All Grain has tasted weird 2 batches in a row

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chandlervdw

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Ok, I've brewed a couple of really decent extract kits but I've been trying to make the switch to all grain. My friend who has a lot of experience doing all grain did a Belgian Dubbel with me and it has also turned out decent.

The problems started with MY first all grain - I got a recipe for a Highland Gaelic Clone from Beertools.com and it had this really strange taste to it. Some of my friends described it as watery, others described it as yeasty. It was a terrible batch and I ended up tossing it, after force carbonation and all. I recently got a kegerator and I was too eager to get a beer on tap that I never did secondary fermentation. That could've added to the yeastiness, if that's what I'd call it.

I was worried that my recipes were bad, so I used a Jamil recipe (legit) for an American Pale Ale. Fermentation went great - never above 67°F. The only thing that I am worried about is my mashing process. To make a long story short, over the course of the 1 hour saccharaction rest, my grain bed temp dropped from 154°F to 140°F - I'm worried that the starches didn't get converted. Also, the recipe called for a fly sparging over the course of 1 hour. I just did a batch sparge. It seemed to work great and I hit my target gravity almost right on. I moved it from primary to secondary today (10 days of fermentation) and I took a sample to taste it. Same nasty, watery, yeasty taste as the Gaelic clone. I'm really bummed but I'm gonna let it sit in the secondary.

I realize it could be a million factors but does anyone have an idea? Is it the mashing process or what? :(
 
I never judge a beer by what it tastes like while its in the fermenter. I don't keg, but I never judge a beer of my own until it has been in the bottle for quite a while. If it's 'good' when it's been in the bottle for 6 weeks, it's usually better when it's been in there for 12 :)
 
ok just to play devils advocate and nitpick everything-

if it tastes watery you probably got very poor conversion leading to a low gravity starting wort. Did you take a starting gravity before pitching the yeast and if so what was it?

Next, what are you mashing in? An almost 15 degree drop over an hour is very very poor. In order to combat this you should have used a much longer rest period to allow conversion. Also i would suggest getting a better cooler for the next time you mash as you should be able to hold to within a few degrees. Although its not the defacto standard, an iodine test will help see if all available starches were converted.

What was your water to grain ratio? Most of the time i use about 1.3 quarts per pound of grain however if you didint use enough water, you may have had poor conversion.

Third, how long did you allow this to sit in primary? Bubbles are not an indication of when the beer is done, and it should be left in primary for a minimum of 10 days. Personally i leave mine for a minimum of 3 weeks and usually a 4 weeks without secondary to very good results.

Batch sparge vs fly sparge shouldn't make a huge difference in taste like your describing only with efficiency. Most of the people only see a maximum of 5% efficiency hike from switching although im sure someone has done more and will disagree.

Click on the #4 in my sig for an allgrain primer i find excellent from Bobby_M. It helped me hone my skills and make sure i wasn't missing anything when i learned all grain. Its quite helpful in figuring out what you skipped or missed that may be messing with your beers. Good luck
 
ok, what you're describing sounds like my problem. I'm afraid I missed out on a lot of the conversion. I never took an original gravity reading but my preboil gravity was right on with the calculations at 1.037. I was boiling from about 5.6 gallons down to 3 for 1.5 hours. I know, I should've done a gravity reading...

Concering my mashtun - I just converted a 60 quart cooler, which I'm realizing has way too much airspace inside when I do a 3 gallon batch - that's why it's cooling off so much. My buddy gave me some high-density Styrofoam that I might be able to set up inside to displace some air/hold in heat at the top - that's about my only option other than building a new mashtun.

My 3 gallon batch was in the primary for 10 days. The airlock hadn't moved since day 4 so I just assumed it was done. I won't be doing that anymore.

man, so many mistakes....I think the main problem was the starch conversion. Thanks so much for your help - I'm really discouraged cause this is batch 3 that hasn't turned out well with the all grain process. I do have an espresso stout that's been sitting and is tasting decent.....

