dktoller
Active Member
I've got several partial mash kits under my belt and am getting ready to go all-grain. Thinking I had everything under control I tried to make a 3 gallon all-grain smoked pale. It was a bit of a disaster.
Recipe: A basic pale ale (cascade) scaled down to 3 gallons, withsmoked malt. Included Carapils (5%) Crystal (5%) and hickory smoked malt (20%).
The hickory smoked malt I did on my smoker several weeks ago, by lightly moistening it and then putting on the smoker for 1+ hours.
Brew day went pretty well. Partial mashed at 152 F for 60 minutes, and then soaked/rinsed for another 15 minutes with 170 F water. Standard boil and hop additions, and then I cooled the batch down to 72 F. Poured it directly into the fermenter, and the OG was 1.040. Pitched one packet of Notty. At this point all seemed well. Tasted the hydrometer sample and it was quite smokey but at the time I didn't notice anything else unusual about it.
Over the next several hours I realized there was a bunch of trub settling out of solution to the bottom of the fermenter. More so than in any previous batch. I suspect that most of this *should* have been left behind in the boil pot, had I properly let the mixture settle and used a siphon to transfer.
A couple of days went by with no sign of fermentation at 64 F, so I moved it upstairs hoping warmer temps (69 F) would get it going. Four days in with no sign of fermentation I opened it up. It lacked the typical overwhelming sharp smell (is it CO2, or alcohol that I usually smell?). I decided to pitch another packet of Notty, wondering if perhaps the initial yeast had been cold-shocked or something.
Two more days later with no signs I was getting anxious. Checked the bucket and to my surprise the FG was 1.010! Tried some and I didn't notice any alcohol in it. That's not an scientific check of course, but I downed most of a glass rather quickly and it's just not alcoholic, or at least not much.
So at this point I trying to come up with possible ways to explain this non-alcoholic beer.
- It's possible the initial high OG reading was due to particles that later settled out. Note this was BIAB with a pretty fine crush. IF this is true, then it means my mash was the culprit.
- The BIAB mash was pretty thick. My bag is narrower than the boil pot so a good portion of the (1.25qt/lb) water wasn't well-mixed with the grain.
- Not sure of my mash pH. I try to adjust my water because it is very hard, by cutting it with RO water. Although this time I think I used "drinking" water instead. How much could a high pH impact the conversion?
- Used from a new bag of 2-row malt. Do people ever get 'bad' malt?
Well, all is not lost. I now know more about using smoked malt: next time I will cut the smoked malt down to about 5%. It was just too overwhelming, especially in a style without any significant dark roasts to balance/complement it. And I've managed to enjoy quite a few home brews in the process of trying to figure this one out.
Recipe: A basic pale ale (cascade) scaled down to 3 gallons, withsmoked malt. Included Carapils (5%) Crystal (5%) and hickory smoked malt (20%).
The hickory smoked malt I did on my smoker several weeks ago, by lightly moistening it and then putting on the smoker for 1+ hours.
Brew day went pretty well. Partial mashed at 152 F for 60 minutes, and then soaked/rinsed for another 15 minutes with 170 F water. Standard boil and hop additions, and then I cooled the batch down to 72 F. Poured it directly into the fermenter, and the OG was 1.040. Pitched one packet of Notty. At this point all seemed well. Tasted the hydrometer sample and it was quite smokey but at the time I didn't notice anything else unusual about it.
Over the next several hours I realized there was a bunch of trub settling out of solution to the bottom of the fermenter. More so than in any previous batch. I suspect that most of this *should* have been left behind in the boil pot, had I properly let the mixture settle and used a siphon to transfer.
A couple of days went by with no sign of fermentation at 64 F, so I moved it upstairs hoping warmer temps (69 F) would get it going. Four days in with no sign of fermentation I opened it up. It lacked the typical overwhelming sharp smell (is it CO2, or alcohol that I usually smell?). I decided to pitch another packet of Notty, wondering if perhaps the initial yeast had been cold-shocked or something.
Two more days later with no signs I was getting anxious. Checked the bucket and to my surprise the FG was 1.010! Tried some and I didn't notice any alcohol in it. That's not an scientific check of course, but I downed most of a glass rather quickly and it's just not alcoholic, or at least not much.
So at this point I trying to come up with possible ways to explain this non-alcoholic beer.
- It's possible the initial high OG reading was due to particles that later settled out. Note this was BIAB with a pretty fine crush. IF this is true, then it means my mash was the culprit.
- The BIAB mash was pretty thick. My bag is narrower than the boil pot so a good portion of the (1.25qt/lb) water wasn't well-mixed with the grain.
- Not sure of my mash pH. I try to adjust my water because it is very hard, by cutting it with RO water. Although this time I think I used "drinking" water instead. How much could a high pH impact the conversion?
- Used from a new bag of 2-row malt. Do people ever get 'bad' malt?
Well, all is not lost. I now know more about using smoked malt: next time I will cut the smoked malt down to about 5%. It was just too overwhelming, especially in a style without any significant dark roasts to balance/complement it. And I've managed to enjoy quite a few home brews in the process of trying to figure this one out.
