First brew day breakdown/continual bubble off of star san from S-airlock

[BrewNerdRobin]

Hi all, brand new to these forums and brewing so I'd love any suggestions about my posting/brewing/etc. Last night I brewed my very first batch of beer (i helped a coworker a tiny bit once before). I did a BIAB version of Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale. To account for it being my first time and doing BIAB I assumed an efficiency of 58% so I scaled my grains up a bit (15 lbs maris otter, 10 oz carahell) and i got them double milled.

As expected, it being my first brew and all, I had a few hiccups on brew day. The main one was that my mash came in a bit hot at 162 degrees (got it to 150 ~45 mins). From what I read on various places it seems like this contribute to a higher OG? Not sure if it was this or the fact that I had too much grain but i came in at 1.072 pre-boil instead of ~1.052.

I was having trouble with my wort chiller so i didn't get it working until ~45 mins after i turned off the heat source. My post boil volume was also only 4 gallons so my og got even more off going up to ~1.09 i think (not sure...it was like 1:30 AM last night). I pitched ~1L yeast starter that I had on a stir plate at 70 degrees since wednesday. I topped off my carboy with water but i hadn't been smart enough to measure gallon marks on my carboy so not sure where I'm at. Here are my questions if anyone's still with me XD

1. I filled my s-type airlock with star san/water solution but there is so much gas coming out that the solution is bubbling out (just gas no beer) like once an hour. Should I keep refilling it?
2. When I get around to measuring my SG and volume should I add more water to try to compensate or is it too late?
3. Should I adjust my target FG up and just live with a sweeter beer?

I know people are going to tell me to relax and not worry about it so much but that's hard...

 

[fj605]

1. Swap out the airlock for a blow off tube.
2. You can add water post-boil to lower the SG.
3. Let the yeast do their thing and let the FG end up where it ends up. It will probably finish up close to where you thought it would.

 

[mongoose33]

Sounds like your fermentation is going well. You probably just have too much star-san in the airlock. When I get too much in mine, it bubbles out of the top as well.

Yes, you can add water later, just make sure it's sterile.

Relax and don't worry about it so much.

 

[BrewNerdRobin]

Haha thanks to you both. I don't really have a good blow off tube so i'm sterilizing a funnel and a piece of beverage tubing that fit snugly together. Not yet sure how I'm gonna secure it to the carboy.

Any thoughts on the cause of my really high OG? Should I use less grain next batch and more water maybe because I had so much boil off?

 

[mongoose33]

Haha thanks to you both. I don't really have a good blow off tube so i'm sterilizing a funnel and a piece of beverage tubing that fit snugly together. Not yet sure how I'm gonna secure it to the carboy.

Any thoughts on the cause of my really high OG? Should I use less grain next batch and more water maybe because I had so much boil off?

That's an incredibly large grain bill. You ended up with higher efficiency than you thought.

Also, I've never needed a blowout tube. The issue is whether the kreusen will rise so high that it comes out of the airlock. That said, especially with the high gravity, better safe than sorry.

 

[BrewNerdRobin]

That's an incredibly large grain bill. You ended up with higher efficiency than you thought.

Also, I've never needed a blowout tube. The issue is whether the kreusen will rise so high that it comes out of the airlock. That said, especially with the high gravity, better safe than sorry.

Oh!! I bet my low water level was because I didn't take into account all the grain absorption! With less grain i'd probably fix both problems.

My funnel fit alright into the carboy and i blew it off to a beaker full of good ol' star san so I guess i'm chillin for a bit

 

[Sadu]

58% efficiency is quite low, it sounds like you landed a lot higher than that. It's tough on your first brew because you have no idea what your efficiency will be so you just have to guess and then adjust for next time.

It sounds like you aren't sure about your volume in the fermenter? I would mark the outside of your carboy now then wait until you bottle/keg the beer. Then fill the empty carboy with water using a measuring jug and note how much water it takes to fill to the mark. Then you have your volume, and you can calculate your actual efficiency for next time.

If that's all a bit hard then next time assume 70% if you do BIAB using a single pot. That should get you closer. Then make sure you accurately measure the OG and fermenter volume so you have your actual efficiency.

 

[fj605]

Also, I've never needed a blowout tube. The issue is whether the kreusen will rise so high that it comes out of the airlock. That said, especially with the high gravity, better safe than sorry.