I can upload pics of what I've got if that helps. I really want to nail this mashing process down... this is obviously the most difficult/crucial part and I'm lacking...
 
ok, what you're describing sounds like my problem. I'm afraid I missed out on a lot of the conversion. I never took an original gravity reading but my preboil gravity was right on with the calculations at 1.037. I was boiling from about 5.6 gallons down to 3 for 1.5 hours. I know, I should've done a gravity reading...

Concering my mashtun - I just converted a 60 quart cooler, which I'm realizing has way too much airspace inside when I do a 3 gallon batch - that's why it's cooling off so much. My buddy gave me some high-density Styrofoam that I might be able to set up inside to displace some air/hold in heat at the top - that's about my only option other than building a new mashtun.

My 3 gallon batch was in the primary for 10 days. The airlock hadn't moved since day 4 so I just assumed it was done. I won't be doing that anymore.

man, so many mistakes....I think the main problem was the starch conversion. Thanks so much for your help - I'm really discouraged cause this is batch 3 that hasn't turned out well with the all grain process. I do have an espresso stout that's been sitting and is tasting decent.....

I can upload pics of what I've got if that helps. I really want to nail this mashing process down... this is obviously the most difficult/crucial part and I'm lacking...

Early in your brewing career you discovered some difficulty. You then asked for and received some very good and detailed responses. Then, you yourself used that information, added some more from other sources, rethought your processes. Don't be disappointed. You just learned and now you are planning to adapt that learning.

You are going to make some very good beer is my prediction. Beer takes time. So does the learning how to make it. Good luck.
 
Try to be patient, I've had a batch I thought would be undrinkable that turned out great after a month of bottle conditioning. Also, as mentioned, airlock activity is not really a good indicator as to what is happening with your beer. Most of my beers have little to no airlock activity after the first 4-7 days, but I still let the yeast do their thing for at least 3 weeks before bottling. I plan on starting kegging soon, and when I do I plan on letting the beer condition in the keg for 3-4 weeks before chilling and carbonating.
 
Go to cvs for next time and pick up some iodine. As long as you don't pull any husks or little white peices from the grain, iodine will keep you from sparging early plus its cheap. I use iodophore sanitizer which works well.

As for keeping the beer in primary for 10 days, its definitely longer than some people have left it however beers always benefit from more time. The longer they sit (to a point), the more time the yeast have to reabsorb off flavors such as diacetyl (think artificial butter) as well as others. Next time try and leave it for 3 weeks and see where that lands you.

As for the mash tun- i dont think your problem is that you have too much headspace. A 15 degree drop leads me to believe that you didn't preheat the mashtun or that when you took the temperature reading, it wasn't consistent throughout. What i would suggest is to add your water to the mashtun about 20-25 degrees hotter than your mashing, close the lid and leave it for 15 minutes. That will allow the cooler to absorb whatever heat it is going to initially and minimize the amount of heat loss. Then wait until the temperare is down to where you want it and add your grain to reach your mash temp. I doubt you will see the same type of drop.

Try some of this stuff and you should end up with some very good beer. PLus we've all been there. It just takes time as Gammon said. Happy brewing:mug:
 
I've got a little iodophor left - how do I use that to check the mashing process?

Also, last time I put my strike water in there for about 5 minutes beforehand. I guess it didn't help. So, I'm guessing since it's such a large vessel, I'll need the water to be hotter in order for it to absorb the max amount of heat. So, for a 60qt vessel and a 3 gallon batch with ≈ 7lbs of grain, what temp should my strike water be (when I add it, then let it sit for 15 minutes, then add the grist)?
 
Use rackers.com ( I believe that is the website, if not someone will chime in).

Use the other persons advice of over shooting your strike temp. IE if rackers says make the water 170F with 7 ibs of grain, then do 180, let the cooler warm up, then when it hits 170F again add your grain.
 
