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ah I see fuzzy, it's difficult to do this online at work without beersmith running in front of me to reference. I thought you were talking about something I was unfamiliar with. I also do what it sounds like you do, or something similar. I look at the estimated preboil volume and then I make sure that I collect that exact amount. so in your picture above I would collect 1.79 gallons. if there was still more runnings at that point I simply turn off the valve and stop. that way I know that my volume is always correct and only have to worry about the gravity part of the equation.
 
Yea I was wondering what was up when you already know the system losses. One thing I am still confused on and it is a stupid question; in BS what did you enter for the batch size?

The BS mobile app has gotten better however if there is any entry error's it is easier to find where and what on the desktop.
 
i got the 35% efficiency by simply adjusting the tot. efficiency number on the top of beersmith downward until i got 1.020 (what i actually got) for estimated preboil gravity on the mash page. that turned out to be 35% tot. efficiency.

That's an accurate number. Once you saw the correct gravity, the efficiency number was correct.

mash eff here happened by blind luck to be the same as my usual tot. efficiency. is this correct?

Correct. coincidence. That's a red herring that's clouding the concept for you. In this case the mash efficiency of 69% is correct.

the big question in my mind still is why did this happen? other than missing on my mash temp nothing out of the ordinary happened here to account for why i would only get a 35% total efficiency?

also i don't understand this: "When you raise the loss to trub, BS keeps the OG constant and simply raises the mash efficiency to compensate.

Again, you didn't make a brewing mistake. You made a data mistake.

Another way of looking at this is that the less volume you have in relation to the inevitable loss, the less efficiency you have. In this case, no matter what the gravity is, you had about a 50/50 volume split between batch and trub.
 
so once again, lets see if this sunk in to my rather dense skull here. I guess this means that I ALWAYS have this trub loss. in a larger batch, say 5 gallons, it would not be as noticeable because it's a smaller percentage and although I may not hit my gravities exactly it will be close enough. but as batches get smaller, it becomes a larger percentage and more noticeable and when I hit a one gallon batch it became a huge deal. yes?

if so, the same two questions as always. doesn't beersmith account for this? I guess you indirectly answered this earlier as you said it does but not by altering gravity but by changing your mash eff. so skip question number one.
number two though: how do I fix this, compensate for this? I can't be forever 25 points short on a one gallon batch? don't do small batches? dump in huge amounts of dme to compensate every time? throw away my kinda expensive kettle and get one with less dead space? none of these sounds too good to me, I am hoping you have a trick up your sleeve? oh and btw as always, thanx to you brewfun and everybody for the help. I hope in my own stupid way that someone else is gleaming some knowledge from this too.
 
I guess this means that I ALWAYS have this trub loss.

No guess. It does because you have measured it. It exists.

in a larger batch, say 5 gallons, it would not be as noticeable because it's a smaller percentage and although I may not hit my gravities exactly it will be close enough. but as batches get smaller, it becomes a larger percentage and more noticeable and when I hit a one gallon batch it became a huge deal. yes?

YES!!! The higher the percentage of trub vs. the yield, the lower the brewhouse efficiency.

if so, the same two questions as always. doesn't beersmith account for this?

Yes, but counter intuitively. It's always about sugar concentration in the fermenter. In BS, if you add volume to the batch size, BS lowers the gravity. If you add trub loss, BS increases the mash efficiency.

Since BHE is naming the percentage of sugar that makes it into the fermenter, the remainder MUST be in the trub loss. Therefore, the only way you'd get that amount of sugar into the loss AND the batch volume is to have better mash efficiency.

number two though: how do I fix this, compensate for this?

Brewing is full of choices. Here are just a few.

1) Simply accept the fact that to have that amount of trub loss is to have low efficiency. Thus, just make a profile with 35% BHE.

2) Unless it really affects your core values ...or your manhood... you need a smaller pot. It's cool. Every guy who has a 4x4 truck has at least one day a year he'd like to have a motorcycle. You need options to get the most out of life... and beer.

3) Leave the damn computer off and just make beer. You know how.
 
