Just brew ak47 pale mild

[IAbowhunter86]

Well I brewed this yesterday did a 1 hour mash at 154 degrees in 1.75 gallons of water and i sparged with 170 degree water for about 15minutes and had 4.75 gallons sparge water. Did my 1 hour boil and cooled the wort and took a gravity which was supposed to end at 1.035 but i was surprised to be at 1.048 but noticed i was a halfish gallon shy of my 5 gallon target so added .75 gallons water which brought down the gravity to 1.038 i can't figure out how i ended up with the high og number or so short on water the grain must of sucked up that much. How much water do you figure you loose to grain? I pitched a wlp002 its a little under 70 degrees so seems to be taking a little longer to get the fermentation going hopefully by tom when i get home from work it will be on its way. oh and the grain bill was
5 lbs marris otter
.5 lbs cara 40
2 oz pale choc

1lbs corn sugar 2 min left of boil

Thanks for any help on my little mishap on volumes

 

[IAbowhunter86]

after looking at some things do you guys think i made a mistake using the wlp002 with a little lower attenuation percentage than the yeast norther brewer recommended? a semi local store i was at didn't have the liquid yeast and recommended this but i didn't notice the difference in percentage

 

[daksin]

Well, I think you'll be fine, since your OG was pretty close to the recommended one, and I actually think a less attenuative yeast is actually better for a pale mild. That said, I hope you oxygenated the CRAP out of it, because that yeast can throw plenty of diacetyl if even mildly annoyed, and BOY does this strain need oxygen. In future, consider getting an oxygen stone and pure O2 if you want to keep working with British Ale strains. That's secondary, of course, if you're not closely controlling the beer's temperature and pitching the correct number of healthy cells (starters, calculated with viability using mrmalty.com and the like).

If your yeast vial was fresh, you're probably at least close to the right pitching rate, but I think you're going to want to keep a VERY close eye on this beer as far as the temperature goes (IN THE BEER, not the ambient temp) and make sure it's ideal the whole time, and then if you still get some diacetyl, warm it up for a week or two and keep rousing that yeast.

 

[IAbowhunter86]

I have a spare fridge i am going to turn into a fermentation chamber but it stays in a pretty monitored room in my basement at the moment. I am going to start working with starters soon i think but have been working on getting my kegging setup going since i stumbled into a few kegs on a trade.

 

[IAbowhunter86]

well im a little concerned that yeast never really seemed to take off and give me a good krausen although has been bubbling away steadily for a few days now will wait and see what i get for measurements. I will be ordering a aerator today where is the best place to order one of these?

 

[crazyirishman34]

I like the williams brewing one. It is a wand so you know the stone goes to the bottom of the fermenter. Also I would recomend getting just the want and either buying or renting a full sized O2 bottle. Around me the small disposable bottles are about $12 and I got 2 batches out of one. Now that I have the full sized bottle I haven;t run out

 

[AnchorBock]

well im a little concerned that yeast never really seemed to take off and give me a good krausen although has been bubbling away steadily for a few days now will wait and see what i get for measurements. I will be ordering a aerator today where is the best place to order one of these?

Thats not uncommon with 002, Im sure you have nothing to worry about.

 

[AnchorBock]

I like the williams brewing one. It is a wand so you know the stone goes to the bottom of the fermenter. Also I would recomend getting just the want and either buying or renting a full sized O2 bottle. Around me the small disposable bottles are about $12 and I got 2 batches out of one. Now that I have the full sized bottle I haven;t run out

I use the same setup, how long were you adding 02? Ive used one disposable bottle for over a dozen batches so far, usually 60 seconds with the regulator only allowing a small stream of bubbles in. My beers have improved drastcalliy since using 02, one of the best investments Ive made.