I've got a little iodophor left - how do I use that to check the mashing process?

Also, last time I put my strike water in there for about 5 minutes beforehand. I guess it didn't help. So, I'm guessing since it's such a large vessel, I'll need the water to be hotter in order for it to absorb the max amount of heat. So, for a 60qt vessel and a 3 gallon batch with ≈ 7lbs of grain, what temp should my strike water be (when I add it, then let it sit for 15 minutes, then add the grist)?

generally i use about 20 degrees over where im trying to hit, and after about 10-15 minutes of preheating, it cools down. The rackers site dave is talking about is my #3 in the signature and is a good general baseline. Personally i do the math in my head and overshoot. When i do calculate i either use Promash or Beersmith. Both have calculators for everything and are fairly cheap 20-25$. Its a good investment if your serious about the hobby. They take into account the temp of the grain as well as your strike temperature so without knowing both i cant caluclate it for you.

However assuming your trying to hit 154 and your using 1.3 quarts per pound (7lbs x 1.3 = 9.1 qts) , i would put in ~9 quarts of water at 175 and allow it stabilize for 10-15 minutes, then check the temperature and assuming it hasn't dropped below say 165ish, dough in your grains and stir for atleast a few minutes to get rid of dough balls. When it stabilizes at your mash temperature, shut the lid and start your timer. I always keep a spare 1/2 gallon of boiling water nearby to adjust temperature if it falls out of range and cold water can be added sparingly in the same manner to adjust.

As for the iodophore, drain a sample 60 minutes after you dough in making sure there are no parts of the endosperm (white grain peices). Husks don't matter because they dont contain any starch. On either a peice of sidewalk chalk (braukaiser) or in a glass, add a drop of iodophore to a small spoonfull of the runnings from your mash. If it turns black, there is still starch present and you will need to mash longer. To see what a starch positive result looks like, add a drop of iodophore to a slice of potato. Heres an example with beer. Notice that there are no particulates which is important.
Starch%20test.jpg

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/iodine-test-81728/
 
Thanks for the iodophore tip. That'll come in handy.

What sucks is that I definitely overshot my strike temp to account for the mashtun absorbing some heat. I guess I didn't wait long enough because it lost so much heat during the mash. I'm going to just test with hot water and see how much it absorbs before it starts to level off. Scinerd, how many quarts will your mashtun hold? I might need to go more than 20-25°F, since mine is 60qts.

I've been using beertools pro (mac) trial version and the trial just ran out. Any chance you guys know of a promo code?
 
you will figure it out with your equipment....I would throw 5 gallons of 170 degree in and time how long it takes to drop. you also may want to get a smaller mash tun so you can more easily control the temperature since it just noiw stuck me that your doing about 4 gallons in a 15 gallon mash tun. You probably jyst need a smaller mash tun. Home depot sells 5 gallon igloo coolers for around 40 bucks. Craigslist has them for less usually. You could also try cutting a circle out of thick styrophome insulation and capping the mash with that to better hold temp...you have way too much dead space.
 
What is your grain bed depth? Too shallow of a grain bed can also lead to conversion issues. Also is your cooler round or square? (Just curious)

I agree with Scinerd3000, a smaller Mush Tun may help with the temp fluctuations. Or you could brew bigger batches, or stronger SG beers. =)
 
Well, I'd rather not get another cooler cause I bought this one specifically for converting into a mashtun. I just apparently got one that's too big.

I used a 1/3 gal of strike water per pound of grain so proportionally it's correct but the grain bed does end up being fairly shallow. It's a rectangle and it's really big... this is what I converted (although I got it from craigslist for 25)... http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=8586970
 
those coolers work well...however with that setup im guessing livErD69 is right and the grainbed is too shallow. I would atleast up your batches to 5 gallons. Generally 2,5,10,15 gallons are all the same amount of work and take the same time however you end up with more beer...
 
do me a favor and just for the hell of it take a pic of the inside of your cooler if possible...I understand being afraid of messing up a batch or 2 but we've all been there and its how you learn. If i were you i would buy a cheap kit something like this (http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_452_378_377&products_id=1712) and add another pound of the base malt (in this case vienna) to offset the loss in efficiency. If nothing else the added grain for a 5 gallon batch should help offset the huge cooler your using...
 