WOOO HOOO JACKPOT!!!! i was working a double shift and saw this post at like two in the morning. i went to bed with a smile on my face. NOW i see the light. i actually use a lot of different batch sizes on a regular basis - 2 gallon, 3 gallon, 5 gallon and now 1 gallon. i haven't really thought about my efficiency since i first started all grain and originally calculated it, i just locked in my efficiency number and never thought about it again. i will start keeping track of it for the various size brews and make adjustments for 1 gallon batches, 2 gallon, etc. i also have a smaller size pot that i will start using for small batches to help with this problem. so maybe this will be of use to somebody else out there - in a small batch thread i'm sure i'm not the only one who noticed there efficiencies were screwy with the smaller volumes - re-check your efficiencies! brewfun you are truly THE MAN, i have really learned something here although i feel like i had to climb a mountain to get there.
 
Thanks for your for your post. I am new to Brew Smith and to home brewing and am having trouble calculating pre-boil volume and BHE for one gallon batches. This has given me a much better understanding of the math involved and how to improve my brew results.
 
Aw yeah... Wife decided to leave the house for 3 or 4 hours.. I told her that upon coming back home, she may smell "a little wet grain in the air". >:)

Just mashed in 7 pounds of grain for a 2.25 gallon Baltic Porter recipe.. This one should warm the tummy ;)
 
Nice! Baltic Porter's getting brewed!

Finally racked my Damphbier off to a keg while the kids watched Planes. While I was at it I prepped the last two kegs so that kegging day goes smooth for the next couple batches.

Gotta say, I am starting to appreciate why folks with larger batches love kegging.

Next up, Dale's Pale Clone and then it's on to pumpkin beers!
:rockin:
 
Teaser pic... Baltic Porter boiling down slowly... Due to the fact that I squeezed the bejeezus out of the grain bag before and after the dunk sparge, I have a little extra boiling to do... going to be at least 90 minutes on the heat to get down to my desired volume.

baltic.jpg
 
I’m coming off a two year break from brewing and I have some old ingredients and some old questions like, what does beer made from Fleischmann's Rapid Rise Yeast taste like and how old can old hops be? You know, just the normal homebrew experiments. That’s where the beauty of one gallon brewing comes in play.
The Fleischmann's Rapid Rise Yeast was WILD!
Ingredients

1 lbs DME Golden Light (Briess) (4.0 SRM) Dry Extract 1 100.0 %
0.25 oz Cascade really old pellets [5.50 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 2 20.8 IBUs
1.0 pkg bread yeast ( Fleischmann’s ) [124.21 ml] Yeast 3 -

Rapid Rise is an understatement - The Fleischmann’s took off like a rocket! It was bubbling in an hour and by the next morning there were bubbles of yeast into my airlock and in 24 hours it was done. The beer fermented for 2 weeks before bottling. It cleared up slowly but nicely in 2 weeks. Half I bottled and the other half I force carbonated. I over carbonated a bit, but it has a really interesting taste that reminds me of a Belgian Ale with fruity flavors. I’m enjoying it.
I saved the yeast and put it on some Wal-Mart apple juice and yeast nutrient. This should be fun. It is bubbling, but not going crazy like from the packet.
Anyone know what kind of yeast or yeasts is in the Fleischmann’s?
 
Does anyone know how much is this fermentor capacity? Seems like an Erlenmeyer. I just received the picture but, it's deffinitely too little fermenting. I am also a 1 Gallon brewer, but this seems to be too little (even for me)! Why would someone do this?

ImageUploadedByHome Brew1409537777.293703.jpg
 
Does anyone know how much is this fermentor capacity? Seems like an Erlenmeyer. I just received the picture but, it's deffinitely too little fermenting. I am also a 1 Gallon brewer, but this seems to be too little (even for me)! Why would someone do this?

