first brew outside, some issues

Biab. Had a lot of temp loss. Used a calculator and apparently it wasn't very good. Suggested 4 degrees higher than mash temp, tried another one after and suggested 9 degrees above mash, which seems more reasonable.

One, what do people do with the water used during cooling the wort? Toss it, save it?

Using a bayou classic turkey fryer kit from Craig's list 15$!! With kettle

What I've did to use it, open tank valve completely. Open burner valve about 2/3 turn. Light burner. Slowly close flame to acceptable heat. Open regulatory valve until it sounds like a jet plane.

Is there something else/different I should be doing?

Water ended up .5 low, I got 5 instead of 5 5. Suggest a water calc please!

Forgot to take a gravity reading!

Lastly, I didn't put the clamps on and some water got in the wort from the house. Not much, but it did slow the cooling down a bit as I had it barely opened. How much flow do you use?


Any downside to cooling to 80/90, putting it in the chest freezer and letting it cool to pitch temp over night? That last bit takes forever.

http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php. I like this calculator alot but don't know if it's applicable to biab

Biab. Had a lot of temp loss. Used a calculator and apparently it wasn't very good. Suggested 4 degrees higher than mash temp, tried another one after and suggested 9 degrees above mash, which seems more reasonable.



One, what do people do with the water used during cooling the wort? Toss it, save it? use it for cleanup, wash the car, laundry



Using a bayou classic turkey fryer kit from Craig's list 15$!! With kettle



What I've did to use it, open tank valve completely. Open burner valve about 2/3 turn. Light burner. Slowly close flame to acceptable heat. Open regulatory valve until it sounds like a jet plane.



Is there something else/different I should be doing? whatever works to bring it to temp. I only opened mine a little before I lit it but then just brought it up to temp and stirred and checked temps about every 10 minutes.



Water ended up .5 low, I got 5 instead of 5 5. Suggest a water calc please! start with 8.5 gallons for BIAB.



Forgot to take a gravity reading!



Lastly, I didn't put the clamps on and some water got in the wort from the house. Not much, but it did slow the cooling down a bit as I had it barely opened. How much flow do you use? if the water coming out of the chiller is cold to the touch its too fast. You aren't getting any exchange of heat.





Any downside to cooling to 80/90, putting it in the chest freezer and letting it cool to pitch temp over night? That last bit takes forever.



No problems pitching at the correct temp.

I turn my water on full blast through my chiller and fill up a bucket with the hot water. Once it is full the water is usually cool enough to water my flower beds and vegetable garden with it. When those are watered I just leave the hose on some dry spots on the lawn. It makes it easy for me to water because my brewing buddy stirs while I water the lawn and garden. I have a 25 foot hose on the chiller which makes watering easy.

Every system is different. You need to measure and record you boil-off rate. Do the same thing every time for repeatability.

Thanks for the input, I'll record the boil off rate and use the suggested water calculator.

Brewed again today, Yoopers oatmeal stout. Tried a different calculator. Used 4.6 Mash water at 166, mashed in and temp only dropped 6 degrees. Had to add some cold water to get down to 156 but over shot it and got to 153. Added boiling water till I was 156. Sparged with what remained of the 3G of suggested calculator.

Major PIA. Ended up with about 6.5 Gallons , and found out my hydrometer is broken. No idea on OG. It read something like 1.015 or so. Water reads 1.05. Highly diluted sparged water read about 1.05. Mixed a bunch of sugar in some water, it read something like 1.03. I'll go buy another one tomorrow morning and get a reading.

Ended up scooping a gallon into a 1G jug, and covering with sanitized aluminum foil. Hopefully didn't infect with the scooping, used a sanitized Pyrex 2C measuring cup. My autosiphon fell on the ground outside and was filthy.

Tomorrow I'll be measuring my boil off rate, cleaning everything thoroughly, calibrating hydrometer and thermometers, drilling holes into a 3.5G frosting bucket for easier sparging, installing a hook outside to hang my tubing and autosiphon during use, and buying a long freaking vinyl tube to I don't have to worry about the water making a mess during cooling.

Will also be mixing up a batch of cider, can't miss the volume or OG there though!

I would do some practice runs to dial in your process, start to finish. It sounds like your distracted or trying brand new things. Practice boils and utensil placements. Everything should have a place.

Yea that's plan, currently modifying the basic brewing water calculator to account for my system, and adding thermal expansion to calculate volume at mash height and boil height. This and a SS ruler should fix my issues.

Also added mash volume and sparge volume to the spreadsheet.

Anything else you can think of that would be useful?

Slow down a bit and think about the process.

What are you trying to accomplish? Making beer (after you've created the recipe) is not much more than heating a specific volume of water to a predetermined temperature, holding the temperature for a predetermined length of time (with crushed grain in it), getting the grain out of the water, rinsing the grain, boiling the resultant liquid and cooling it down to fermenting temperature. Seriously. Don't over think it. Any time you have a new burner and/or a new kettle (or even a new location), take the time to figure out your boil off rate. This is pretty important. The grain absorption rate is the same for everybody (a pound of grain absorbs a pound of water) as is the loss for trub during fermentation (about 1/11 - 1/10... maybe a bit more if you use a floculant like Whirlfloc).

Of course, there are technical issues that need to be addressed, like how do you maintain the temperature of water in a pot for 60-90 minutes or how do I get a consistent efficiency? You'll read other people's suggestions on how to do these things and find a way that works best for you.

So woke up this morning and thought about the gravity thing for a second and found out the problem. Didn't mash in the 2row.