The Inside
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Inside near drain
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Outside
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Outside near drain
qKHG7.jpg



Inside filter end
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Obviously, it's pretty big. Last night I put in 190°F water and after 10 or 15 minutes (possibly 20 or 30) it was down to 173°F. After about 4 or 5 hours, it was down to 143°F or so. This morning it was still warm.

I noticed a couple of places near the top (the recess 'handle' to help open the lid, and one of the corners) where steam was leaking when I first added water. I'll end up putting some duct tape on the lid to seal it off better, unless you guys have a better idea. I also just ordered this digital thermometer (http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/B000095RC4?tag=betteraddons-20), which will help. Scinerd, I'll take your advice and keep some boiling water ready to heat the mash back up.

Also, I'd hate to heat up water just to use for heating up the mashtun and then have to waste it and put the proper amount of strike water in. I guess I should just start each mash with the proper amount of 200°F strike water, wait 20 minutes and see where the temp is at. A few ice cubes would probably help it cool down if after 20 mins or so if it's still too hot. Hopefully, it won't be too cold. I also might end up trying to cut this piece of high density styrofoam that I've got & wrap it in tin foil, then secure it ABOVE the mash... that might help displace some of the headspace air in the cooler and also act as an insulator - I just don't want to get it in my wort at all.
 
that sounds great. And from looking at your setup, the only thing glaring at me is the extra 2 inches of hose hanging before the ball valve outside the kettle. You may want to wrap some insulation around that to further minimize the heat loss although i doubt that its responsible for that much loss. Also check the lid. My cooler has a hole in the underside of the top where its hollow and if yours has the same you could fill it with spray insulation foam from HD or Lowes to further lower the heatloss. Some people also wrap there coolers in heavey blankets which can work well. Good luck and please post back after your next batch. Cheers
 
Scinerd, will do and thanks for the tips. Crossing my fingers hoping that a thorough pre-heat and some steam leaks will fix my problem! I'll post, for sure :)
 
To make a long story short, over the course of the 1 hour saccharaction rest, my grain bed temp dropped from 154°F to 140°F - I'm worried that the starches didn't get converted.

My guess, is that if you're using a cooler, you're not accounting for the cooler getting up to temp, and that grain bed probably dropped to 145ish during the first 10 minutes.


Heat water up to 175 or so, and just let it sit in the open cooler until it drops to strike temp, and then add grain.
 
too many pages to read through...are you pre-heating the MLT with hot tap water for at least 30 mins before you actually dough in?

I put 125F tap water in mine, which helps you from losing 14 degrees in an hour. You still have to strike above the desired sach. rest (i.e. 168F water for me hits about 152F grain bed, and I lose 1-2 degrees over an hour)
 
Here is some info from howtobrew.com on grain bed depth and lautering.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter17-2.html

Palmer mentions something in there that I didn't think of at first. Too shallow of a grain bed can also result in problems with vorlaufing due to too shallow of a grain bed filter. Are you having troubles getting the runnings to clear? If so that could help explain some of the funny off flavors as well.

Anyways, hope this helps.
Cheers!
 
I didn't seem to have too much trouble with the grain bed settling, although it was fairly shallow (4-6 inches deep). I got my wort to run clear after about a gallon or so of vorlaufing.

Just sampled my beer from the secondary and it's got that weird taste, which is sad. It's also at 5.5 Brix, which BeerTools Pro is telling me is at about 1.024, a little high. I'm guessing I didn't get full starch conversion.
 
