, it's very consistent.

Patience really seems to be the key with carbonation though

I've also had some mixed results so far and could do with some help/confirm my suspicions.

Batch#1 - SMASH recipe that came with the Massivebrewery kit. This has turned out okay. Definitely drinkable. Light body with a decent bitter finish. Nothing to write home about but def drinkable.

The next 2 batches haven't turned out so good however. They've carbed up nicely but have a fruity/sweet taste which seems to have hidden any hop presence. From the little I know/have read, this is probably Acetaldehyde which might have come from fermenting too high. I'll leave them awhile longer but don't hold out much hope on these. Both have had 2 weeks in Primary and 2 weeks in bottles so far.

I'm pretty fussy about my beer and want to get this right, (although I know it's going to be a long process to get sorted). So I need to figure out where I went wrong.

Fermentation - I think this is the main culprit. The room I kept it in is the most suitable in the house but the room temp ranged from 13c-23c
- Far from ideal I know! (Although it was the same room conditions as Beer#1 which worked out okay). Anyway, to counter this I've bought an STC1000 and wired it up today ready to do the whole temperature controlled fridge thing.

I'm hoping that this will sort out the main issues in my brewing but is there anything else major that I may have overlooked or not considered? Any help will be greatly appreciated and hopefully, one day, rewarded with large quantities of fine ale. 😀

What's the gravity been when you decided to bottle or keg it? And also what's the OG?

It needs to be around 1012 or less (generally speaking) and the same reading for three or more consecutive days. Unless it's a really high OG...

^ That's a good tip about using the sugar solution - I saw that somewhere else online when looking up best ways to bottle.

Left the bottles in my cupboard, exact same place as the FV. Steady temp of 17c there.

I left the beer in the FV for 10 days and my gravity reading was a steady 1.010. Beginning reading was 1.050 I think.

We'll see how these bottles turn out after re-bottling them, and then I'll start a new batch.

What's the gravity been when you decided to bottle or keg it? And also what's the OG?

Hi John - It needs to be around 1012 or less (generally speaking) and the same reading for three or more consecutive days. Unless it's a really high OG...

The first one had an OG of 1.050 and a gravity of 1.011 when bottled. It had been at that reading for a couple of days.
The second had a OG of 1.056 and was bottled at 1.016 where it had remained for 2 days.

To be honest I think I'm really stuffing up somewhere. I got carried away after tasting the original SMASH beer and thought I'd got the basics right so I kept brewing. However I've just tasted another (Summer Ligtning Clone), which is still in Primary and has that same sweet fruity taste. It's been at 1.011 for a week - 3rd week in primary. (I'm sure the little taste of the wort I've just had has given me a headache too!).

Could under pitching be a possible cause too? I've only used half a packet of S-05 or S-05 for each brew.

I'm thinking of ditching everything and starting again at this point! 👿

A full pack of us05 is enough for 23l so in theory half a pack should do 11l... but once it's open the remainder might not last too long.

gravity sounds fine so I'm stumped, sorry

albino - Member

What's the gravity been when you decided to bottle or keg it? And also what's the OG?

Hi John - It needs to be around 1012 or less (generally speaking) and the same reading for three or more consecutive days. Unless it's a really high OG...

The first one had an OG of 1.050 and a gravity of 1.011 when bottled. It had been at that reading for a couple of days.
The second had a OG of 1.056 and was bottled at 1.016 where it had remained for 2 days.

To be honest I think I'm really stuffing up somewhere. I got carried away after tasting the original SMASH beer and thought I'd got the basics right so I kept brewing. However I've just tasted another (Summer Ligtning Clone), which is still in Primary and has that same sweet fruity taste. It's been at 1.011 for a week - 3rd week in primary. (I'm sure the little taste of the wort I've just had has given me a headache too!).

Could under pitching be a possible cause too? I've only used half a packet of S-05 or S-05 for each brew.

I'm thinking of ditching everything and starting again at this point!

Thanks for the input guys. It really is driving me mad, especially as the first brew on the equipment have me hope to keep going. I had a stab at a couple of extract brews last year and a similar problem. I put it down to either; equipment (I used an old enamel jam put for the kettle); sanitisation or fermentation temps. It put me off enough to give up until I saw the MassiveB kit.
As for the potential current issues, I'm going to go at it like this:

Sanitisation: Not sure what I can do to improve this. Everything gets at least 20 mins in Starsan and Often gets an additional spray down with ss too.

