Thanks again. Off to bed. OG ended up at 1.44, looks like there is quite a bit of sediment as still cloudy. Better than the first attempt though…….

regarding efficiency – I’ve never worried about it – worked it out once at 68 and that’ll do for me.

+1

Even if you had “terrible” efficiency, all that means is you need to use a bit more grain in your recipe. Given the scale of homebrew batches, that just means someone with terrible efficiency ends up paying 50p more per batch than someone with great efficiency. Definitely not worth worrying about. Still, it’s interesting to know roughly what you’re coming out at, since it can highlight the effect of changes on your process (like crushing the grain more finely or changing how you sparge).

looks like there is quite a bit of sediment as still cloudy. Better than the first attempt though…….

Don’t worry about that, it will all settle out in the FV.

Now the yeast will work its magic and leave you with some nice beer! 🙂

(just to be sure….in case you were tired when you finished up last night…did you leave part of the lid on the FV slightly cracked? If not, do it now. With the massive brewery FV, I just left about 1-2 inches not fully locked on and that provided ample release for Co2, but without anything nasty being able to get in)

Think I added too many chillis to my ginger beer wort, easy summer drinking it is not. 😯

Malt group buy anyone interested
I put a post up last night and then thought it should have been here

Any Allgrain brewers within collecting distance of Skipton want to join in a group buy of crushed grain from Fawcetts Maltsters of Castleford

My Brother and I are getting some bags Minimum order is 10 bags and we have hit that with our requirements but can add on some if anyone is interested
Prices are approx £20 for a 25KG sack

I will be collecting the order before the 14 June

Hey all,

I’ve been mulling over how to improve my wort chiller following the first effort and took on board the feedback from guys here regarding the possibility of leaky connections.

I knew the hose i had used was too big for the copper and wasn’t a snug fit on the 10mm pipe, so i was looking for a hose with a smaller ID that would fit neatly over the copper. The presented an issue though with the ability to interface with a standard hosepipe connection for running the water in.

I happened upon a great wee solution today whilst browsing in the time thief known as Tesco – a wee 10m micro hose for a tenner. Link here

Its ideal – 11.5mm hose with the standard hose connectors built in, all on a tidy reel. The hose fits really snugly over the copper, i had to heat the hose end in boiling water to get it about an inch over the copper. I took 1.5m off one end of the hose and this will be the waste outlet into the sink, with the remaining 8.5m wound onto the hose reel with a hose connector on one end. I’ll never need 8.5m of reach with the hose but the fact its on a reel means its not too obtrusive.

I also got some amalgamating tape and wound loads of it onto the copper so the tape, a tighter hose fit and a jubilee clamp must surely banish any hope of leaks! I still need to do a live test though.

A few pics below but i’m really rather chuffed with this, turned out pretty well imo.

Looks good:-) is it all up to being boiled for 15 mins?

Yep just boil it and check but looks good. FWIW I occasionally coincided my brewday with my spa refill and used the heat exchanger to give the spa water a headstart, it was a double 50ltrx2 setup so produced quite a lot of v hot water !

Boil test is going to happen this week, so fingers crossed. Cracking idea reusing the water there nzcol, need to think about ideas for that.

Incidentally the wife has dubbed me the mad scientist after buying stuff and cannibalising it 🙂

good work david, that looks great!

I brewed a black IPA very very early yesterday morning (i’d finished up by 10am!) and I’m due to bottle an oatmeal stout at some point this week.

Happy to report the boil test was a complete success! Looks like the chiller worked quite well, i’m amazed at the heat of the water coming out at the start and how quickly the wort cooled from c.70 degrees to about 40. I didn’t take temps to start with and finished when it had cooled to about 40 but everything looked in order. No leaks anyway which is the important bit. Happy days.

so i’m all guns blazing now 🙂

Got a VM running the beersmith trial at the moment to see what its like and found a simple SMASH recipe using Maris Otter and Citra hops. converted it using Peterfile’s original BIAB profile and upped the volume to the full 10l for the final volume. The recipe is calling for the following:

California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) (i was going to use us-05 as it seems to be a fine substitute)
Citra Hop 54.25g
PH 5.2 Stabilizer (is this necessary? I assume poss not based on your tap water.)
Pale Malt, Maris Otter 2.88kg
Whirlfloc Tablet (i assume protofloc is the same thing?)

do those figures seem about right? Also another silly question but i assume we use crushed Malt?