The blow off tube should eliminate the possibility of a dry airlock.

 

[mongoose33]

The blow off tube should eliminate the possibility of a dry airlock.

Never had one of those either. If the liquid in the airlock gets a little low, I pry off the plastic cap and use my spray bottle of Star-San to replenish it.

 

[griffi]

I've been using cheap vodka in the airlock. Doesn't foam and it's pretty sterile

 

[Homercidal]

Couple of things. You assumed 58% efficiency because of BIAB. You should have assumed higher because BIAB isn't inherently less efficient than other lauter methods. Grain crush, pH, and temperature are probably more important to efficiency.

Second, you do need to consider grain absorption, but this really affect your volume, not as much gravity.

What you end up with is less wort and a significantly higher gravity.

The simple solution is to simply boil some water, chill it down, and dilute the wort with it. This is if you want to make a Pale Ale. The more simpler solution is to let the beer ride on that yeast and you end up with a possibly nice strong ale.

You can't really adjust the FG at this point. The yeast will do their thing and eat what they can. You can influence how well they eat by optimizing their temperature by raising it LATE IN THE PRIMARY. After this you may consider diluting as describe before.

Most of all, RDWHAHB. You made beer either way. With a quality recipe like Dale, I bet even your mistake beer will be pretty good.

Now that you have some experience, prepare for the next brew and take good notes and relax and enjoy the process. Maybe read up again on preparing a recipe and practice a few times on paper. Once you wrap your head around the process you'll see it's not hard to adjust things as you go if you need to.

 

[Homercidal]

Oh, and I wouldn't worry about the airlock quite yet. You are blowing off plenty of CO2, meaning you have positive pressure. Rig up some kind of blow-off tube to keep stuff from falling in. Once the fermentation slows down you might want to try an airlock again. I also use cheap vodka in mine.

And make sure your temps are where they need to be. Fermentation can cause your beer temp to go up higher than ambient. Not sure which yeast you used, but it's probably going to taste best if you can target 62-65 BEER TEMP (Not ambient air temp!) At least for the first portion of fermentation. Once the majority of fermentation has happened you will want to get the temp up to 70 so the yeast will completely finish their job.

It's a pretty high gravity beer, so give it plenty of time.

 

[pvpeacock]

Note: If you dilute with water AFTER fermentation, you need to be concerned about oxygen in the water. You need to boil to water to reduce the oxygen levels or you will end up oxidizing your beer. If you are going to dilute with water because the OG is higher than you want or your volume is lower than you want, it is best to dilute BEFORE fermentation.

 

[mongoose33]

Oh, and I wouldn't worry about the airlock quite yet. You are blowing off plenty of CO2, meaning you have positive pressure. Rig up some kind of blow-off tube to keep stuff from falling in. Once the fermentation slows down you might want to try an airlock again. I also use cheap vodka in mine.

And make sure your temps are where they need to be. Fermentation can cause your beer temp to go up higher than ambient. Not sure which yeast you used, but it's probably going to taste best if you can target 62-65 BEER TEMP (Not ambient air temp!) At least for the first portion of fermentation. Once the majority of fermentation has happened you will want to get the temp up to 70 so the yeast will completely finish their job.

It's a pretty high gravity beer, so give it plenty of time.

To extend, I usually ferment in my basement where, on the floor and in a pan of water, a fermenter without active fermentation will be about 64-65 degrees. Under active fermentation that temperature will rise to 68, 69 or even 70 degrees.

I have a beer fermenting right now and put it in the pan of water and draped a tee-shirt over it such that it draws water up into the shirt and from where it evaporates, cooling the fermenter. It's a swamp cooler. That fermenter is maintaining about 64.5 degrees even though it's in active fermentation. When it settles down (krausen falls) I'll remove the tee-shirt and let it maintain 64-65 degrees for a couple days, then raise the temp to about 70 to finish.

 

[BrewNerdRobin]

Thanks all for the awesome feedback!! I actually am fermenting in a kegerator I made because I don't have any beer in it yet, so I have pretty good temperature control. I have my kegerator set to ~68ish because the recipe said 70 for primary. Y'all think I should bring that down a bit? I'm actually pretty excited to see what I ended up making so I'm gonna try to let it do it's thing and then next time when I make the recipe a little more to the letter I'll have an interesting comparison to try