For the record, I am relaxed, I'm not worried, and I'm having a Home glass of water...have to work in am. I just have a few questions.
A little back ground, I have been gathering, fabricating, and buying all of my equipment since early October and this was my grand return to the homebrewing world as well as my all grain debut. Finally had everything I needed just in time for my in-laws to show up for their vacation. As luck would have it, I had purchased all of my supplies a few days prior and one thing I don't have is a mill, so all of my grains were crushed. So, there was a sense of urgency to get everything going. Here in Hawaii, it doesn't take long for the humidity or ants to ruin anything. Pork rinds to foreskins in about 15 min if left out... My first brew was a blond/cream ale. I was as meticulous as I possibly could be and everything went very well for the most part. This was my first run with all my new equipment so I was especially happy with the keggle and my newly gained ability to do full volume boils. I will give ingredients another time if it comes up. Suffice it to say, I ended up with 6 gal of OG 1.056 in the fermenter temp set ~ 63*. One packet of US-05 (hydrated) and eight days later I ended up at 1.011, color even more beautiful than before. I was so happy with everything I racked to the secondary and cranked down the temp to ~32*F. I have absolutely NO idea why I did that. Well actually I do know why - I was envisioning crystal clear beer and didn't pay any attention to my brew log. (we had just returned from another island, wasn't thinking...) At any rate, now looking back it occurs to me that I should have really left it @ 63* for another week or so. It tasted great, final gravity a little high for cream ale, but still a really REALLY great beer. By far the best I've brewed to date. So, questions for this beer are:
1) Should I continue the crash cool regime for another week or so, or bring the temp back up to say ~65* for a week, then crash for 7-14 days?
2) What will each option mean in terms of any differences and does it really matter at all?
3) Efficiency: I calculated my brewhouse efficiency at 64% (22.7L x 1.056 x .14*P) = 3.36kg (7.5 lbs) of extract from 5.22 kg (11.5 lbs) of grain = .64 When I used tastybrew.com's calculator it gave me 79.1% efficiency, so which one do I use, or more importantly which one do YOU guys use when you regularly hit ~80%??
Next brew...
I decided to brew up a 10 gal batch of a New Castle clone. Actually it was Biermuncher's recipe. Had a few more problems with this batch but nothing terribly troubling (RDWAHAHB, right?) I did not have enough US-04 for the 10 gal batch, so I used two packets of Danstar Nottingham. (hydrated) instead. I aerated the wort well and I pitched a little warm I think ~75* or so. But I had my fermenator in my newly finished fermentation cabinet (with the LOVE properly installed<---thanks Gabe!) set to 62* so I wasn't terribly worried. Well, the truth is that it was about 0200, I was half crocked (RDWAHAHB), and we were flying out the that morning at 0530... So whether or not I was concerned was a moot point. I had just enough time to clean up, pack a few pair of underwear, and shave. SO when I returned from Kauai I immediately went to check my prized AG homebrews. I went from absolute elation with the cream ale, to absolute horror with the brown ale. No kreusen ring, no air lock activity and no flocculation-at all. I quickly got a gravity reading and was relieved to see it had fermented from OG 1.055 to 1.020. Relieved that it was alcoholic and not infected, but pretty bummed that all the hype I had read about Nottingham had been stunted by something I did wrong. So, regardless of what I read about Notty being great at lower temp's, I raised it to 65* and waited until the next day. 1.020 still... SO tonight I bumped it to 70* and I'll check it again in a few days. I don't know what else to do beyond that if I can't get the gravity down any lower. It does not taste sweet really, and the chocolate flavor is fairly prominent. I know the ABV is a bit high as is, I just want to make sure it's done before I do anything. I'd also like to know what happened. I don't remember the date's on my Nottingham yeast, but I just got it from Northern Brewer a few weeks ago so I sincerely doubt it was old enough to have this kind of impact. 23 grams should have been enough for the 10+ gals of wort. Even if it was a year old, MrMalty recommends 2.6 packets.
SO, all that to say I'm overall very pleased with my immersion into the AG world. However, If anybody can shed some light on to some of my issues I would greatly appreciate it.