I’m going to jam an order in with Brewuk soon as i have a voucher to spend and i’ll get this beer brewing soon!

US05 works well with citra.
2.88 kg crushed malt sounds good for 10L
the pH stabiliser is not strictly necessary unless you have really hard water
Protofloc will do nicely
what’s the timing on the hops?

Hi john

The amounts are wrong here but the timings should be ok:

Ingredients
Amount Name Type #
1.00 tbsp PH 5.2 Stabilizer (Mash 60 min) Misc 1
10 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 2
0.5 oz Citra [12.0%] – Boil 60 min Hops 3
1.00 Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15 min) Misc 4
1.0 oz Citra [12.0%] – Boil 10 min Hops 5
0.5 oz Citra [12.0%] – Boil 5 min Hops 6
1 pkgs California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) Yeast 7
1.00 tsp Yeast Nutrient (Primary 3 days) Misc 8
1.0 oz Citra [12.0%] – Dry Hop 4 days Hops 9

That all looks good (although as john suggests, drop the stabilizer until you know your own water profile).

Also, for your first brew I would either dry hop straight into the primary FV once fermentation is complete, or don’t bother with it at all (if it was me, I’d go for the latter on the first brew). Until you’ve got your processes a bit more slick, transferring to a secondary will probably do more harm than it’s worth (i’ve stopped sticking things in secondary unless really necessary), it’s the perfect opportunity for oxidation to rear its ugly head.

You don’t necessarily need the yeast nutrient. Just splash the wort around for a few minutes before you pitch the yeast, then sprinkle on a whole pack of US 05 (get it all in there, it’s cheap anyway!). The yeast will be fine on a beer that size without nutrient.

What are you using for sanitation on the cold side (ie after you’ve cooled your wort)? I can thoroughly recommend Star San. It really makes keeping everything sanitised a whole lot easier.

those hop amounts & timings look fine 🙂

I don’t agree with peterfile about secondary though – when fermentation has finished in my brews, I do rack them into secondary, where I add Isinglass finings & leave for 2-3 days before bottling. Lovely & clear when it goes into the bottle from there

hey guys, thanks for the advice as always. the hop timings etc was a copy/paste from the recipe on my ipad so i didn’t chop out the yeast nutrient – i’d already decided that wasn’t happening :). fair point on the water stabiliser though, we’re central scotland so nice soft water here. the stabiliser was 12 notes from brewuk, so a bit of money saved.

I was also going to avoid dry hopping this one, mainly because its messy and its my first “complex” brew. i’ll be neurotic enough about it!

I also use starsan PF, its great to work with. dont fear the foam!

brewday scheduled for Sunday so its all happening now, looking forward to it!

edit – i’m assuming its crushed malt! also buying som muslin bags as i’m sure they will be useful.

I was also going to avoid dry hopping this one, mainly because its messy and its my first “complex” brew. i’ll be neurotic enough about it!

one way round that is when you get to chilling the wort, only take it down to 80deg, then turn off the chiller & add the dry hops; leave for half an hour, then resume chilling

I would imagine it will be already crushed, it’s more likely than unmilled. If there’s a floury powder (*well, flour really) amongst the malt then it is already crushed

Or another way is a hop tea

pop your hops in a Cafetiere add boiling water / steep for a while
and add the hop tea to your brew when cooled .
the instant dry hop method

mmm, hop tea sounds cool 🙂

I should have been more specific on the malt – the brewuk sells crushed malt here as well as whole malt here

i assumed it was crushed malt i’d need, rather than wholegrain, but not so sure now!

Yes unless you have a grain mill then you need ready crushed grain .

great, thanks for confirming trout. be prepared for endless boring updates throughout Sunday!

Is anyone maing elderflower champagne this year? Mine is fizzing away in the bin nicely. After good results last year by pulling as much of the stalks off as practicable and using bread yeast I’m hoping for another cracking batch

and lo, on the seventh day he brewed.