Ok guys, I need some help.
I'm going to go for another IPA, this time a 10 gallon batch. Don't worry, I'm splitting it between friends. I think the larger amount will help my mashtun not lose as much heat (plus, I've got the high density styrofoam, if needed, an in-oven thermometer and I will be preheating the mashtun before I even add the strike water as well as doing a starch conversion test at the end of 1 hour. Recipe calls for mashing at 149°F so I think I might need to go for a 90 min mash to get full conversion).

So, I'm going to be brewing "Hoppiness is an IPA," from Zainasheff's Brewing Classic Styles. But I need some help with calculations of strike and sparge water:
I know I need 1/3 gallon of strike water per pound of grain, right? I'm going to be working with 29.5 lbs of grain, so that puts me at about 9.8 gallons of strike water.
I read somewhere that your sparge water should be double your strike water.... but that'd be a ridiculous amount of wort. BeerTools Pro scales the 5 gallon recipe to 10, telling me that I need 12.32 gallons of preboil kettle volume. That makes my sparge volume only 2.5 gallons.

In short:
Strike: 9.8 gal
Sparge: 2.5 gal
Preboil: 12.3 gallons

Does that sound right? Cause it seems way off to me...
 
I know I need 1/3 gallon of strike water per pound of grain, right? I'm going to be working with 29.5 lbs of grain, so that puts me at about 9.8 gallons of strike water.
I read somewhere that your sparge water should be double your strike water.... but that'd be a ridiculous amount of wort. BeerTools Pro scales the 5 gallon recipe to 10, telling me that I need 12.32 gallons of preboil kettle volume. That makes my sparge volume only 2.5 gallons.

In short:
Strike: 9.8 gal
Sparge: 2.5 gal
Preboil: 12.3 gallons

Does that sound right? Cause it seems way off to me...

I think it is off. You're going to lose about a pint of your strike water per pound of grain (give or take), so when you get your first runnings you'll only get 6 gallons or so out. Then you can batch sparge with another 6 1/2 gallons and end up right about where you should be for your preboil volume.
 
I just scaled this recipe in BeerSmith. I get for ten gallon batches 39.51 Quarts of mash water.

Then, two batch sparges of 3.51 gallons and 3.15 gallons for 13 gallons in the kettle.
 
Nice, thanks guys. That makes a lot more sense. After I found the appropriate calculator in BeerTools Pro, I got the same calculations. Plan on doing the 2 part batch sparge as suggested by Gammon N Beer.

One more question. I did some yeast washing from one of my "weird" batches and used it to make a 1 liter starter, then a 4 liter starter from that (just dumped the whole thing into the 1 gallon starter). Is there a way to calculate approximately how many billions of yeast cells I have? How many would I need for a 10 gallon batch? (I've read that for a 5.5 gallon batch, 236 billion yeast cells are needed)

Would it be wise to not use this yeast since my beer tastes strange? It's fermenting fine in the starter (going crazy, really).
 
Nice, thanks guys. That makes a lot more sense. After I found the appropriate calculator in BeerTools Pro, I got the same calculations. Plan on doing the 2 part batch sparge as suggested by Gammon N Beer.

One more question. I did some yeast washing from one of my "weird" batches and used it to make a 1 liter starter, then a 4 liter starter from that (just dumped the whole thing into the 1 gallon starter). Is there a way to calculate approximately how many billions of yeast cells I have? How many would I need for a 10 gallon batch? (I've read that for a 5.5 gallon batch, 236 billion yeast cells are needed)

Would it be wise to not use this yeast since my beer tastes strange? It's fermenting fine in the starter (going crazy, really).

You might have your questions answered by checking out the Mr. Malty site: http://www.mrmalty.com/

As for reusing the yeast, I am no yeast expert by any means. I would use it as I doubt it is the yeast causing your problem. Maybe somebody with a background in yeast can chime in.

