1st AG - Advice

I'm hoping to brew Biermuncher's Centennial Blonde saturday for my first AG. I have a few questions if you have a few minutest to give some advice.

1. Should I up the base grains and expect to get a lower efficiency than 70% the recipe calls for?

2. I'm expecting i'm not going to be able to get both centennial AND cascade hops from my lhbs...can i substitute any hop in the general AA% to get the taste as close as possible or are there specific hops I should look for as a substitute?

3. If I have a choice of a good substitute for leaf hops and pellet hops does it really make a difference if I choose either one? Do i need to adjust quantity for leaf as opposed to pellet hops?

4. I'm looking to get 5.2 ph stabilizer at my lhbs. I don't know my water makeup and from what i've read i don't see any negatives for using it. Do you dump it in the mash after dough in or in the strike water before dough in? Does it matter when you add it?

I just finished my flyguy 10 gal mash tun conversion (Thanks Flyguy!) and can't wait to jump into AG brewing...any advice you can give will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Mike

vthokie98 said:

2. I'm expecting i'm not going to be able to get both centennial AND cascade hops from my lhbs...can i substitute any hop in the general AA% to get the taste as close as possible or are there specific hops I should look for as a substitute?

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Centennial is citrusy and piney. Cascades are citrusy with strong grapefruit flavor. Ahtanum, Amarillo, and Summit are also citrusy with varying degrees of grapefruit/tangerine flavor and aroma. I'm not a fan of piney hops so I don't use Centennial myself. Maybe others can suggest a suitable replacement "piney" hop if you want that effect.

4. I'm looking to get 5.2 ph stabilizer at my lhbs. I don't know my water makeup and from what i've read i don't see any negatives for using it. Do you dump it in the mash after dough in or in the strike water before dough in? Does it matter when you add it?

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Stir it into the strike water before doughing in. It'll turn your water cloudy... don't worry. Get some pH strips at your LHBS. After 5 minutes (to allow time for gelatanization) take a pH measurement. You want to be close to 5.2. 5.4 is fine. If your water is exceptionally hard with a lot of buffering power like mine, you may need to add gypsum or halite with the 5.2 to get the pH down to 5.2. 5.2 stabilizer is a buffer not a miracle. If your water is good, which it is for most people, the 5.2 alone will do the trick and it will really help you get good mash efficiency (along with a good crush of your grain).

If you use 5.2 and your grain is properly crushed, you should have no trouble getting 70% efficiency even with a poorly executed batch sparge. It won't hurt to plan for 60-65%, though, if you end up over your OG you can always top off with extra water! OTOH it's hard to go the other way

Best wishes.

1. No you should probably be able to get 70% on a light beer like this, even for your first time.

2. Use this to find a good replacement http://byo.com/referenceguide/hops/

Centennial and cascade are good substitutions for each other, and amarillo and columbus are good as well. Both are excellent hops.

3. No and no.

4. Never used it.

Good luck, and have fun!

Thanks for the quick responses...HBT rocks!!!...I've been lurking on here for quite a while and feel like this site has prepared me as much as i guess I can be prepared to go AG...thanks to all and i plan to start another thread to summarize my first AG experience.

You might want to have a little DME on hand just in case you need to bump up your OG a little though. I bet you'll be fine without it though.

quixotic said:

You might want to have a little DME on hand just in case you need to bump up your OG a little though. I bet you'll be fine without it though.

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so you take your OG after the boil, how do you add extra dme? and how much should you add for say 0.01 point per 5 gal ?

Thanks for the suggestion...I have extra light DME on my shopping list...

FEARDIZ...of course i haven't done an AG brew but from my readings on this forum I believe the gravity before and after the boil should be the same so if you are low on your gravity before you boil you should add a little DME before you boil to get you to the desired gravity...please correct me if i'm wrong as this is what i plan to do on saturday if i come up short.

Thanks everyone

Mike

vthokie98 said:

Thanks for the suggestion...I have extra light DME on my shopping list...

FEARDIZ...of course i haven't done an AG brew but from my readings on this forum I believe the gravity before and after the boil should be the same so if you are low on your gravity before you boil you should add a little DME before you boil to get you to the desired gravity...please correct me if i'm wrong as this is what i plan to do on saturday if i come up short.

Thanks everyone

Mike

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The gravity will go up as you boil. The volume will go down, and the concentration of sugar goes up. Using brewing software you can use the pre-boil gravity to estimate the post-boil gravity, if you know or can estimate your boil-off rate.

FEARDIZ said:

so you take your OG after the boil, how do you add extra dme? and how much should you add for say 0.01 point per 5 gal ?

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You would boil it with as little water as possible, cool it, and add it. DME is 44 points per pound per gallon. So, five gallons of water and five pounds of DME will yield 1.044 wort. If you need to raise it by say 5 points, I believe you multiply that by 5 for the number of gallons and then divide by 44 to get the amount to add.

I've also heard people say 1/2 pound will add 4 points which seems to mesh well with my formula.

ajwillys said:

You would boil it with as little water as possible, cool it, and add it. DME is 44 points per pound per gallon. So, five gallons of water and five pounds of DME will yield 1.044 wort. If you need to raise it by say 5 points, I believe you multiply that by 5 for the number of gallons and then divide by 44 to get the amount to add.

I've also heard people say 1/2 pound will add 4 points which seems to mesh well with my formula.

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boil for 10-15 minutes or so?

You would add the DME before the boil, so it would be in there for the full 60min. Like findthefish wrote, you can estimate your OG by taking a SG reading before you boil and plugging it into a software like Beersmith.

quixotic said:

You would add the DME before the boil, so it would be in there for the full 60min. Like findthefish wrote, you can estimate your OG by taking a SG reading before you boil and plugging it into a software like Beersmith.

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True, but is there any reason you couldn't do this after the boil if your SG was off? I've never heard of any reason to boil DME any longer than the 10-15 minutes necessary to sanitize.

You could add it in at the last 15 min instead, I guess.
Personally, I would prefer to add it in earlier, so that everything is already in together (1 hot break) before you add your hops. Plus, I put my wort chiller in the pot during the last 15 min of boil to sterilize it, and it would be a pain to have to mix the DME with the chiller in the pot.

Yes, just long enough to sanitize it. It would be similar to late extract addition on extract brewing. You don't have to boil with the wort. Just boil it in a seperate pot if you miss to gravity with as little water as you can.

Makes sense...Brewsmith is also on my shopping list...or just going to go download it tonight so i can play with it and become familiar with the software so i'm not running around with my head cutoff on saturday....LOL...thanks for all the input.

Have fun! Let us know how things went.:rockin:

I woundn't suggest using 5.2 stablizer until you know you have a problem. Are you planning to batch sparge? Make sure you sparge with 180F water.

Bobby_M said:

I woundn't suggest using 5.2 stablizer until you know you have a problem. Are you planning to batch sparge? Make sure you sparge with 180F water.

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I am planning to batch sparge with 2 equal portions...I read your post on batch sparging and it helped me understand the whole process very much...Any reason you suggest to wait to use the 5.2?...i was under the impression that 5.2 has more pros than cons and not knowing the water makeup of my condo it would be worth a try. Any information you can hook me up with is greatly appreciated.

I think using 5.2 without knowing you have a problem is like wearing a cup all day in case you get kicked in the nuts.

LOL...Nice analogy...without knowing the makeup of my water what would be the indication that i have a problem...sorry...I'm a complete noobie to AG and maybe have read too much for my own good before taking the plunge...thanks for the information and advice.

Just brewed this last Saturday.
1- I would not do it and just have some DME/LME if needed. Starting out, stick to the recipe, change it after brewing it twice if you feel the need.
2- I used Amarillo and Willamette, I did a little amount of hop changes because my taste requires higher IBU's, see below for what I did. Note it is still sitting in primary so I have no idea how it will turn out. See answer number 1.
3 - No choice, my LHBS only carries pellets.
Use http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/recipe.html
to adjust hops, AAU and final IBU's. I love that site, or you could use brewing software.
4 - Don't know, LHBS does not carry it, but from videos I have seen it is added in during the grain mix.
5 - Adjusting the LME/DME is pretty easy using the above site, just adjust your efficiency down or up to match were you are, and then add in the #lbs of the DME to see where you want to be. Note its OG, not pre-boil SG, so if you need to extend you boil, your also extending the hop boil times. Best to do the basic adjustments before boiling.
Best of luck, get a good handle on your volumes - at least 6 gals going into the boil, take lots of notes for later reference and have fun.



DME has already been processed, IE it does not have a lot of proteins that need separation via a boil.


0.25 oz Amarillo [8.2%] 70 min
0.25 oz Amarillo [8.2%] 60 min
0.25 oz Amarillo [8.2%] 35 min
0.25 oz Willamette [4.8%] 20 min
0.25 oz Willamette [4.8%] 5 min

vthokie98 said:

LOL...Nice analogy...without knowing the makeup of my water what would be the indication that i have a problem...sorry...I'm a complete noobie to AG and maybe have read too much for my own good before taking the plunge...thanks for the information and advice.

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This was my biggest problem as well! Once you do it however, you will realize, Holy crap that was a mess, but not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be! Plus, now I know what to do and next time will be much better. But on the bright side, I MADE BEER! It might not win an award, but it will taste darn fine.

Bobby_M said:

I think using 5.2 without knowing you have a problem is like wearing a cup all day in case you get kicked in the nuts.

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I'd rather be kicked in the nuts than chance jacking up my first beer because of funky water. If you have it why not use it? There are so many variables that can affect a first time AG brew, why not throw in a tablespoon at mash in? It's just one less thing that can go wrong. You can always have your water tested later, mabey you need it, mabey you don't.

OK...thanks everyone for the information and advice...i made the trip to the lhbs yesterday and got everything i needed...i bought the 5.2 stabilizer but will be a gametime decision i guess whether i use it or not. i'll definitely give an update of my first AG Brewday...i plan on taking pics but we'll see how it goes...thanks again.

Mike

If you have it go ahead and use it. I just don't like fixing problems that may not exist. I guess it's a philosophical preference. If you make great beers, you'll end up continuing to use 5.2 forever. Did you need it? Who knows, but why stop now?