First AG brewday, epic fail

[checo78]

Hey guys, just did my first all grain brew. I chose an american pale ale, 5 gallon batch. OG 1.054, preboil 1.051

First problem I encountered was the mash PH. Strips made it to be 4.7, tried to add baking soda and it just did not get higher.

Second problem was trying to figure out how much wort to transfer to boiling kettle. My boiling kettle does not have an easy way to see how much liquid it has (its a 15 g keg)

Third problem was hitting preboil OG, hydrometer measured 1.049 accounting for temp, out of the 1.051 the recipe called for

Fourth problem came after boiling. OG from hydrometer read 1.061 from the 1.054 the recipe called for

And my final en epic super fail happened as I used my plate chiller to fill mu SS brew bucket. All eas goi g well until I noticed the wort inside the bucket didnt seem to add up. So yes folks, just as I finished to transfer the wort with my pump, I noticed I left the brew bucket valve open. And since it was in my garage, with poor ligthing and a lot of noise from the pumps, I didnt notice all the wort was getting on my floor. So now I have a gallon at the most inside the bucket.

Any tips for a noob who has just drained all his pale ale on the garage floor.

 

[Singletrack]

That open valve one is a killer, but many of us have done that at one time or another. On the bright side, you got that mistake out of the way early, and you're unlikely to ever do it again. Don't get discouraged, it can only get better!

 

[brewkinger]

Think of it this way...
You set the bar low this time and it can only get better.

We have all had failures on brewday, and my philosophy is that without a "bad" brewday, you have no idea how to gauge a "good" one.

Don't get discouraged. You still made beer.
If it were me, I would get the supplies and do another batch ASAP.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[rlmiller10]

Check your recipe. A preboil gravity of 1.051 and a post boil of 1.054 does not make sense. Going from 1.049 to 1.061 sounds about right


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[GrogNerd]

first problem: would suggest keeping it very simple for first attempts at all-grain. brew something dark and work on the basic processes before getting into details like pH, or going for maximum efficiency.

second problem: need a measuring stick. add some water to your keggle two quarts at a time and mark your mash paddle or some other device to measure depth vs volume. I use a stainless steel yardstick. it helps a lot that my 30 quart kettle is 15 inches tall, so 2 quarts per inch.

third problem: lower pre-boil gravity than what the recipe says means you didn't reach the efficiency the recipe was based on. your system or process may need tweaking and the fix is to brew more, or increase your grains to get the gravity called for

fourth problem: probably had more boil-off than expected. add water to compensate or RDWHAHB

final problem: oops. happened to me. once.

better luck with future brews. just takes practice. practice making beer. ain't this the greatest hobby in the world?

 

[myndflyte]

Check your recipe. A preboil gravity of 1.051 and a post boil of 1.054 does not make sense. Going from 1.049 to 1.061 sounds about right


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I agree with this. And you were only 0.002 points off your preboil. That sounds pretty darn good to me. In fact it sounds like the only epic failure part came when you left the valve open. So I say, do whatever you did this time, again, but be sure to check those valves.

 

[Yooper]

Hey guys, just did my first all grain brew. I chose an american pale ale, 5 gallon batch. OG 1.054, preboil 1.051

First problem I encountered was the mash PH. Strips made it to be 4.7, tried to add baking soda and it just did not get higher.

Second problem was trying to figure out how much wort to transfer to boiling kettle. My boiling kettle does not have an easy way to see how much liquid it has (its a 15 g keg)

Third problem was hitting preboil OG, hydrometer measured 1.049 accounting for temp, out of the 1.051 the recipe called for

Fourth problem came after boiling. OG from hydrometer read 1.061 from the 1.054 the recipe called for

And my final en epic super fail happened as I used my plate chiller to fill mu SS brew bucket. All eas goi g well until I noticed the wort inside the bucket didnt seem to add up. So yes folks, just as I finished to transfer the wort with my pump, I noticed I left the brew bucket valve open. And since it was in my garage, with poor ligthing and a lot of noise from the pumps, I didnt notice all the wort was getting on my floor. So now I have a gallon at the most inside the bucket.

