1st Timer.. and I went all grain

Hey all! Hopefully I'll be posting here pretty often. Read through quite a few threads, and a lot of what I already saw helped. So thanks. Anyway, on to the story.

Got a kit for Christmas and decided to jump in the deep end off the start and try my first batch as an all-grain. Figure if it's wonderful, then I can brag it's only my first batch, and if it's horrible, I just say that it was only my first batch. Made my own mash tun and wort chiller, and everything went great on brew day. Did a lot of reading and came up with my own recipe by combining this that and the other. Recipe is as follows:

8.5 # Bohemian Pilsner
1.5 # Cara-pils
1.5# Crystal Malt 60L
1# Steal Cut Oats (cooked first)

Strike w/ 5.5 gallons 175 degree water. Dropped to 165. Wait 90. Sparged with 3 gallons of 165 degree water. Total: 5 gallons.

Steeped in pot the following for 15 min at 165 degrees:

3 oz. Black Patent
6 oz. Chocolate
9 oz. Roast

Turned nice dark brown and smell was WONDERFUL. Boil schedule as follows:

.5 oz. Chinook (60 min)
.5 # Molasses (15 min)
1 oz. Fuggles (5 min)
1 oz. EK Goldings (5 min)

End of boil, total was 4 gallons at SG 1.071 (exactly what I was aiming for!) Used Ferm-Cap S to control boil and used it again in primary to control krausen. Just enough to cut it down, 5 drops in each case, I think. Yeast was WYEAST Irish Ale in a starter begun 12 hours earlier (should have been 24, but oh well.)

Here's the actual question. I let it sit for 2 weeks before going to bottle. It was pretty active the first 3 or 4 days, but then quieted down. Thought it had finished. Got done with bottling, and went to take my measurements, and the FG was only 1.031 instead of the expected 1.017. So apparant attenuation is only 57% instead of the expected 75 or so. What I'm wondering is, what happened? Was the yeast still working and I bottled too soon and now have a bunch of bombs in my cabinet?

The sad part was even the initial tasting was pretty good (yeah, even flat and warm). I'm looking forward to letting it sit a few weeks before drinking, but am slightly worried. Figure they get to be covered with a blanket while maturing to cut down on any potential mess.

And... it suddenly clicked. I took the FG reading after adding the priming sugar. Duh.

Welcome, sounds like a very ambitious first brew. Priming sugar isn't going to get you anywhere close to 1.031 if you were expecting 1.017.

A couple of notes:

-I dont do all grain, but for a single infusion mash 165 sounds way too high. About 10 degrees too high in fact. You were damn close to mash out the whole time so I'm not surprised you ended with a high FG. Adding in the oats plus this high temp and you had some serious gelatinization so probably had a very doughy mash going there.

-You obviously want to take a FG reading before bottling. You made a very large very dark beer so most probably would have bulk aged for 4 weeks or more before considering bottling.

-You threw way too many different ingredients in this beer, especially for a first brew. In general you want to make a simple beer first so you can see how changes you make affect the outcome. 6 different malts plus oats and molasas (can impart quite a pungent flavor) and 3 different hops is kind of a kitchen sink recipe.

-Having said all that, it may turn out great, only time will tell

It does sound like you jumped straight into the deep end of the pool. I might offer a few suggestions.

1) It's probably not ready. If you are at 1.031 and you wanted 1.017, you are a ways off, even if you already added priming sugar. Remeber, you are only adding about 5oz of sugar. It's not enough to add that many points of gravity. I would wait a couple weeks more and then bottle.

2) Your yeast isn't a high gravity yeast. Your inital gravity was 1.071. You prabably should have used a high gravity yeast. This probably explains your high final gravity. The yeast just ran out of gas before the beer was finished. You might pitch another pack of high garvity yeast to finish it off.

3) Your mash temp is way high. It won't hurt the beer. It's still below 170F, but you are likely going to have a very malty beer.