That said, whenever you are attempting to figure out an issue it is always best to control as many of the variables as you can. Therefore, it would be to use a new yeast.
 
generally when somethings gone awry you want to change one thing at a time until you figure it out...If the yeast doesnt have any odd smell to it (should smell almost sweet, possibly with hints of alcohol and shouldnt be sour or acrid) then you could try and use it. Its all up to your confidence level. As for the your mash caluclations..heres how i would go...

since its an ipa you want it to finish fairly low and somewhat dry. 1.5 quarts of water per pound of grain gives the enzymes good access to starches and since you have so much room is a great idea.
1.5 qts/lb (x) 29.5 lbs = ~44 qts
44qts (/) 4 qts/lb=11 gallon mashin

with 29.5 lbs of grain and an absorption rate (lets say .13 gallons / pound) your looking at losing ~ 3.8 gallons. Therefor your first runnings would be somewhere around 7 gallons in the kettle. Then you would sparge until you reach your preboil volume. In the case of a double sparge...just split your water amt in half to reach your preboil. Make sure to vorlauf. In this case i would guess around 12-14 gallons is your preboil (on my system). Calibrate a wooden dowel or spoon to your kettle and use it to see how much liquid you have....Hope this makes sense.
 
scinerd,
I've heard that 1/3 gallon per lb of grain is a good ratio. If I do 1.5 quarts, that's .375 gallons versus .33. Your calculations give me 11 gallons where mine gives me 9.75 gallons.

Which is better? 1.5 quarts or 1/3 gallon per lb of grain?

Today is Brew Day! I'll be taking pics and posting them here afterwards.
 
Brew Your Own makes a good point about mash thickness. It's harder to dissolve more sugars into a concentrated wort so I'm going go for more efficiency with a less thick wort.

I'm going to do a thickness of .356 gallons / lb @ 29.5lbs which gives me a strike of 10.5 gallons @ 160°F (I'll start at 185°F to counter the heat absorption by the mashtun), with a target temp at 149°F.

I can use some ice to cool it down if need be; that's why I'm going with 10.5 gallons, so that if I need to add any ice or hot water to adjust the temp, I've got a half gallon of leigh-way without going over .375 gallons / lb of liquor-to-grist-ratio (11 gallons of 'strike' water).

With scinerd's grist absorption rate (.13), I'll lose 3.83 gallons, which will give me 6.6 to 7 gallons of first runnings, depending on if I add ice/hot water to adjust my mash temp.

My recipe calls for a 1 hour boil of 12.32 gallons, so, theoretically, I'll need another 5.25 to 5.75 gallons of wort. By these calculations, my 2 batch sparges will be ≈ 2.8 gallons each, depending on how much my first runnings gave me.

Doesn't this seem too small, especially if I've got 29.5 lbs of grain in there and I've already collected the first runnings?
Maybe I'll do a bit of a mashout. I'll only collect 5 gallons of wort from the first runnings, then do my batch sparges. Still a problem though - water boils at 205°F and even with 1 5.75 gallon sparge of boiling water, I can't get the temp all the way to 168-170°F. Ideas?
 
water boils at 205°F and even with 1 5.75 gallon sparge of boiling water, I can't get the temp all the way to 168-170°F. Ideas?
Not in south carolina it doesn't.

If your grain bed is already 150 degrees, and you've drained your first runnings, you don't need anywhere near boiling water to get to 170. You probably only need 175 or so.
 
ok, so boiling point is 212°F.
I found the right calculator in BeerTools Pro. For 29.5 lbs of 149°F grist, I'll need my 2.8 gallons to be 185°F for the first sparge, and 170-172°F for the second sparging.
 
Ok, so the mashtun worked AMAZINGLY well last night. I prefilled it in the tub with hot water (≈ 120°F) and dumped it out (probably a little too early, about 30 mins) before adding the strike water, which was 10.5 gallons of 185°F, campden-tablet treated, filtered water. I overshot the strike temp on purpose, and we did have to add some ice to cool it down to 160°F.
I mashed in the the grist just a little early cause I didn't know it would hold the temp so well - at 163°F, putting my mash at 151°F. We assumed it would drop to 149°F but it never did! Stayed at 151°F for the whole hour. Awesome, except I wished we had waited until it was exactly 160°F so it would've been at 149°F but 151 is fine.