View attachment 221266

Very odd unless they are experimenting with a few things and don't wanna mess up a whole batch
 
Thoughts on a 1 gallon clone of dogfish head world wide stout clone here is what I have so far

ondering if I'm on the right track here.

rye---1.6oz
roasted Barley----1.6oz
flaked Barley-16 oz
Special B---1.6 oz
Cara Munich malt---1.6oz
Brew above at 155 degrees for 60 minutes
then add:
Extra Dark DME 38.4 oz
Brown Belgian Candi Sugar 6.4oz
1 tblspoons Black Treacle
Columbus Hops 0.05 oz
Magnum Hops 0.05 oz

Boil X 60 minutes, then add
Amarillo Hops 0.04 oz
1 teaspoon Saffron

Boil x 10 minutes, then cool to 80 degrees, put in fermenter

pitch in starter of London Ale yeast

Keep in primary for about 10 days, move to secondary......add 1.14g of Champagne yeast...Dry hop daily with 0.02 oz Amarillo hops in secondary for 16 days . continue in secondary until done. Bottle with fizz drops for priming.

let condition for 3 months
 
two things, if you're actually going after a wws clone. don't add saffron. yes i read that thread, no i don't know why there is saffron in it and the OP didn't know why either. and two you will never get close to a 20+ abv beer with your method. you would need frequent sugar additions, read the bertus brewery blog on dfh120 cloning.
 
so a few posts ago I mentioned that I was having a hard time holding temps in my igloo 5 gallon mash tun on 1 gallon batches. had time to do a few experiments and thought I would post what I found. I used 2 gal of water heated to 150F, an appropriate mash temp. this represents a "torture test" for my mash tun as 2 gallons is probably smaller than any volume I will actually have, and I figure pure water will lose heat faster than a thicker mash will. I used a one hour mash. results:

-heat loss in one hour (no prep): 7F
-preheat tun with 1 gal h20 at 170F for 15 min, then dump immediately before adding test h20 - heat loss in one hour: 6F
-same as above but increase preheat to 2 gal for 30 min: 5F
-same as above but filling dead space above test water with garbage bag filled with Styrofoam peanuts: 4F

for me, the sweet spot seems to be the 5F loss one. seems a little high I know, but as I said I am hoping that with more volume in an actual mash and thicker mash that that will drop a degree or two. btw I tried the same experiment in my 10 gal igloo MT and it dropped in one hour into the 130's :(
 
so a few posts ago I mentioned that I was having a hard time holding temps in my igloo 5 gallon mash tun on 1 gallon batches. had time to do a few experiments and thought I would post what I found. I used 2 gal of water heated to 150F, an appropriate mash temp. this represents a "torture test" for my mash tun as 2 gallons is probably smaller than any volume I will actually have, and I figure pure water will lose heat faster than a thicker mash will. I used a one hour mash. results:



-heat loss in one hour (no prep): 7F

-preheat tun with 1 gal h20 at 170F for 15 min, then dump immediately before adding test h20 - heat loss in one hour: 6F

-same as above but increase preheat to 2 gal for 30 min: 5F

-same as above but filling dead space above test water with garbage bag filled with Styrofoam peanuts: 4F



for me, the sweet spot seems to be the 5F loss one. seems a little high I know, but as I said I am hoping that with more volume in an actual mash and thicker mash that that will drop a degree or two. btw I tried the same experiment in my 10 gal igloo MT and it dropped in one hour into the 130's :(


Airspace there is a big factor in what's allowing those drops


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Exactly.

At the bare minimum you should place a piece of tin foil over the top of the mash and insulate it from the deadspace in the cooler.

A better way would be to put a piece of rigid foam insulation in something like a large, plastic foodsafe bag and place that over the mash.

I've used the foil to good effect in all my brews, temp drop is about 2-3deg which is fine for me.
 
Exactly.

At the bare minimum you should place a piece of tin foil over the top of the mash and insulate it from the deadspace in the cooler.

A better way would be to put a piece of rigid foam insulation in something like a large, plastic foodsafe bag and place that over the mash.

I've used the foil to good effect in all my brews, temp drop is about 2-3deg which is fine for me.

Actually the foam sounds like a great idea. Take some and cut it to shape to fill the headspace. Maybe stack multiple layers and then place if in the food grade bag. Since you do multiple different batch sizes in the same mash tun, you would want a non permanent method of attaching the layers. Maybe long twist ties threaded through holes in the foam.



Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
as you can see above, i didnt see a big drop when i plugged up the airspace, only 1F which wasnt really worth the extra trouble to me. the biggest gain was through preheating that i saw. i would bet that if i was using real mash instead of water at slightly bigger volumes that our numbers will be similar. the tin foil is easy protection though, i will try it.
 
as you can see above, i didnt see a big drop when i plugged up the airspace, only 1F which wasnt really worth the extra trouble to me. the biggest gain was through preheating that i saw. i would bet that if i was using real mash instead of water at slightly bigger volumes that our numbers will be similar. the tin foil is easy protection though, i will try it.


What about raising the preheat temp?
 
Hello all, I got mixed results searching, so I thought I'd just ask.
I am enjoying small batch brewing. All extract currently. I am still fiddling around with hops trying to expand my pallet.

Question is, if I am only steeping grains, do I need to be specific with the crush? I would love to buy a pound each of a dozen differnt things to have on hand and just do a quick zip in a coffee grinder as needed. I can't justify a grain mill yet, and would like to avoid constant trips to my LHBS to get small 2-3oz grain bills. I want to keep freshness as high as possible.

Granted, more trips to the store gives more chances to ask questions. I would buy the grains locally, so I am still supporting my local business.
 
eric 170F has actually bubbled up rhe plastic on my cooler so i dont want to go any hotter
 
Hello all, I got mixed results searching, so I thought I'd just ask.
I am enjoying small batch brewing. All extract currently. I am still fiddling around with hops trying to expand my pallet.

Question is, if I am only steeping grains, do I need to be specific with the crush? I would love to buy a pound each of a dozen differnt things to have on hand and just do a quick zip in a coffee grinder as needed. I can't justify a grain mill yet, and would like to avoid constant trips to my LHBS to get small 2-3oz grain bills. I want to keep freshness as high as possible.

Granted, more trips to the store gives more chances to ask questions. I would buy the grains locally, so I am still supporting my local business.

A grain mill is much cheaper than you'd expect. I bought a Corona Mill from Discount Tommy for less than $30 shipped. I put another dollar's worth of washers and a better wingnut and now I have a mill that I trust. I brew BIAB method, and if I crush too much, my paint strainer bag keeps most of the particulates out of the fermenter.

I bet you have most of the gear already, you could easily make the switch into partial mash or all-grain pretty easily.
 
I've heard bad(ish) things about the coffee grinder for grains, something about it going TOO fine, and you end up with flour in short order.

A slightly better option is either a blender or a foodprocessor pulsed until you get the "crush" you want. The issue with this is that's not really a crush - it's a slice, and as such you're going to cut the hulls and everything rather than smash the grain so that it can get that conversion going.

If it were me and I was desperate to brew (oh who am I kidding, I'm always desperate to brew something...), I'd hit up the food processor a few times to get things chunked up, then put it in a ziplock and break out a rolling pin to really make sure everything was crushed up.

That would work -

The only major issue I can see is that you'll have no consistency in crush rate. Without consistency, you won't be able to plan your extraction amount when designing recipes. Not a huge deal if you always keep some DME around to boost as required, but something to think about.

Good luck!
 
A grain mill is much cheaper than you'd expect. I bought a Corona Mill from Discount Tommy for less than $30 shipped. I put another dollar's worth of washers and a better wingnut and now I have a mill that I trust. I brew BIAB method, and if I crush too much, my paint strainer bag keeps most of the particulates out of the fermenter.

I bet you have most of the gear already, you could easily make the switch into partial mash or all-grain pretty easily.

I have seen that mill before but haven't talked to anyone whose actually used it. I'll go that way I think. Consistency is a huge deal, looks more accurate then counting 5 blips on a food processor. I'll definitely be trying BIAB before long.

Thanks for commenting.
 
Hi folks -- two questions about scaling and over-hopping.

I brewed BM's centennial ale yesterday (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/centennial-blonde-simple-4-all-grain-5-10-gall-42841/).
I scaled the recipe in Beersmith from 5Gal to 1. It scaled the hops down to 0.04oz. When I brewed it, I mistakenly put in 0.4oz.

