Just brewed my 1st AG - Now I have ?s

So I just brewed my first AG beer on Saturday, an organic Kölsch, and everything went great! :rockin: But I did have a couple questions about things that confused me...

1. COLOR - We used 9lbs Weyerman 2row Pilsner and 8 oz Breiss Munich, which produced a very nice, light yellow wort. We boiled, cooled and added to primary and it was still a nice yellow color. Pitched our yeast starter, and the next day it is a LOT darker! I have it next to a carboy of SNPA clone and it is AS dark as that now! Does wort get darker before it starts to ferment? Will this lighten up significantly after fermentation? I want that yellow color again - not this reddish brown I have now.

2. EFFICIENCY - Since this was our 1st AG, we weren't sure of our efficiency so we used 72% to calculate our recipe. Based on 72% efficiency we were supposed to hit an OG of 1.046. Well our OG was 1.045 (not far off), but when I calculated our efficiency with a few different online calculators, we got around 83% efficiency! How could our gravity be so close, but our efficiency so different????

3. COOLING - How long does it take to bring 6 gal of boiling wort down to 60 degrees with a 25ft copper IC? We ran water through it for over an hour and could only get it to about 70 degrees!!! And it was at 70 for about 20 minutes and wouldn't go down further. Then we transfered into the carboy and put the carboy in a sink with ice water which only brought it down to 64 degrees. Am I doing something wrong? This doesn't seem anymore efficient than an ice bath, and wasted a lot of water too.

Please help!!!!!!

COOLING: 25 ft. may be a bit on the small side. I use a 50 ft. and it cools a full boil very fast. As for not getting it below 70 degrees, what is your ground water temperature? If it's not much below 70 you won't be able to cool past that with your i/c.

If you are trying to lager it what is your fermentation method going to be? If you chill it to 70 with the chiller then put it in a fridge to cool it down to what you want then pitch the yeast.

I use a 25 foot chiller and it usually takes me 30 mins to get down to 70 degrees. It all depends on the temp of your ground water.

Wanted to ferment it at 60 degrees to limit the "fruitiness" in the style, then I plan on lagering in a mini fridge for about 6 weeks. Dropping the temp in the fridge 5 degrees/day until I reach 35.

The ground water (coming form outside hose bib) was pretty darned cold, and it was a very cool windy night (brewing in garage with door open). I did not think to take the tmep of the water running through the hose, but I guarantee that it was cooler than 60 degrees.

Why not just put it in the fridge now to ferment? Wait till the temp is 60 and then pitch the yeast then change the temp in the fridge to when you want to start lagering it.

Do you have a temp controller for the fridge?

thedude123 said:

Why not just put it in the fridge now to ferment? Wait till the temp is 60 and then pitch the yeast then change the temp in the fridge to when you want to start lagering it.

Do you have a temp controller for the fridge?

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That is the problem. The fridge can only reach about 50 degrees for a high. We do not have a temp controller for it, but have had great success with getting steady cold temps (below 50). Right now, it is fermenting in a closet with a fan and cool, wet towel at around 63 degrees.

Any ideas on how to get it cooler in there?

It gets lighter as it ferments. My blonde was dirty before ferementation, now it's about right on the color.

I think some people pitch at 70 then cool it down. If you are that concerned, I'd use a reservoir You can get a cheap pump from Harbor Freight and fill a cooler with ice&water. Hook your IC up to the pump and spit the waste water back into the cooler.

Keep in mind that as the delta between your wort and ground water temps get smaller, the longer it takes to cool down.

Pitching at 70F is perfectly fine (and I ferment at 60F generally). I let my yeast sit at room temperature (72-74) until I pitch, so 70F would actually be pretty ideal. It won't hurt the yeasties at all to pitch above fermentation temps, you just don't want to shock them by throwing them into too hot/too cold of wort. I try to keep my wort and yeast within 5F of each other, but I've always been told anything up to 10F is probably fine as well.

Also, did you stir the wort at all during cooling? I actually use my IC as a stirrer and it's amazing how much hotter the outlet water gets when you get some water flow across the coils.