After vorlaufing a few gallons of water, we iodine/starch tested a sample. No black, all converted! We collected ≈5 gallons and then added ≈3 gallons of sparge water (180°F), let it sit 10 mins but it still looked too thick, so I added the rest of it for 1 batch sparge. It worked well, we hit 1.076, which was way higher than the predicted 1.055. This was based on a Refractometer Brix Reading of 18.5 @ 145°F.
Side question: does the refractometer need to be adjusted according to the temp?

The boil was kind of rough. It was cold outside and it wouldn't stay rolling unless we put a lid on top of the kettle, allowing just a little steam to escape, not to mention the fact that it took a good hour to get it to boil. Yeesh.

Moving to the fermenters was kind of rough, too - we used a funnel with a filter at first but we could only pour so much before it got clogged with hops. So, we just poured it the two carboys, hops and all. So much foaming when we poured that it was coming out of the top! Then added the yeast, I'm eager to see how they're doing right now when I go home for lunch...

Thanks for all the help guys, I think this brew might actually turn out great! I'm gonna let it sit for 3 weeks, then possibly dry hop for 2 or 3 more in a secondary, then let it sit in my corny keg for another 2 or 3 weeks before I force carbonate.

Again, does anyone know if you need to calibrate a Refractometer based on the temp of the wort?
 
1) Side question: does the refractometer need to be adjusted according to the temp?

2) The boil was kind of rough. It was cold outside and it wouldn't stay rolling unless we put a lid on top of the kettle, allowing just a little steam to escape, not to mention the fact that it took a good hour to get it to boil. Yeesh.

3) Moving to the fermenters was kind of rough, too - we used a funnel with a filter at first but we could only pour so much before it got clogged with hops. So, we just poured it the two carboys, hops and all. So much foaming when we poured that it was coming out of the top! Then added the yeast, I'm eager to see how they're doing right now when I go home for lunch...

4) Thanks for all the help guys, I think this brew might actually turn out great! I'm gonna let it sit for 3 weeks, then possibly dry hop for 2 or 3 more in a secondary, then let it sit in my corny keg for another 2 or 3 weeks before I force carbonate.

1) Refractometers dont need to be adjusted for temp however they are somewhat sensitive. If you calibrate it at room temp with distilled water it should read 0 brix. If i were to then dip it into boiling distiled water, lets say it would be around .5 brix. There is a slight difference but its close enough to verify the numbers. I tend to always use a hydrometer with a 60 degree sample to double check my numbers. The refractometer is great for checking first and second runnings and such.

2) I would highly suggest getting a better burner since evaporation is key. Dimethyl sulfide is the rotten egg smell and all the precursors reside in grain. This is why a 90 minute boil is key on many pilsner beers because pils malt has more than 2 row per se. Next time dont cover and just get as good of a boil as possible. Walmart sells turkey friers for cheap which is enough to boil a 10 gal batch. If you do alot of them get a burner which has more btu's.

3) I never really worry about sediment. there are 2 different methods i employ. The first is to just drain into the carboy and let the gunk sink out. Its not desirable but if your worried, you can let it settle out in carboy one and then rack into a second leaving the trub behind. Personally, i whirlpool by stirring the keggle in a circular motion and let it settke fir 10-15 minutes covered... then take liquid from the edge. You will have a cone of trub and if you draw from the edge of the cone you will get a very clear wort. This is what i prefer.

4) Why are you waiting to force carbinate? Normally i would ferment primary for 3 in this case, then add hops for however long, keg and carbinate starting imediatly at serving preasure for a week and it should be ready. if you age then for a few weeks it should be excellent.
 
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