So that explains two of the issues. 1) Basically no sugar. 2) Large amount of water difference. (7 lb of 2row at 0.08 gal/lb is about .6 gallons. So with taking that into account I still overshot by about .4 gallons. Which would've been alright to live with, probably would've tossed some malto dextrin in there at that point to correct for a thicker body from the dilution.

Round two is underway, picked up 20 ft of tubing to make chilling easier and this way I can just drain the water down the driveway. Picked up another batch of the specialty grains, took the last bit of chocolate pale and roasted barley. Also grabbed some yeast nutrient for the cider I'll be mixing up as well, and some s05 to replace what was wasted yesterday.

Todays agenda. bring 4.G to 165 strike temp, add bag, and grains. Mash in for 1 hour at 156F).

(did this already, ended up 3F lower than intended). Added about a QT of boiling water to correct, using a step mash calculator. Worked this time.

Covered with sleeping bag and two blankets. Did same thing yesterday, lost 2 degrees.

Currently dumping yesterdays attempted wort, and cleaning and sanitizing the buckets.

Drilled holes into the frosting bucket already, worked great. Will drain into this and dump into pot after the mash.

Will be adding chiller at flameout instead, so the boil doesn't get interrupted. Brought 2G of water to boil to use as sparge water. Currently sitting with lid on it at a simmer.

All done, filling pot to leaving took about
5 hours. 30 minutes to mash temp, 1 hour mash, 45 till boil, 60 boil, about 25 till pitch temp 70, 15 to siphon into fermenter, took OG (1.061 4.8gal diluted to 5.7gal @1.052 as per recipe), pitched yeast dry as per S05 fermentis instructions, cleaned up for 30 after pitching the yeast than splash around to aerate and mix yeast in.

I'll try and control heat better and get to temps faster, boil off rate appears to be about 1.2 gal/hr. Partially could be the time required to get to temp.

Any time saving tips? I sparged into two frosting buckets, one with holes drilled into it. I think it'll be better if I can get a space holder between the two buckets as they fit together rather tightly and was a pain ti separate after pressing with the pot lid I used.

The only things that I would change about that process are:

1. put a screen of some sort and a valve on your mash tun, eliminating the need for the Charlie P. buckets
2. Aerate your wort *before* you pitch the yeast. Even though yeasties are single cell organisms, they're smart enough to go where the food is.

I'll probably end up doing that eventually, but for now I think I'll put a handle or something on the drain bucket to keep it apart.

I usually aerate prior via pouring rather than siphoning but I was tired and didn't feel like lifting the bucket up and over. Also the fermentis S05 pdf sheet shows to either rehydrate and pitch directly, or to pitch dry and aerate after 30 minutes. I follow manufacturers suggestions on dry yeast.

You can simplify: After a couple of trials you should get dialed in to strike temperature. I use Beersmith and I am always a degree or two high at first. Just a minute or two of stirring and it is at mash temperature and I close things up. I use a cooler mash tun and only lose a couple of degrees.

After a couple of brews you should also get a better idea of how much boil off you are getting. I get consistently just about 2 gallons in an hour boil. So I need a preboil volume of 7.2 gallons to be sure to get just over 5 in the fermenter.

I then drain the tun and measure what is in the boil kettle. I then sparge with enough water to get a little over half way to total and measure again. This gives me what I need to accurately get my preboil volume. I only use the calculators to give me an idea of what I'll need.

I would put the IC in the pot while still boiling just to be sure it gets sanitized fully in the steam. When I put it in the boil does stop but usually for less than a minute or two. I don't worry about that.

It seem that it is taking a long time to get a boil after the mash?? Can you apply more heat. It takes my SP10 less that 10 minutes to go from mash temp to boil.

Your use of the dry yeast should not be an issue but it is generally accepted that re-hydrating is quite a bit better than sprinkling it in dry.

pricelessbrewing said:

Also the fermentis S05 pdf sheet shows to either rehydrate and pitch directly, or to pitch dry and aerate after 30 minutes. I follow manufacturers suggestions on dry yeast.

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Make it easy on yourself... just slosh the bucket around a bit (like just enough to break surface tension a few times. Put your yeast in some luke warm water when you start your boil and leave it on the kitchen counter. When you move the fermenter to it's resting place, dump the yeast it.

You don't need to do a full 30 minute cardio workout with your fermenter to aerate the stuff. It's already been boiling for an hour.

Boiling actually removes dissolved gasses. From lab studies I've seen, hydrating in water at the wrong temp is as bad as pitching dry, so I just pitched dry as per manufacturers instructions. For other dry yeasts I hydrate at suggested temp.

It said after 30 minutes, not for 39 minutes.

pricelessbrewing said:

One, what do people do with the water used during cooling the wort? Toss it, save it?

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Is it for laundry. If you don't have a lawn or flowers to water, fill up a bucket with the water, dump it in your washing machine (assuming a top load washer), repeat.

pricelessbrewing said:

Boiling actually removes dissolved gasses. From lab studies I've seen, hydrating in water at the wrong temp is as bad as pitching dry, so I just pitched dry as per manufacturers instructions. For other dry yeasts I hydrate at suggested temp.

It said after 30 minutes, not for 39 minutes.

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Boiling does remove oxygen from the wort. Rehydrating temperatures are not that critical. 80 to 100f is acceptable with 90 the common target. Even a little lower or higher is not going to kill your yeast.

All dry yeast benefit from rehydrating. The directions on the pack often differ from what is suggested if you go to the manufacturers websites.

The timing, while important, is not critical. There are reserves engineered in that will be depleted if the yeast is soaked too long. But a quarter hour one way or another will not make or break the process.