Yes, i’m breaking my 6 month duck and actually brewing a batch today. Any last minute advice? Heres the recipe etc – if you see a glaring omission let me know. Thanks to all the contributors on this thread, a great resource. i’ll pop up some pics of the brew day later!

SMASHing it

American Pale Ale (10 A)

Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 10.00 l
Boil Size: 12.12 l
Boil Time: 60 min
End of Boil Vol: 10.92 l
Final Bottling Vol: 9.17 l
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage

Date: 22 Aug 2012
Brewer: David Russell
Asst Brewer:
Equipment: David’s BIAB
Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 73.5 %
Taste Rating: 30.0

Taste Notes:

Prepare for Brewing

? Clean and Prepare Brewing Equipment
? Total Water Needed: 13.63 l

Mash or Steep Grains

Mash Ingredients

Amt

Name

Type

#

%/IBU

2.46 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 100.0 %

Mash Steps

Name

Description

Step Temperature

Step Time

Saccharification Add 13.63 l of water at 70.2 C 66.7 C 75 min
Mash Out Heat to 75.6 C over 7 min 75.6 C 10 min
? If steeping, remove grains, and prepare to boil wort

? Add water to achieve boil volume of 12.12 l
? Estimated pre-boil gravity is 1.047 SG

Boil Ingredients

Amt

Name

Type

#

%/IBU

7.57 g Citra [12.00 %] – Boil 60.0 min Hop 2 20.4 IBUs
0.53 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining 3 –
15.13 g Citra [12.00 %] – Boil 10.0 min Hop 4 14.8 IBUs
7.57 g Citra [12.00 %] – Boil 5.0 min Hop 5 4.1 IBUs
? Estimated Post Boil Vol: 10.92 l and Est Post Boil Gravity: 1.055 SG

Cool and Transfer Wort
? Cool wort to fermentation temperature
? Transfer wort to fermenter
? Add water if needed to achieve final volume of 10.00 l

Pitch Yeast and Measure Gravity and Volume

Fermentation Ingredients

Amt

Name

Type

#

%/IBU

1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml] Yeast 6 –
? Measure Actual Original Gravity _______ (Target: 1.055 SG)
? Measure Actual Batch Volume _______ (Target: 10.00 l)
? Add water if needed to achieve final volume of 10.00 l

Fermentation
? 22 Aug 2012 – Primary Fermentation (6.00 days at 19.4 C ending at 19.4 C)
? 28 Aug 2012 – Secondary Fermentation (6.00 days at 19.4 C ending at 19.4 C)

Dry Hop and Bottle/Keg

Dry Hop/Bottling Ingredients

Amt

Name

Type

#

%/IBU

14.98 g Citra [12.00 %] – Dry Hop 4.0 Days Hop 7 0.0 IBUs
? Measure Final Gravity: _________ (Estimate: 1.012 SG)
? Date Bottled/Kegged: 03 Sep 2012 – Carbonation: Keg with 86.48 KPA
? Age beer for 6.00 days at 18.3 C
? 09 Sep 2012 – Drink and enjoy!

Notes

mashing as we speak. Hit upon using my brewfridge climate controller to chek oven temps. We’ll see if its a good idea!

Brilliant! Glad you’ve finally popped your cherry!

I’ve brewed a complete game changing beer (for me at least!). Opened an IPA that’s been in the bottle for jusr 10 days that I used some new techniques on…and it’s utterly brilliant. In a totally different league to all previous brews.

Pretty sure it’s down to a combination of:

getting the water chemistry spot on
no bittering hop additions, all IBUs and flavour are picked up 15 mins onwards
fermentation temp control

Feedback has been great, so now it’s back to the drawing board but from a new, better base! 🙂

Keep me posted on how your brew day goes David!