Question 1: what is gonna happen to the beer? Is it just gonna be super bitter? Beersmith recalculated the IBUs to over 200.

Question 2: are you able to actually measure 0.04oz? Even converting to grams, how do you measure 1.123g?

Any help would be great.
Cheers
-MrG.
 
I brewed this up yesterday for giggles and to use up some grain and hops open in my fridge (really need to get a mini fridge for ingredients, my grain bags are taking up enough space it's hard to fit in any food). :p

Rye Pale w/ Coriander

1.85lbs Marris Otter
125g cararye
125g rye flakes

Mashed w/ 3 quarts 60m at 154-ish (my electric stove isn't the greatest for maintaining temp)

Boil w/ 4 quarts 60m

8g Zythos @ 60
8g Zythos @ 15
1/2 tsp crushed coriander at 10
4g Amarillo @ 5
Half packet Windsor re-hydrated before pitching

Mucked up the timing on the Amarillo, tossed it in at 3 minutes not 5 as I was distracted. Bubbling nicely this morning when I checked.

A grain mill is much cheaper than you'd expect. I bought a Corona Mill from Discount Tommy for less than $30 shipped.

I'll look into that and keep the washers in mind, the mill at my LHBS is about $65 even before shipping :(

Hi folks -- two questions about scaling and over-hopping.

I brewed BM's centennial ale yesterday (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/centennial-blonde-simple-4-all-grain-5-10-gall-42841/).
I scaled the recipe in Beersmith from 5Gal to 1. It scaled the hops down to 0.04oz. When I brewed it, I mistakenly put in 0.4oz.

Question 1: what is gonna happen to the beer? Is it just gonna be super bitter? Beersmith recalculated the IBUs to over 200.

Question 2: are you able to actually measure 0.04oz? Even converting to grams, how do you measure 1.123g?

Any help would be great.
Cheers
-MrG.

Tastebuds Talking: Sounds like my kind of mistake :rockin:

Constructively: I have no idea :eek: , your blonde is going to have some crazy bite

Measurement wise you'd have to have a hell of an accurate scale. Most regular kitchen scales only go to a single decimal (if that) from what I've seen unless someone here can recommend one that goes a few dots. My little slim Starfrit glass panel scale doesn't even do decimals, lowest it goes I think is 1gram.
 
Hi folks -- two questions about scaling and over-hopping.

I brewed BM's centennial ale yesterday (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/centennial-blonde-simple-4-all-grain-5-10-gall-42841/).
I scaled the recipe in Beersmith from 5Gal to 1. It scaled the hops down to 0.04oz. When I brewed it, I mistakenly put in 0.4oz.

Question 1: what is gonna happen to the beer? Is it just gonna be super bitter? Beersmith recalculated the IBUs to over 200.

Question 2: are you able to actually measure 0.04oz? Even converting to grams, how do you measure 1.123g?

Any help would be great.
Cheers
-MrG.

I use a scale that measures up to 20g, and I think it's accurate to 3 decimal places. I use that for 1 gallon batches. Not too expensive, and takes the guess work out of it.
 
I have seen that mill before but haven't talked to anyone whose actually used it. I'll go that way I think. Consistency is a huge deal, looks more accurate then counting 5 blips on a food processor. I'll definitely be trying BIAB before long.

Thanks for commenting.

There are plenty of us that use the Corona Mill. Just take time to get it dialed in and do the mods that are recommended.

In case you have not found the famous thread yet...
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-ugly-junk-corona-mill-station-90849/
 
I know a few jewelry supply shops or even a head shop that might have scales that go down to 2 decimal places. As much as I don't want to handle all the pellets, I was just thinking I could take a package of one ounce, and then divide it like this.
- take a full oz..
- divide it in half (0.5)
- divide that half again (.25)
- divide that half again ( .12)
- divide that in three and then I'll have my (0.04oz)

I'll still let the batch ferment as normal, then bottle, etc... I guess it will be an experiment in what happens when you over-hop.
 
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