Kettle fired up!!

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Snafu

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Ok the brew day has started. AG Irish Red. Wish me luck, updates to follow. :rockin:
 
ok nailed the protein rest (122) and the saccrification rest 150ish, heating up sparge water now.
 
yep, taking pics. Just added first round of hops, 1oz fuggles, ad a bit of a problem during the sparge, tube came off during all te stirring, but got that fixed. pre-boil gravity ended up .041 I was aiming for .051 so I could have done better wit the sparge but I'll see where I ended up with final gravity.
 
yep, taking pics. Just added first round of hops, 1oz fuggles, ad a bit of a problem during the sparge, tube came off during all te stirring, but got that fixed. pre-boil gravity ended up .041 I was aiming for .051 so I could have done better wit the sparge but I'll see where I ended up with final gravity.

Remember, efficiency is a combination of mash and lauter eff. Both can have a profound affect on your eff. overall. It may not be the lauter.

The style calls for an OG of 1.044 to 1.060, so you will be in style.
 
ok, actual OG ended up at .044, not exactly where I wanted but it willdo for the first AG. Here are a few photos of the setup:
setup.jpg


And another angle
setup1.jpg


Heres the first rest, nailed it!
rest.jpg
 
heres the sparge
sparge.jpg


tried to fix the rotation, I hope it came out right.

Heres a shot of the foamy boil
boil.jpg
 
heres the chiller in action
chill.jpg


This one is 6 hours after pitching yeast. I really need to get a blow off tube!
morning.jpg
 
All in all I'm pretty happy with the process thus far. Estimated pre boil was .051 I came in at .040 Estimated OG was .057 I came in with .044 (barely made it in style). My BE sucked, I think it was 58%. I will get better with more AG's under my belt. I'll let ya know where the FG comes in later.

I was using a 5gal SS false bottom in the bottom of my 10gal cooler, LHBS warned me to be careful not to hit it or the tube may come off, sure enough it did. Had to pour off the mash, reattach the tube, refill and start the fly sparge. I think that may be where I lost abit of my efficiency. I think the temps may have dropped. I had to change out the air lock this morning, it was nasty! I had a clean one ready to go as I was expecting a fast ferment. I did up a starter for this batch (also a first) and was showing signs within hours.
 
Where was your grain crushed? What was your water:grain ratio?

I agree, the snafu with the false bottom probably cost you some points, but I am not sure how many, since your mash was already complete.

Yah, I know about the mashout and grain bed temp. BUT, I used to never mash out and my grain bed was 150F MAX and I still got 78% eff. So I beleive that you can lose a few points with a low grain bed temp during the sparge, but not say 20 points.
 
It is just a guess but your crush looks a bit too coarse, if you have your own crusher you may want to consider tightening down the clearance.
 
Is that a glass of water I see in the second pic??? Replace that with a nice homebrew and I'm sure your efficiency will jump 20 points!
 
Congrats on your first AG! Feels good doesn't it?

I can't really tell from the picture, but are you fly sparging?

Ayup, I fly sparge

Where was your grain crushed? What was your water:grain ratio?

I agree, the snafu with the false bottom probably cost you some points, but I am not sure how many, since your mash was already complete.

Yah, I know about the mashout and grain bed temp. BUT, I used to never mash out and my grain bed was 150F MAX and I still got 78% eff. So I beleive that you can lose a few points with a low grain bed temp during the sparge, but not say 20 points.

12.75 lbs of grain. 2.8gal of water for protein rest. Added 2.5gal for saccrification rest. 2.25gal for mash out. And sparged with another 2.1gal's factoring in dead space, boil off and grain absobtion I came out with a perfect 5.50 gal's of finished wort.

It is just a guess but your crush looks a bit too coarse, if you have your own crusher you may want to consider tightening down the clearance.

I was thinking the same thing, its a new Barley Crusher, factory set, but I may tighten it up a little.

Is that a glass of water I see in the second pic??? Replace that with a nice homebrew and I'm sure your efficiency will jump 20 points!

Yeah, its water. about 10 glasses of it during the day. But, I did enjoy a few of my Paulaner Hefeweizen's also. :mug:
 
I was thinking the same thing, its a new Barley Crusher, factory set, but I may tighten it up a little.

I've been getting my grain crushed from Brewmaster's Warehouse (they use the BC w/ factory settings I believe), and I consistently get 74-78%. It seems to be about the same for others, so blaming the crush wouldn't be the first place I'd look...especially if you're fly sparging. I'd take a look at your lauter efficiency assuming everything else is in check.
 
BMW has an excellent crush. When I bought my mill I tightened it up to .035"
 
I am getting 82% at .035" on the BC

I have never used the BMW crush, but they get rave reviews from people that have changed NOTHING except that they started to order thier crushed malt from BMW as opposed to other stores.

FWIW, I know a couple LHBS owners, and they say that they dont make money on malt, but they do on hops, equipment, cleaners etc. So I dunno why any store would sell anyone a crappy crush, but they certainly do.

I used to get uncrushed kernels in my orders from a certain store.
 
Ok, yesterday (3 days) in the primary and the ferment has all but stopped. Is this normal with using a starter or the fact its AG? For the first 2 days it looked like boiling water in there, now I'm only getting a bubble every now and then. It has a nice sized yeast cake in the bottom also. Should I go ahead and rack to the secondary? Take a gravity reading? I'm used to seeing good action alot longer than this. Oh and the temp stayed a little high the first 24hrs (74ish) but since then its been 68-70.
 
Ok, yesterday (3 days) in the primary and the ferment has all but stopped. Is this normal with using a starter or the fact its AG? For the first 2 days it looked like boiling water in there, now I'm only getting a bubble every now and then. It has a nice sized yeast cake in the bottom also. Should I go ahead and rack to the secondary? Take a gravity reading? I'm used to seeing good action alot longer than this. Oh and the temp stayed a little high the first 24hrs (74ish) but since then its been 68-70.

It is NOT uncommon for the ferment to drop to a crawl after 3 days. It is still fermenting, but not as vigorously. No problems, you are fine, many of my brews do this after about three days.
 
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