And yes, I know I should have done a few more 5 gal batches before I tackled a 10 gal clone. Get my process down, all equipment dialed in, etc... I thought about all of that before I started and then decided, "Piss on it...RDWAHAHB.":rockin:
A little back ground, I have been gathering, fabricating, and buying all of my equipment since early October and this was my grand return to the homebrewing world as well as my all grain debut. Finally had everything I needed just in time for my in-laws to show up for their vacation. As luck would have it, I had purchased all of my supplies a few days prior and one thing I don't have is a mill, so all of my grains were crushed. So, there was a sense of urgency to get everything going. Here in Hawaii, it doesn't take long for the humidity or ants to ruin anything. Pork rinds to foreskins in about 15 min if left out... My first brew was a blond/cream ale. I was as meticulous as I possibly could be and everything went very well for the most part. This was my first run with all my new equipment so I was especially happy with the keggle and my newly gained ability to do full volume boils. I will give ingredients another time if it comes up. Suffice it to say, I ended up with 6 gal of OG 1.056 in the fermenter temp set ~ 63*. One packet of US-05 (hydrated) and eight days later I ended up at 1.011, color even more beautiful than before. I was so happy with everything I racked to the secondary and cranked down the temp to ~32*F. I have absolutely NO idea why I did that. Well actually I do know why - I was envisioning crystal clear beer and didn't pay any attention to my brew log. (we had just returned from another island, wasn't thinking...) At any rate, now looking back it occurs to me that I should have really left it @ 63* for another week or so. It tasted great, final gravity a little high for cream ale, but still a really REALLY great beer. By far the best I've brewed to date. So, questions for this beer are:
1) Should I continue the crash cool regime for another week or so, or bring the temp back up to say ~65* for a week, then crash for 7-14 days?
2) What will each option mean in terms of any differences and does it really matter at all?
3) Efficiency: I calculated my brewhouse efficiency at 64% (22.7L x 1.056 x .14*P) = 3.36kg (7.5 lbs) of extract from 5.22 kg (11.5 lbs) of grain = .64 When I used tastybrew.com's calculator it gave me 79.1% efficiency, so which one do I use, or more importantly which one do YOU guys use when you regularly hit ~80%??
Next brew...
I decided to brew up a 10 gal batch of a New Castle clone. Actually it was Biermuncher's recipe. Had a few more problems with this batch but nothing terribly troubling (RDWAHAHB, right?) I did not have enough US-04 for the 10 gal batch, so I used two packets of Danstar Nottingham. (hydrated) instead. I aerated the wort well and I pitched a little warm I think ~75* or so. But I had my fermenator in my newly finished fermentation cabinet (with the LOVE properly installed<---thanks Gabe!) set to 62* so I wasn't terribly worried. Well, the truth is that it was about 0200, I was half crocked (RDWAHAHB), and we were flying out the that morning at 0530... So whether or not I was concerned was a moot point. I had just enough time to clean up, pack a few pair of underwear, and shave. SO when I returned from Kauai I immediately went to check my prized AG homebrews. I went from absolute elation with the cream ale, to absolute horror with the brown ale. No kreusen ring, no air lock activity and no flocculation-at all. I quickly got a gravity reading and was relieved to see it had fermented from OG 1.055 to 1.020. Relieved that it was alcoholic and not infected, but pretty bummed that all the hype I had read about Nottingham had been stunted by something I did wrong. So, regardless of what I read about Notty being great at lower temp's, I raised it to 65* and waited until the next day. 1.020 still... SO tonight I bumped it to 70* and I'll check it again in a few days. I don't know what else to do beyond that if I can't get the gravity down any lower. It does not taste sweet really, and the chocolate flavor is fairly prominent. I know the ABV is a bit high as is, I just want to make sure it's done before I do anything. I'd also like to know what happened. I don't remember the date's on my Nottingham yeast, but I just got it from Northern Brewer a few weeks ago so I sincerely doubt it was old enough to have this kind of impact. 23 grams should have been enough for the 10+ gals of wort. Even if it was a year old, MrMalty recommends 2.6 packets.
SO, all that to say I'm overall very pleased with my immersion into the AG world. However, If anybody can shed some light on to some of my issues I would greatly appreciate it.
And yes, I know I should have done a few more 5 gal batches before I tackled a 10 gal clone. Get my process down, all equipment dialed in, etc... I thought about all of that before I started and then decided, "Piss on it...RDWAHAHB.":rockin:
