GroovePuppy
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i would love for this to be sticky'd with its brother.
Amen. I've been AG'ing for a year now using this method and made some delicious beers.
i would love for this to be sticky'd with its brother.
Amen. I've been AG'ing for a year now using this method and made some delicious beers.
now, it can get pretty close to the brim in a 5 gallon pot. this is greatly beneficial because you will see very little loss in mash temperature when you minimize the headspace. however, be careful to give yourself enough room for the bag and for stirring or you could have a mess on your hands.
i use promash to calculate. the banana bread ale recipe had 11.75 lbs and i used 3.25 gallons of water, which is about 1.1qt/lb. this gives me a total volume of 4.19 gallons when i add the grains.
DB, another great thread. Now, pardon me if you've answered it before, but I haven't finished this thread yet, and wanted to ask the question before I forget:
A) Is there a chart or formula for the volume of a certain amount of grain. I noticed you have 11.75 lbs of grain and it took .95 gallons. Is there a way to predict this impact, so better planning on what equipment to use.
B) You mentioned having less headspace helps keep your mash at temp. Is this true for headspace, or volume of mash water? You have just about 5 gallons of space occupied in the 5 gallon kettle. If you had the same 5 gallons in a 7 gallon kettle, would it cool quicker? It seems to me, knowing my limited physics, that it's just the amount of water that is slowing down the cooling, but I am not sure.
Also, I noticed your stove is off. When you hit your mash temp, do you turn your burner off, or leave it on Low. When I steep, to keep temp I turn it to a lower setting, if it's off, I loose temp.
Here are some good mash calculators that I use: http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml
If you are talking about absorption, then it is MUCH less than with mash tun. General rule is 0.125 gallons per pound of grain, but that drops to less than half that with the bag.
hey! i got stickied!
May I ask what this is? I read these forums a lot, but haven't posted until this one. I see various people saying it and also different descriptions under peoples name, like you are Lifetime Supporter. Can someone update me on the lingo?
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never used the strips. you can use iodophor to do a conversion test. me thinks there be a post about that in this thread, but i'm too druck right now to look for it. soryy
.6 gal/hr is a pretty low boil-off. I get over a gallon, even with my light boil at the apartment. So figure 1 gallon boil-off, .1 gal/lb absorption (and round up), etc.
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EDIT: Get a nice rolling boil going and keep some bottled water around to top-off, if necessary. It'll help with cooling, too, if you keep it in the fridge.
Hey... I've used a coffee grinder now a few times using this method and it's turned out fantastic. Just thought I'd let anyone who's contemplating the coffee ginder route (using this method) that it works great.
My method is not intended for doing bigger beers. If I were doing a bigger beer with this method, I would use extract and step it up over time (add extract after fermentation begins.)
I use my cooler for bigger beers
It's been said plenty, but I just wanted to add my thanks to all the effort and patience that you put into this thread and the one on partial mash. You have cut my learning curve way down, and I will definitely be moving towards mashing much sooner, ( a partial) probably for my next batch (my second)
Thanx for all you do.
Cheers
:rockin:
This is not a busy married man's hobby...but it's more like an obsession now.
I certainly hope not . I am brewing another this weekend (I wish 2, but I dont have time). Now I just have to decide which one to do. Best Bitter or India Brown Ale?
Wrap it in blankets or towels. Sometimes I use folded towels and bungie cords to secure them, with a pillow on the top.
If you start at 154°F and it drops 5 degrees, you are still at a great mash temp. I wouldn't worry about it too much.
DeathBrewer,
I used some Iodophor as well, but I was suprised to see how dark red it is on its own. I've read about the iodine tests and people say that yellow means full conversion, red means partial, and black means too much startch. However, the Iodophor is red to begin with. When I did my test and swirrled it in a sample, it didn't get any darker, which I took as a good sign, but it was still red. I got 73% so I'm not complaining, but just wondering how you do the test.
I always start my brew day the night before. Sanitize the carboy, and fill it with boiled water. Leave it outside and let it cool for the next day. This water can be used to dilute the wort, or just for cleaning up, rinsing StarSan or other cleaners.
Why do you gradually put the extract in? Why not add it at the Start/End of boil?
DeathBrewer, How does it feel to be a celeb around these here forums?
I have been brewing for just under a year and am already thinking about decoctions, and 100 lb bags of grain. If I keep this up I'm going to go crazy.