Any tips for a noob who has just drained all his pale ale on the garage floor.

First, your pH strips are simply wrong. Unless you dumped a ton of acid into your mashtun, there is no way your mash pH was 4.7. Instead of adding baking soda, leaving it be would have been best. The fact that the pH didn't go higher when adding alkalinity is a big red flag that the pH strips are just wrong. Anyway, don't use them next time!

I marked my spoon at 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc gallons and at half gallons to see at a glance how much wort I have in the brew kettle. That's a free and easy fix, for next time.

The difference between 1.049 and 1.051 is negligible, well within the error margin so that's nothing at all. Same with the post boil- adding a bit of water would have made the OG just perfect.

The thing about the open valve, though? sucks. I think it's happened to all of us, though. But it stills sucks.

 

[FiddlersGreen87]

I'm an optimist. Look at the bright side, you've encountered a slew of problems with one brew instead of 5 brews with 5 problems. Get the growing pains out of the way in one shot is awesome because I've learned nothing in this hobby every goes as smoothly as I planned it for the first run.

Install a weldless sight glass in your kettle? It's a huge help for seeing what you've boiled off as well as where your quantity in the pot. It's also a nice indicator of how hard the boil is going. I can rarely see the boil inside the kettle because of it's dark and produces so much steam.

I also agree with Yooper, your numbers don't seem too far off. I wouldn't lose any sleep over those numbers and while not exactly where you wanted, be content with the results.

In regards to the valve... man that sucks, but I bet you'll never make that mistake again.

 

[Foosier]

One quick idea which can help you avoid open valves is to write up a brewing checklist with all of your steps written down. One of your first steps would be "Check to be sure valves are closed". I keep a checklist that I add my recipe steps to. It includes things like predicted OG, FG and other items which help me. I highly recommend one.

 

[RosettaSt0ned]

That open valve one is a killer, but many of us have done that at one time or another. On the bright side, you got that mistake out of the way early, and you're unlikely to ever do it again. Don't get discouraged, it can only get better!

Yep, happened to me bottling my first ever batch. A lot of good men were lost that day.

 

[tommyguner03]

well, you can keep that one galllon you have and pitch yeast and at least you will have some to drink. my first all grain brew day i didnt realize the importance of WATER! and i used my well water! so came a month after bottling the taste was horrible down went 48 bottles into the compost.
and now you know to always check to see if the valve is closed.

 

[LandoLincoln]

Like others have said, pH strips are pretty useless. If I didn't have a good pH meter for my wort, then I'd just depend on some water spreadsheet to get me in the ballpark and hope for the best. Newbies should just avoid the whole water chemistry thing altogether until they get the process down and then move onto making the beer taste better. Exceptions to this: tap water that has been treated with chloramines and/or tap water that clearly tastes bad. Chloramines will make your beer taste medicinal. Go online and find out if your local municipality uses chloramines. If they do, then get some campden tablets and use 1/2 tablet per 10 gallons. It's okay to use a 1/2 tablet for only five gallons. If your tap water tastes nasty, then buy spring water.

We've all been there on the accidentally-leaving-a-valve-open thing. It helps to reinforce the idea to check all valves before transferring to a different vessel if you get boiling hot wort splashed onto your bare feet. Like a little kid being taught that fire is bad the painful way. That's something that you're not going to forget.

 

[Singletrack]

Like others have said, pH strips are pretty useless. If I didn't have a good pH meter for my wort, then I'd just depend on some water spreadsheet to get me in the ballpark and hope for the best. Newbies should just avoid the whole water chemistry thing altogether until they get the process down and then move onto making the beer taste better. Exceptions to this: tap water that has been treated with chloramines and/or tap water that clearly tastes bad. Chloramines will make your beer taste medicinal. Go online and find out if your local municipality uses chloramines. If they do, then get some campden tablets and use 1/2 tablet per 10 gallons. It's okay to use a 1/2 tablet for only five gallons. If your tap water tastes nasty, then buy spring water.