As far as cooling goes, if you stir the wort while using the chiller it will cool significantly faster.

Yeah, we figured out the stirring trick about half way through, and it did improve the cooling. But it still kind of just hung out around 70 and wouldn't move. The ice water bath brought it down to 64. I think I will try a combination of setting the kettle in a cooler ice bath while running the IC and stirring on my next brew. That should do the trick.

Anyone have any ideas about my efficiency question?

Hey macabra11, cool to see another Boise Brewer around here! I'm guessing this Kölsch will be entered in the Treasure Valley Organic Homebrew Challenge? I brewed my entry a few weeks ago - currently lagering in my keezer.

Are you going to brew at the Boise Big Brew site on Saturday? We'll be brewing at the Sockeye brewery, and I think the brewery is going to brew ~400 gallons to help boost our numbers :rockin:. The Boise Brewers have a meeting Thursday night at the Front Door, downtown. It's a small group. We'll be talking about the Big Brew recipes, and I'm going to bring a sample of my Breakfast Stout, and maybe the Orange Honey Hefe.

Saturday I'll be brewing the Saison Du Mont on my Ghetto Fabulous HERMS rig at the Big Brew site.



EDIT:

To address some of your questions...

Efficiency - It can be hard to tell exactly. I calculate my efficiency based on what I collect pre-boil. You really need to know exactly how much water you used at strike & sparge - as well as how much wort you collected to know the efficiency you got. You will lose water getting soaked up by the grist, and you will lose water in the dead space of your lauter tun. Then your boil-off rate can vary based on a lot of factors... and it's hard to know exacly how much unfermented wort you lost in the bottom of your boil kettle with the cold break and hops and such. My goal has always just been to know a ballpark to use for adjusting recipes, then compensate in the boil for slight fluctuations. I've done 9 A.G. batches in the past 4 months and I do better each time hitting my numbers.

Chilling with an IC - I've never tried to cool to 60F with my IC straight from the boil. I usually take it down to about 75F with my 30' copper IC. The tap water here has been about 50F for each batch I've cooled, and I can typically get 5.5-6 gallons down from boiling to 75 in about 15 minutes. I stir the cooling wort with my IC the entire time - drastically speeds it up. I also don't run a really high flow rate though the hose, maybe 2 gallons/minute. Once I hit 75 I whirlpool the sh*t out of it with a sanitized spoon, and let it sit for 20-30 minutes. Gives time for some of the cold break and other debris to settle in the center of the kettle before draining it to the fermenter. By then it is usually about 70F and I pitch my yeast.

Did you raise and lower your chiller alot? This helped lower my temps ALOT faster... with 25 ft your only on the bottom and raising and lowering definitely changed temp FAST for me.

diatonic said:

Hey macabra11, cool to see another Boise Brewer around here! I'm guessing this Kölsch will be entered in the Treasure Valley Organic Homebrew Challenge? I brewed my entry a few weeks ago - currently lagering in my keezer.

Are you going to brew at the Boise Big Brew site on Saturday?

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Hey diatonic, if you look under "Groups" on this site you will see I created a group for Idaho people - you should join! I love the local beer scene in Boise and I think it just keeps getting better.

The Kölsch IS for the TVOHC, and I can't wait to see how it comes out. My worries about the color are slowly fading as it ferments. It is starting to come back to its' yellowish color again.

About the Big Brew... I had read something about it but wasn't sure what exactly it was or what I needed to do to get involved. Can you give me anymore info on it? I will be bottling a SNPA clone Saturday, but maybe I could make it out to Sockeye for the event. I wonder how many people are going to show up?

I can't believe you have your own HERMS setup - that's friggin awesome :rockin:

PM me if you want to swap emails/contact

Beau815 said:

Did you raise and lower your chiller alot? This helped lower my temps ALOT faster... with 25 ft your only on the bottom and raising and lowering definitely changed temp FAST for me.

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We figured this out about half way though, because the bottom of the pot was really cold and the top was still hot. So we did raise the IC to hold it closer to the top. We will try the stirring with the IC next time.