4) Don't worry about how long it takes your yeast to start. Anything under 36 hours is pretty normal.

I think your FG is most likely a result of the mash. A 90 minute mash at 165 degrees is going to result in quite a malty brew.

At any rate, I applaud your ambition! That beer is waaaaay more complex than the first beer I brewed.

00radio said:

And... it suddenly clicked. I took the FG reading after adding the priming sugar. Duh.

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Assuming you added the "normal" 4 oz corn sugar, that would only raise your gravity by about 2 points, fairly insignificant. I'd make sure the bottled beer was kept stored in a safe place, like a big tub, with a lid, for quite a while.

If you mashed at 165 you're probably done if it's been two weeks. Next time try to hit between 148 (dryer, more attenuative) and 158 (more full body, less attenuative). Your yeast was fine, more starter time next time though. Most of the ale and lager yeasts seem to have a max of 9-12% so don't go out and look for special high gravity yeasts for a simple 1.070 recipe, just make a bigger starter and mash lower next time. I think the sweet spot is 152-155 in temps.

did you drink the gravity sample with priming sugar in it? if you thought that was good with that high of a gravity yo umust love sweet malt bombs. I hope she turns out good, might need a bit of aging. DEF mash lower and make proper starters. You'll be good to go in no time.

Yeah, okay... I have a bit of a sweet tooth. If this ends up even slightly drinkable, I'll probably end up calling it my Sweet Dreams Stout, or something silly like that. Anyway, like I said, figured I might as well shoot for the sky. The whole thought process was to do as complicated a thing as I could, push the limits, and still try and get something to turn out okay from it. Created a huge ingredient list just to see as many different ways to add flavor as possible. Mashed as close to the limit to see what happens. Not making a big enough starter was definitely a mistake, but I guess I know better for next time.

Overall, I really had fun with it, and if it's turns out bad, well... it was only my first batch... Figure for my next one I might go to the other way and do a simple "tried and true" recipe. Maybe even just go with a kit just to see the real opposite end of the spectrum.

Instead of a kit go down to the recipe sections and look through them. Some really cool recipes down there.

00radio said:

Overall, I really had fun with it. . .

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That's why I keep homebrewing. :rockin:

00radio said:

Steeped in pot the following for 15 min at 165 degrees:

3 oz. Black Patent
6 oz. Chocolate
9 oz. Roast

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Also if you are mashing anyways there is no need to steep these grains seperately, you can just throw them in the mash...I agree with the others about the super high mash temp but at the worst it will make beer, and I advise using a recipe found here or a kit to get the feeling for making recipes and what works together

00radio said:

I let it sit for 2 weeks before going to bottle. It was pretty active the first 3 or 4 days, but then quieted down. Thought it had finished.

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Maybe I missed someone posting this in a prior post but, you never really give primary fermentation long enough to just poop out, you should have kept it in the fermenter for at least 4 weeks if not more. For that recipe I would have let it go for two months at least. I know you are probably going to say the hydrometer stayed the same for 2-3 days, but I would wait longer next time you brew this.

whiskey_pickle said:

Maybe I missed someone posting this in a prior post but, you never really give primary fermentation long enough to just poop out, you should have kept it in the fermenter for at least 4 weeks if not more. For that recipe I would have let it go for two months at least. I know you are probably going to say the hydrometer stayed the same for 2-3 days, but I would wait longer next time you brew this.

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Yeah, if I do this one again, I'll be doing a few things differently. I was a bit time crunched on this the first time. First of all... BIG starter for the yeast. Probably mash at around 152 or so. Let it sit in primary for a minimum of 3 weeks. May even rack to secondary, but that'll probably be related to how patient I'm feeling at the time. Any other suggestions on what to do? I may simplify the recipe a bit, but that'll depend a lot on how it ends up tasting.

my advice is get another fermenter before attempting another monster like this. They doo need more time and patience. More fermenters allow you to forget about it. I like buckets for backup fermentors, because they are so versatile.