We've all been there on the accidentally-leaving-a-valve-open thing. It helps to reinforce the idea to check all valves before transferring to a different vessel if you get boiling hot wort splashed onto your bare feet. Like a little kid being taught that fire is bad the painful way. That's something that you're not going to forget.

+1. Excellent water advice.

I think fresh, quality pH strips have a place, if you don't want to babysit an expensive pH meter. I trust my water spreadsheet, and use pH strips for checking only -- no brew day adjustments based on the reading. But, as the post above says, don't worry too much about the water until getting the process down.

 

[GrogNerd]

well within the error margin so that's nothing at all.

Yooper nails it with this one. this hobby has wide margins of error/ranges of tolerance, whatever you want to call it.

"relax, don't worry, have a homebrew" isn't just a platitude, it's a guiding principle.

in the end, beer is made. it just might not be the beer you planned.

except, of course, when it ends up on the floor because you forgot to close a valve

 

[kh54s10]

IMO the only problem with this session was the open valve.

The difference in the gravities was minimal.

As others have said make a measuring stick or install a sight glass. You will have to do a couple of brews to find out what your boil off rate will be. There will be slight variations depending on temperature and humidity.

I do batch sparging and do not worry about PH at all. I also do not worry too much about what the gravity turns out to be. If it is low I have a more session-able beer, if it is high I just have to watch more carefully how much I drink in an evening.

 

[wardens355]

I didn't check my pH for the first 10 or so batches and the beer turned out fine. However, I do build my own water using RO from a vending machine, and use Bru'n Water to formulate and dial in an estimated pH. I now have a decent pH meter (never liked or trusted the accuracy of the strips), but do not always check it (occasionally forget if a neighbor starts talking to me), and have found Bru'n Water gets me in the 5.3 - 5.5 window reliably (at room temp).

For volumes, I used to use a measuring stick (tape measure) that I could use to estimate how much wort was in the kettle. I now use a sight glass.

Did you adjust gravity to temperature? Makes a big difference. For example, if you measured 1.051 at 130F, your room temp gravity was actually 1.065 at 60F. Since your final gravity was close to what it was estimated at, maybe you just have a slightly lower brewhouse efficiency.

I have left valves open, but brew outside in the morning or early afternoon, so I catch those bonehead moves. I'm sure some of my past rentals still have some sticky dried up wort in the corner of the garage...

 

[mrboz]

+1 on all the tips I see. I'll add that your first few batches are about perfecting process, not perfecting beers. Don't get wrapped up in water chemistry (use water that has been de-chlorinated" RO, distilled, filtered, boiled, etc) and you'll be fine; and don't get caught up chasing gravity (especially pre-boil). As you're perfecting your process, you will also calibrate your system so that you have an idea of the efficiency you can expect. You can then adjust your recipes. If you MUST adjust for gravity, add water or a bit of DME in the boil (or boil a little longer ... this throws off your hop schedule though).

You learn that chasing unicorns (2-3 points in gravity, the perfect mash temp, or a ph target) can distract you from meaningful things ... like making sure valves are closed, or that tools are sanitized.

Once you get comfortable with your process and equipment, you can add fine-tuning to your repertoire.

Finally ... no such thing as "fail", only "lessons learned".

Brew on my friend!

 

[ndinh]

Don't sweat too much on gravity on how accurate your beer is from your recipe. Focus more on how smooth your steps are and have everything laid out in order. When I first did an IPA with alot of hop additions, I separated all the additions and put it on the floor next to a piece of paper with the exact time in large font so I won't forget. I also remember having a huge leak with my immersion chiller that sprayed a bunch of hose water into my wort. Along the line with the above post, I recently brewed a Pliney clone that didn't hit the correct OG so I just told my friends I deliberately brewed a Pliney Jr.

 

[KendallAdkins]

Hey guys, just did my first all grain brew. I chose an american pale ale, 5 gallon batch. OG 1.054, preboil 1.051

First problem I encountered was the mash PH. Strips made it to be 4.7, tried to add baking soda and it just did not get higher.