Under hopping: I'll double check the quantities scaled down through Beersmith but 2 of the brews were hop forward, American PA/IPA style. Don't think the hop bag is an issue as I've brewed with and without._

Under pitching yeast: Would it do any harm to go with the full packet next time? Also maybe I need to acetate better before pitching.

Fermentation temperature: I'm really hoping that this is the key and that the range and high-end temperatures have created unwanted esters/fusion alcohol. Designated, temperature controlled beer fridge ready to rock!

I'm trying to motivate myself but the though of waiting so long again, only to discover a cack beer is holding me back. Maybe a homebrew club is the next step??
Thanks again and any further advice will be much appreciated!

Sanitisation: Not sure what I can do to improve this. Everything gets at least 20 mins in Starsan and Often gets an additional spray down with ss too.

How are you [i]cleaning[/i] your equipment?

Star San is a sanitiser, it doesn't clean stuff.

Apologies if I'm telling you something you already know, but a good clean is essential before using star san (as I found out!).

I use PBW, which is great but expensive. I'm currently looking for an alternative which is a bit more cost effective, then I'll just use PBW for an occasional deep clean.

Could be worth picking up some PBW and doing a deep clean on all your kit, just to rule sanitation out for sure.

I've noticed off flavours in a couple of my beers which I just can't put my finger on. It's hugely frustrating. I have a feeling that fluctuating fermentation temps might be the issue. I think that with brewing, it seems that the only way to fix things is just to change one thing at a time until the problem disappears.

Peter - You've got me thinking now. To be honest I only wash the equipment with normal washing up liquid after use. I wash it all again the same way before brewing and then fill the fv with Starsan solution after I've rewashed it after sparging. So is normal old Fairy not up to the job? I'll definitely invest in some PBW just to rule out another possible variable. Cheers!

Yeah, the problem with Star San, particularly when you spray it on, is if there is anything on the surface or in a scratch which wasn't removed by the cleaning then the Star San won't do much.

This is particularly important with the FV, which can get scratched easily and where the wort will be sitting for a couple of weeks.

Go with the big deep clean, then if that fixes the problem, great. Even if not though, you'll have ruled it out and can move on to the next thing (I'd go for controlling fermentation temps next).

If it's acetaldehyde,then two things will help,fermentation temperature control,and letting the beer sit in the fv for about a week after the SG stabilises,as the yeast will metabolise it given time.

Thanks again Peter. I'll get some ordered tonight. Do you pre clean or straight in with the PBW? I think I'll have a fresh start and ditch everything that's not already bottled and put it down to experience. Going to go for the deep clean and fermentation temp control in one go (seeing as that's ready to go now). Fingers crossed for a productive, simple weekend brew.

Fairy Liquid !!!!!!!!! No no no no .

Head negative and loaded up with Citrus or Apple smell. Better to use a very weak bleach solution NAOH 1% ish for cleaning . Then Soak with Starsan at the recommended rate for afew mins before use.

Bin off the SO5 IMO . Try a batch with NAY and see if you gte a better result. Could be you are using water that simply isnt suitable and are picking up a load of flavours there. Fusel Alcohol isnt nice at all. What temps are you pushing , should be ok if below 24'C . You can let the temps creep up later in the fermentation profile ( say 48hrs in ) .

You might also be pushing the yeast in autolysis by leaving it too warm for too long and asking the yeast to break down the tri saccherides (hard for it to do ) or die.

Do you pre clean or straight in with the PBW?

There are some instructions on the tub and a fair bit of info on the US based forums, but I basically give the kit a good clean with hot water, then measure out the correct amount of PBW and fill it up with water, agitate a bit and then leave it to sit.

You MUST rinse really well. It can leave a bit of a film if you don't.

I use PBW to clean my bottles too, before giving them a bit of a Star San bath.

The cleaning can be a bit of a faff, but for every brew that you do, you're one step closer to ruining one or all of your batches by cutting corners.

Before I built a brew fridge,I used to control fermentation temperature with an aquarium heater,and keep the FV in a cooler room.That will keep it at 18-20 degC.Also try OXI type cleaners for general clean up,you can get an unscented one from Waitrose LOL,it's Ecover laundry bleach.I've had no probs with S-05,but you're better using a full sachet,saving the dried stuff is risky,as it can get moist.I usually finish fermentation and then leave for a week prior to kegging/bottling,works for me.

Oh,and +1 for no washing up liquid,it will kill your beers head,and smells and tastes of non-beery things 👿

Did you just sprinkle th S-05 into the brew? It helps to prep it as here
for rehydration here-

[url] http://www.fermentis.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/SFA_US05.pdf [/url]