Having problems trying to duplicate recipe

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BrewinSoldier

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Hey guys! Alright so I've came a long long way in knowledge and equipment when it comes to homebrewing, since I first started.

I started off with a cheap aluminum 7 gallon kettle and a plastic bucket in the kitchen. Loved the hobby, and now 2 years later I have a full blown electric brewery I built with digital controllers, the works. I also have two SSbrewtech conical fermenters(with heating and chilling) and a glycol chiller to keep my fermenting temps dialed in to a tee.

So here is what boggles my mind. When I was still doing BIAB, I made a blueberry wheat that was phenomenal. Everyone that tried it was blown away. I did so many things wrong making it that it wasn't even funny.

I started out with 5 gallons of unfiltered tap water for a 5 gallon batch. Our tap water doesn't have chloramine but does have a lot of chlorine(mistake 1).
Brought temps to 150 to mash in and mashed between 150-170 for 60 mins. It's hard to keep a stable temp with an electric burner(mistake 2)
After mash I pulled out grains and water dropped to 4 gallons. I just poured more cold tap water straight in to bring it up to 4.5 gallons.(mistake 3)
Brought to a boil, well as close to as possible with an electric burner which took forever. Added hops for 60 mins. Then took off and cooled to 75°F. Then added more cold tap water to bring it back up to 4.5 gallons(mistake 4)
Then fermented in a plastic bucket in my room for 10 days at around 78 degrees using Safale US-05 sprinkled directly in.
After 10 days siphoned into a keg, added blueberry extract and carbonated.

With all of those mistakes and messed up temps, it is probably one of the best beers I've made to date.

Now with all of this fancy equipment doing all grain, precise temp controls on everything, and way more knowledge, I can't seem to produce it for the life of me using the same recipe.

Things I am doing differently.
-mashing in correctly and keeping at 152°F for 60 mins
-bringing to a legitimate boil
-have tried using filtered tap water from the same source, as well as 100% RO water built up from scratch and hitting the right pH.
-fermenting at 68°F

Should I go crazy on the next attempt and mash super high(like 160ish) and ferment at 78°F to try to duplicate?

Any opinions and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
 
Oh and fwiw, I hit the same exact OG of 1.058 on both of them. I don't think I checked the FG on the first batch but this one came in at around 6.3% abv. I have it carbonating now and will try it again tonight. Yesterday I tried it and it tasted super bland.
 
The only suggestion I have is to try a really thin mash to duplicate the original (nearly) full-volume mash. This would have a significantly different pH compared with standard water:grist ratio (although I would have thought the full-volume version, without an acid addition, would have had a badly-high pH). The full-volume mash also means there is no risk of extracting tannins from grain husks during the sparge.
 
I am simply brainstorming here... But, perhaps one of your mistakes simply worked for this brew. So (changing only one thing at a time) perhaps try them. For example, perhaps ferment at a little higher temp. Maybe some of the "off flavors" of fermenting higher simply worked with this particular brew.

Mike

:mug:
 
The only suggestion I have is to try a really thin mash to duplicate the original (nearly) full-volume mash. This would have a significantly different pH compared with standard water:grist ratio (although I would have thought the full-volume version, without an acid addition, would have had a badly-high pH). The full-volume mash also means there is no risk of extracting tannins from grain husks during the sparge.

So with the system I have now, I have an automated recirculating mash. Are you saying to put basically enough water to grains to come out with 5 gallons at the end of the 60 mins without doing a sparge at all? Just bascially drain the 5 gallons of wort out and into the boil kettle and start the boil?
 
What's off with it? What did you want to change? To thin? Too malty? esters? All those will be affected by your "mistakes" to your "proper" brew techniques. I put this in "" as one of your "mistakes" was actually a "proper" technique for this brew.
 
So with the system I have now, I have an automated recirculating mash. Are you saying to put basically enough water to grains to come out with 5 gallons at the end of the 60 mins without doing a sparge at all? Just bascially drain the 5 gallons of wort out and into the boil kettle and start the boil?

Yes. It's just a suggestion though based on the difference with your first batch.
 
What's off with it? What did you want to change? To thin? Too malty? esters? All those will be affected by your "mistakes" to your "proper" brew techniques. I put this in "" as one of your "mistakes" was actually a "proper" technique for this brew.

I wouldn't say anything is necessarily wrong with it, no off flavors or anything, it's just very very bland tasting. The flavors don't pop on this one like they did on the one I made all the mistakes on. It's definitely not as sweet and the flavors just don't come through. It's hard to explain. Lol

OK now that I think about it, I'd say it almost tastes watered down compared to the "mistake" batch I made.

I did use RO water and added minerals based on the Bru'n water yellow malty profile on this one.

I shouldn't have to mess with the recipe itself due to the fact I already made an amazing tasting batch with the same exact recipe. It has to of had to either do with the way higher temps of both mashing and fermenting, or maybe using the chlorinated tap water had something to do with it.
 
OK so just tried another cup. The biggest thing it is missing I think is a little of the maltiness, but it is definitely missing the sweetness.
 
Mashing at a higher temp is going to give it a fuller body and sweeter taste. I would suggest trying to mash at a higher temp first then slowly add back your "mistakes". To me though it sounds like your describing a dry beer so increasing your mash temp should solve this problem.
 
What is the highest you would go? I am thinking somewhere between 160-165 to try and duplicate the heat I had the other mash at.
 
What is the highest you would go? I am thinking somewhere between 160-165 to try and duplicate the heat I had the other mash at.

You're onto something here.

There is something you should know. Beta amylase is responsible for gnawing off the ends of the dextrins her alpha sister cleaved off the starches. Beta amylase also denatures at lower temps than alpha, so if you have your well gelatinized mash at 160-165F for say 10-20 minutes, then bring it back down, you may have denatured most of beta and you'll get low fermentability. Finding that "sweet" spot (time x temps) where just enough beta survives, you can tune how fermentable your wort becomes.

If you can retrace more closely the steps you took during that elusive brew, you can try to mimic it in a slightly more controlled process. You could do some (smaller) test batches to see what the effects are.
 
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Sounds like you have kept good notes, so you have everything you need to recreate the good version. All you need to do is compensate for the differences in your new system and make all of the same mistakes that produced the great beer. Correcting the mistakes will not lead to reproducing the earlier version.
 
In my experience, limited as it is, even the normally neutral US 05 at 78 F could give you a lot of esters that possibly blended with the blueberries and enhanced the fruitiness of the taste/aroma of the beer. The internal temperature probably got several degrees higher than that if that was the air temperature. While these esters generally resemble banana they could blend well with blueberries.

Also, I generally mash at high temperature (155-160 F) to increase the body/sweetness of my beer since I don't like dry/bitter beer. So I would guess that also would enhance the fruitiness perceived, since most fruit/berries are expected to be sweet.

Just my 2 cents.
 
Thanks guys. Brewed another batch today and am just finishing up cleaning. I tried mashing today at 150° for the first 10 mins or so and then bumped it up to 163° for another hour. Going to ferment this batch at normal temps of 68°. If this doesn't work, next batch will be the same mash temps as above, and the I will try fermenting at 76-78°.

When I fermented last time on the mistake batch, the 76-78° was the actual fermentation temp as per the little stick on thermometer.

As far as blueberries, that is just extract added in the keg before transfer from the fermenter. We shall see and I will keep updating this thread as I continue to narrow this down to see what actually changes it back to the original beer.

Oh and there is actually a beer I found at trader Joes that tastes almost exactly the same as my first batch. It's called KBC blueberry Ale.
 
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