Second problem was trying to figure out how much wort to transfer to boiling kettle. My boiling kettle does not have an easy way to see how much liquid it has (its a 15 g keg)

Third problem was hitting preboil OG, hydrometer measured 1.049 accounting for temp, out of the 1.051 the recipe called for

Fourth problem came after boiling. OG from hydrometer read 1.061 from the 1.054 the recipe called for

And my final en epic super fail happened as I used my plate chiller to fill mu SS brew bucket. All eas goi g well until I noticed the wort inside the bucket didnt seem to add up. So yes folks, just as I finished to transfer the wort with my pump, I noticed I left the brew bucket valve open. And since it was in my garage, with poor ligthing and a lot of noise from the pumps, I didnt notice all the wort was getting on my floor. So now I have a gallon at the most inside the bucket.

Any tips for a noob who has just drained all his pale ale on the garage floor.

Okay, I'll tackle these one by one. You may already have your answers, but I'll add my 2 cents in.

1. Being that this was your first AG batch, don't worry too much about your mash pH. You would be very hard pressed to tell a difference in the final product unless you are well decorated beer judge.

2. You can pre determine how much sparge water to use to get your pre boil volume pretty easily with a couple easy calculations. Here's what I do:
Mash water = 1.5 quarts per lb. Grain absorption = 1 pint per lb. Boil loss = 1 gallon per hour.
I personally do not account for trub loss or equipment loss just because I don't care. You might.
So for a 5 gallon batch you start at 6 gallons to account for boil loss and work backwards to find your sparge water.
So if you have 10lbs of grain this would be the formula:
6 gallons of water - 15 quarts for mash + 2.5 quarts for grain absorption = 11.5 quarts for sparging.

That formula will put you extremely close to your pre boil volume every time so you won't have to worry about measuring as you are sparging.

3. I would imagine over sparging may have been your problem with the preboil OG, although 1.049 and 1.051 are pretty close.

4. This one is a little odd. That you would go from slightly low pre boil to very high post boil would suggest that you are over boiling a bit. Maybe crank the burner down a bit.

5. That just sucks. I would suggest starting over and buying a couple cases of PBR.

I hope I at least added a different perspective that the other guys didn't. Otherwise, sorry for wasting your time and adding to my carpal tunnel.

 

[wilserbrewer]

WOW! You did fine except for the valve, bummer but mistakes happen.

I am in awe, first all grain and you are checking PH, preboil gravity, post boil gravity, PUMPING through a plate chiller into a SS brew bucket!

Congrats on diving right in and outfitting yourself to the nines, I swear it was easier years ago when all we had was an old cooler and a big pot.
cheers and better luck next time!

 

[lewiley36]

Wow only thing I can really comment on is the open valve, luckily I learned on my first batch and it was only when I went to mix my star San and the bucket was still in the sink, I couldn't imagine loosing all that sweet nectar, I also recently learned to be sure to turn my spigot to the side with the handle pointing up, otherwise the seals leak in the fermenting chamber!

 

[checo78]

Thank you for all the great tips. My wooden paddle will be my next measuring stick. I do have a keg with the sigth glass, but I chose that one to be my mash tun.

Love the checklist, at work Im a checklist freak, just thought Id leave that for work instead of fun brew day, guess I will take that up.

That valve was a costly mistake that will never happen again. I still replay the scene where Im transfering the cooled wort to the fermenter, alot of foam started to appear inside, so I could not see the actual beer level, thougth it would raise, finished transfering the wort and since the bucket is marked on the inside with gallon level, Im thinking why the hell did it no even come close to the 5 gallons, then as fast as blinking I realize I left the valve open, I check and yes I f..kd up. The worst part is that a few months ago I read a forum where somebody else made that mistake. At that time I thought that was the dumbest mistake ever!

 

[rlmiller10]

At that time I thought that was the dumbest mistake ever!

Life has a way of humbling most of us. Unfortunately we must often learn from our own experience rather than the experience of others.

 

[mrboz]

As the saying goes: experience as a teacher is a ***** ... she gives the test first, the lesson later.