I was thinking about this when I did my first AG. Mashing at different temperatures results in different characteristics for the beer. Lower vs Higher gives you dry and more alcoholic vs more body and less alcoholic. I ended up loosing the 3-5 degrees like mentioned above and wondered what it would do to the final product. Would it combine both making a balanced beer, or does the hotter temp triumph? Couldn't really find much, anyone with experience have any input? Why don't you see that as a mash profile?
If it didn't get any darker, than you had conversion. Your 73% shows that. It worked fine, but I understand that it is a rather odd test and not as clear as it should be..
I hope you re-sanitize your carboy after you let it sit out overnight. Why do you fill it with boiling water? As long as it's clean, a little star san will take care of anything in there. I may be misunderstanding...explain this further to me so I can comment, because it looks like you have a carboy exposed to the elements before you use it. (and be careful with boiling water and glass.)
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Because then you would have a high gravity wort and your yeast will have trouble fermenting through it. If you do it in steps, then the yeast are acclimated (not to mention their increase in number) so that they can handle the extra sugar. It works very well. My buddy made a 28% barleywine using this method...with nothing but extract!
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Though it might not be the best scientific description, think about it like this:
Lower temps (~145-153°F) - Extract simpler sugars and give you a dryer beer.
Higher temps (~155-158°F) - Extract more complex sugars and leave dextrins in the beer
Mash out temps (~162-170°F) - Denature the enzymes and stop conversion
It works forward to some degree. For instance, I could spend some time mashing at 148°F, and then raise the mash to 158°F to get some dextrins, then mash out at 165°F to stop conversion.
It doesn't work backwards. If you start at 158°F, you can't go back down to 148°F to get simpler sugars. However, conversion takes time, so if you miss your mash temp, if you correct quickly, you'll be fine.
Someone else may have a clearer explanation...but that's how I understand it.
I'm sure you've made the beer by now, but in Extreme Brewing from Sam Calagione the recipe for the Dogfish Head IBA is in there and its tasty.
I have made it and I am very pleased with it for a first attempt. I also have had DFH India Brown Ale and unfortunately I did not like it. Not enough hop and a weird after taste.
I know what you mean, it is a bit sweet, but I really liked it on draft. Browns are usually sweeter, so if I were to make an India Brown, I would add tons of hops, the DFH IBA just doesn't have that 'tons' feeling. The brown sugar is a nice addition though.
The way I view an India Brown and the way I brewed mine would be an English Brown ale that finishes with good hop flavor over and above what a typical Brown Ale would be. DFH India Brown, at least the ones that I had, had no discernible hop flavor or aroma and had an almost cloying sweetness to it.
I think because it is Iodophor and not Iodine. Iodophor says it's only 2% iodine, correct? Maybe the additives are darker?
I usually go with around 2.5 to 3 gallons, cover it with the pastic wrap and stopper and airlock, cover it with a towl and place it outside to cool.
WOW! 28%! That is insane. Sam Adams only goes up to 25%, Dogfish Head I think has 18%, this must have been some strong yeast. I know it's common for yeast to have 10% ABV tolerance. This means that for the high OG wort you have when it starts eating sugars and producing alcohol, it can eat enough sugar to have produced 10% ABV before the alcohol it's produced kills it off. Some yeast goes up to 12%, and High Gravity yeast can get up to 16% (From what I've seen). Now, did he do this by doing the step additions of extract to a normal yeast that has a 10-12% tolerance? Did you get special yeast? I thought that craft brewers raised generations of yeast that can tolerate anything above 16-18%, this can take some time. Kudos to your friend for pulling that off. I will have to try this for the sake of doing it (I'm not a huge fan of Barleywines).
Also, out of curiosity, is the extract boiled and added to the wort, or just added? That stuff is quite sticky!
I think the iodine is dark. Could be wrong, tho, never tried it.
I often like to blend characteristics in my beer. Continuous hop additions, and flavor profiles with grains. I couldn't find much on blending mashing temperatures. At least nothing like step mashing.
Why didn't he like decoction? Just make sure you stir that sucker well so the grains don't burn and it will be fine.
I didn't think corn would work in the mash without first doing a cereal mash...did you include the corn in your efficiency calculation? Definitely sounds interesting...let me know how it tastes.
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