Thanks PF, its been a long time coming as you know! Feel confident that things are going ok. Oven temp is about 63 degrees but i dont want to start messing with it as i’ll just let the mash do its work. I know mashing too low is an issue but getting into fractions of a degree at this stage is a bit beyond me. We’ll see what the OG says at the end of the mash. I think next time i’ll get either put the probe from the brewfridge into the mash itself or get one of these probe thermometers with a remote wire and see whats going on in there.

just popped the vacuum pack of citra hops, smells lovely. i think i will dry hop this batch as i have plenty of muslin bags and my syphon will cope with residue.

one q though, the recipe above calls for 75 min mash and then slowly raise temps to 75 degrees over 10 mins, not sure what this is for or if i should bother doing it? I dont want to go off piste from the recipe if i can help it, but all the recipes discussed here dont menion a step like this.

Cheers

David, a mash out probably isn’t necessary. It can help a bit with efficiency and target an exact malt profile, but on the scale we brew at, it’s probably more hassle than it’s worth.

sweet, i was just contemplating how to hit those figures with temp etc. Wont be long until the boil now!

so, first brew post mortem:

1. missed pre-boil OG by 3 points (hit 1.044 instead of 1.047), possibly due to mash temps being too low? That was accounting for wort temp so it was a real 3 point difference.

2. Chilling the wort took FOREVER to get to 20 degrees. in the end i think at 21/22 i gave up and got things moving, it must have taken 45 mins. No leaks though!

3. my digital thermometer seemed to be givin me funny readings from the wort during chilling. one area was c. 7 degrees hotter than the other. stirred it a bit which leads me to:

4. hot/cold break settling nicely before i whirlpooled the pan. pointless i think as it stirred it all up and then when i tried to syphon it all went in to the FV anyway 🙁 Not sure what the protocol is on this, i’ve read leaving the break in the pan is recommended, but a bit in the FV will do no harm. hard to whirlpool it then leave it long enough to settle out after chilling as that took ages.

5. nailed the OG in the FV – 1.056 and i was shooting for 1.055. However, and this is the worrying bit, i was c. 1.5l off my target of 10l into the FV. I had to top up the FV to 10l with water. Not sure if that was the right thing to do or not but its done now. mixed in the rehydrated us-05 so we’ll wait to see what happens.I think my volumes were ok to start with but i can only assume i had less in the pan than i thought i did pre boil. need to find a repeatable method of measuring water (i did weigh it this time on bathroom scales but thats a faff and probably not all that accurate)

6. drinking during a brew is not a good idea. i knocked in 4 cooking lagers and 1/2 bottle of wine whilst waiting. definitely clouded judgement towards the end of the brew.

all in all though a most enjoyable afternoon so we’ll see what comes out of it in 2 weeks!

your c+c would be most welcome 🙂

1. missed pre-boil OG by 3 points (hit 1.044 instead of 1.047), possibly due to mash temps being too low? That was accounting for wort temp so it was a real 3 point difference.

Don’t worry about pre boil gravities being a bit off. By taking a reading in the first place, it allows you to more accurately predict (and therefore adjust) where the OG will come out.

I tend to take a pre boil gravity just to make sure i’m not a million miles away from where i need to be.

A refractometer is great because it lets you take readings on the fly all the way through the boil.

2. Chilling the wort took FOREVER to get to 20 degrees. in the end i think at 21/22 i gave up and got things moving, it must have taken 45 mins. No leaks though!

In winter, I can get 10l of wort to 20 degrees in 20 mins. At this time of year though it takes 30 and will struggle to do the last bit from 24 – 20. I presume this is due to water temps.

I usually just pitch at 23/24 these days.

3. my digital thermometer seemed to be givin me funny readings from the wort during chilling. one area was c. 7 degrees hotter than the other. stirred it a bit which leads me to:

I stir every 5 mins or so while cooling.

4. hot/cold break settling nicely before i whirlpooled the pan. pointless i think as it stirred it all up and then when i tried to syphon it all went in to the FV anyway Not sure what the protocol is on this, i’ve read leaving the break in the pan is recommended, but a bit in the FV will do no harm. hard to whirlpool it then leave it long enough to settle out after chilling as that took ages.

Don’t worry about getting it in the FV. The general consensus is just to dump it all in there. It will settle out anyway.

That said, I pour through a sieve into the FV, simply because I lose less beer to trub and it helps aerate the wort.

5. nailed the OG in the FV – 1.056 and i was shooting for 1.055. However, and this is the worrying bit, i was c. 1.5l off my target of 10l into the FV. I had to top up the FV to 10l with water. Not sure if that was the right thing to do or not but its done now. mixed in the rehydrated us-05 so we’ll wait to see what happens.I think my volumes were ok to start with but i can only assume i had less in the pan than i thought i did pre boil. need to find a repeatable method of measuring water (i did weigh it this time on bathroom scales but thats a faff and probably not all that accurate)

How much strike water did you heat up? I find that 15-15.5 litres gets me 10 litres into the FV (after shrinkage).

I wouldn’t have topped up the FV with water for two reasons. Firstly, you’ll have knocked off your OG. Secondly, there’s an increased risk of infection from dumping in water straight from the tap. I’m sure it will be fine, but at the end of the day, you were only going to be 3 bottles short of your desired batch size. I’d prefer hitting target OG than target volume.

For next time, measure in your desired strike water, stick in your brewing spoon and mark the water level on the spoon. That way you can quickly fill it up from then onwards.

6. drinking during a brew is not a good idea. i knocked in 4 cooking lagers and 1/2 bottle of wine whilst waiting. definitely clouded judgement towards the end of the brew.

As much as I hate not to have a beer or 4 while brewing, I have to admit that most mistakes I’ve ever made while brewing seem to be due to beer!

Well done though! Glad you’re finally a brewer! Just wait until you drink something that you’ve produced from grain…. 🙂

Thanks for your comprehensive update PF – much appreciated! I need to google why the pre-boil OG was a bit low but i think i’m right in assuming that its not mashed quite enough. Like you say the post boil OG should be the key factor and i went and monkeyed ith it when there was no need to. You are quite right about the extra 3 bottles and thinking back there was no valid reason to top it up apart from the recipe saying so. Thats the beer-brain at work right there 🙂

Re the cooling i saw all this lovely clear wort and didn’t want to disturb it, so i left it alone. and then promptly stirred it all up using the whirlpooling, so yeah kind of pointless 🙂

Sounds like an idea using the sieve though, as the other thing that occurred to me was that i didn’t aerate the wort very much on putting it into the FV as i siphoned it in. I needn’t have worried though, went downstairs at 7am, roughtly 12 hours after pitching the yeast and before i opened the brew fridge i heard the welcome sounds of a gurgling airlock. c. 24 hours later and its going like stink!

I normally fermented at 18 degrees but i have the temp set at 19.3 according to the recipe and its working away really well, so i’ll let it be for a few days before dry hopping.

On the strike water the recipe only called for 13.6l of strike water and estimated my final batch vol should have been 10l, so something is off quite a bit somewhere. i followed the recipe i posted almost to the letter so if any beersmith whizzkids can see something obvious i’d be interested to see what went awry.

just got the brewing bug again, can’t wait to see what its like!

A quick half to see if my Black IPA is properly carbonated yet…

[url=https://flic.kr/p/o16jzm]2014-06-17 18.00.17-2[/url] by W Hyde, on Flickr
Yep 🙂 (Don’t worry, it’s evening in this part of the world, I’m not having beer for breakfast.) Tastes great, a nice roasted bitterness from the malt goes great with the hoppiness. Might have to have another, just to make sure…

That looks great Will!

You might need to drop the “I” at 4.2% though 😉

Black Pale Ale sounds even better IMO!

Yeah, the name is from the recipe I used. Target ABV was 5.7%, but my refractometer was giving me some dodgy numbers so 4.2% is actually a bit of a guess. Post-boil gravity measured at 1.055 on the refractometer (which had previously been calibrated to zero using distilled water). Final gravity then measured 1.033 on the refractometer. The beer tasted like it had fermented out, or at least wasn’t as sweet as I’d expect at 1.033, so I checked using a hydrometer, which gave me 1.016 – still a touch higher than the target but good enough.

But I didn’t take a hydrometer reading post boil, so don’t have solid numbers to calculate the ABV. The brew was a bit of a cock-up anyway, as I had some problems with my urn cutting out during the boil – managed to bypass the cut-out and get it going again though. And I also realised mid-boil that the home-brew store hadn’t given me enough hops, so I had to change the hop schedule on the fly.

Anyway, the beer tastes awesome so none of the above matters, anyway. I’ll try this recipe again properly soon enough, and compare to this version. Who knows, the Black Pale Ale might even be better than the Black IPA!

Dry hopped the brew last night. Sterilised the muslin bag and dropped in another 20g of citra. Not much but that’s what the recipe called for. Will bottle next week at some point, can’t wait!

A bit of an update on my refractometer quandary from my last post… based on a very high FG reading I figured something had gone wrong with the refractometer (it’s a very cheap one from ebay) so I decided to check its calibration. I had in mind a series of known volumes of water with a known amount of sugar dissolved in each, then checking all the samples with both the hydrometer and the refractometer, and noting any differences. I figured I could at least work out if any fudge factors were needed when working out my numbers. Or maybe whether the refractometer was destined for the bin.
A quick google later – to check the best method of calibrating it – and the bleeding obvious is staring me in the face: using the refractometer during or after fermentation will give dodgy results due to the alcohol in the liquid. It seems obvious now, but hadn’t occurred to me before. There are handy calculators online, such as this one: http://www.musther.net/vinocalc.html#monitorferment which returns an FG of 1.013 based on the refractometer readings, close enough to the 1.016 FG given by the hydrometer (which I’ve never calibrated, so combined with the estimating-where-the-curved-surface-of-the-liquid-meets-a-tiny-scale method of reading it, may or may not be particularly accurate anyway).
Just thought I’d post this up in case anyone else is new to using a refractometer and runs into similar issues.

Brewed up a wheat beer the other night

Still not hitting the target OGs though.
Making sure the mash temp is spot on (stirring and checking temps every 5 mins).
Really mashing all the wort out of the grain bags.
Taking the reading just before adding the yeast.

Seem to generally be about 0.005 to 0.01 low….

Any ideas?

Still not hitting the target OGs though.
Making sure the mash temp is spot on (stirring and checking temps every 5 mins).
Really mashing all the wort out of the grain bags.
Taking the reading just before adding the yeast.

Seem to generally be about 0.005 to 0.01 low….

What temp were you mashing at?

What was your total grain bill and water volumes?

Did you add the grain slowly, stirring the whole time to make sure there’s no doughballs?

How far off was your preboil gravity from the OG?

Sounds like it could just be your water volumes that are off. it wouldn’t take much extra strike water to throw your OG off by 0.005. Easy enough to fix if you pick it up preboil – just boil for a bit longer.

General consensus seems to be that you don’t need to stir grain during the mash.

A word of warning to those using Beersmith….

I think the carbonation levels are massively off for some recipes (at least they are when I use it). For some recipes that I scale, it’s asking for up to 60g of corn sugar.

I keep detecting an off flavour in many of my IPAs/PAs that I’ve been struggling to put my finger on. Everything tastes great when I bottle, tastes great after a week, but then goes downhill once fully carbonated and takes some time to improve.

I had at first thought it was oxidation, but after paying close attention to my processes, the off flavour comes on too quickly for it to be oxidation and it tends to get better after a time, rather than worse.

So after turning the internet upside down looking for an answer, I arrived at carbonic acid. The off flavour definitely has a “bite” too it, which is in line with carbonic acid.

I warmed a couple of problematic beers up room temp and vented the caps for about 15 minutes then resealed. I then cooled them back down and tested…much better.

The thing is, the beers don’t appear to be over-carbonated (ie they are not too fizzy).

However, after checking other carbonation calculators, the quantity I ought to be using is in some cases almost half of the figure the beersmith recipes have been giving me.

I’m going to try 30g of corn sugar for the next batch that I’m due to bottle next week.

Definitely worth cross checking the figures beersmith gives you. Also, bear in mind that you’ll need to adjust the measured volume to reflect the amount you will actually bottle, rather than the amount you entered as being put in the FV.

Apologies for the hijack, but I’m very new to this homebrew game and am still using brewing kits.

I’ve had another go at Woodforde’s Wherry and try as I might, I can’t seem to avoid getting a somewhat “soapy” taste.

Have I been overzealous with the sterilisation?