Funkenjaeger
Well-Known Member
For starters, sorry for the length of this post, I wanted to get all the necessary details in here so it wound up quite verbose. Bear with me!
Okay, so I've been brewing AG for nearly a year now and I've got things down to the point where I'm always at least happy with my beers, but naturally I'm always looking to improve. I hate to be one to ask for help with general subjects that have already been covered a million times, but I feel like I've already done a lot of research and taken lots of advice and it's still not working for me. What's bugging me is that I have read all sorts of advice and I've still got some nagging issues:
1) Efficiency - I am consistently in the 70-75 range. I know this isn't awful, but I read of people with similar brewing processes getting in the 80's, so I wonder what I'm missing.
2) Fermentability - I cannot remember the last time I had a beer ferment lower than 1.017 or so, even the ones that should have dropped closer to 1.012 or so (like an ordinary bitter). The beers have all been good, but as expected, the further they fall from the target FG the more sweet and kind of unfinished they taste - not so good when I'm going for a crisp, clean finish.
I use a barley crusher set to around .037 gap - I tried going lower once and got a stuck sparge, I've got a much longer braid now so I'd probably be okay to drop it again, but there's enough flour as it is that I'm not sure it's my main bottleneck.
I mash in a cooler, usually 150-154F depending on recipe, and maintain temps quite well. I mash out with an infusion of boiling water, stirred in vigorously, then recirculate a bit and drain. I batch sparge, splitting the water about evenly between two sparges. Each time I add the water, stir, wait 5-10 mins, recirc a bit, and drain.
I always mash for at least 60 minutes. I don't normally check for starch conversion because the times when I did, it was always complete before 60 minutes was up so I figured I am pretty much safe.
I chill with an IC quite quickly, and every last drop goes into the fermenter, cold break and all, so there is no efficiency lost due to wort left in the kettle. However, in the past I have whirlpooled and avoided the cold break, and it didn't seem to make too much difference.
I have an oxygenation kit, and give each batch about a 60 second blast. I have been using dry yeast a lot lately, and I always rehydrate in 100F water, and always see good activity within 24 hours or so as expected. I have also used liquid yeast with a 1L starter, and one batch was even pitched on a yeast cake. My apartment has been 60-65 degrees most of the winter (a little more or less depending on where I put the carboy).
This last batch I used 5.2 pH stabilizer for the first time, and extended the mash to more like 75 minutes, and the issues remain - my porter's sitting at 1.022 or so (target 1.017), tastes a bit worty, and I barely broke 70% efficiency. Rousing the yeast didn't drop the gravity noticeably. This is with Nottingham, which I know isn't a poor performer normally.
I have been having some issues with boiloff rate - the value I had set in beersmith was too low for my keggle so my final volume was typically low and needed some top-off water. I am sure my efficiency will jump a bit now that I've set the value lower so I am adding another half gallon or more of water to the sparge, rather than post-boil. But I'm not sure how big an improvement it will make, and it still doesn't explain the fermentability.
I feel like I've already tried improving all the usual suspects (crush, doing a mash out, splitting batch sparge into two, using 5.2pH, oxygenating, etc) which is why I wanted to just lay out my whole process and see if anyone else can see any obvious glaring issues that I have somehow overlooked. The efficiency problem I can live with (grain's not THAT expensive yet, knock on wood), but the attenuation issue is really not acceptable as it noticeably affects the character of the beer.
Thanks in advance for any and all advice!
Okay, so I've been brewing AG for nearly a year now and I've got things down to the point where I'm always at least happy with my beers, but naturally I'm always looking to improve. I hate to be one to ask for help with general subjects that have already been covered a million times, but I feel like I've already done a lot of research and taken lots of advice and it's still not working for me. What's bugging me is that I have read all sorts of advice and I've still got some nagging issues:
1) Efficiency - I am consistently in the 70-75 range. I know this isn't awful, but I read of people with similar brewing processes getting in the 80's, so I wonder what I'm missing.
2) Fermentability - I cannot remember the last time I had a beer ferment lower than 1.017 or so, even the ones that should have dropped closer to 1.012 or so (like an ordinary bitter). The beers have all been good, but as expected, the further they fall from the target FG the more sweet and kind of unfinished they taste - not so good when I'm going for a crisp, clean finish.
I use a barley crusher set to around .037 gap - I tried going lower once and got a stuck sparge, I've got a much longer braid now so I'd probably be okay to drop it again, but there's enough flour as it is that I'm not sure it's my main bottleneck.
I mash in a cooler, usually 150-154F depending on recipe, and maintain temps quite well. I mash out with an infusion of boiling water, stirred in vigorously, then recirculate a bit and drain. I batch sparge, splitting the water about evenly between two sparges. Each time I add the water, stir, wait 5-10 mins, recirc a bit, and drain.
I always mash for at least 60 minutes. I don't normally check for starch conversion because the times when I did, it was always complete before 60 minutes was up so I figured I am pretty much safe.
I chill with an IC quite quickly, and every last drop goes into the fermenter, cold break and all, so there is no efficiency lost due to wort left in the kettle. However, in the past I have whirlpooled and avoided the cold break, and it didn't seem to make too much difference.
I have an oxygenation kit, and give each batch about a 60 second blast. I have been using dry yeast a lot lately, and I always rehydrate in 100F water, and always see good activity within 24 hours or so as expected. I have also used liquid yeast with a 1L starter, and one batch was even pitched on a yeast cake. My apartment has been 60-65 degrees most of the winter (a little more or less depending on where I put the carboy).
This last batch I used 5.2 pH stabilizer for the first time, and extended the mash to more like 75 minutes, and the issues remain - my porter's sitting at 1.022 or so (target 1.017), tastes a bit worty, and I barely broke 70% efficiency. Rousing the yeast didn't drop the gravity noticeably. This is with Nottingham, which I know isn't a poor performer normally.
I have been having some issues with boiloff rate - the value I had set in beersmith was too low for my keggle so my final volume was typically low and needed some top-off water. I am sure my efficiency will jump a bit now that I've set the value lower so I am adding another half gallon or more of water to the sparge, rather than post-boil. But I'm not sure how big an improvement it will make, and it still doesn't explain the fermentability.
I feel like I've already tried improving all the usual suspects (crush, doing a mash out, splitting batch sparge into two, using 5.2pH, oxygenating, etc) which is why I wanted to just lay out my whole process and see if anyone else can see any obvious glaring issues that I have somehow overlooked. The efficiency problem I can live with (grain's not THAT expensive yet, knock on wood), but the attenuation issue is really not acceptable as it noticeably affects the character of the beer.
Thanks in advance for any and all advice!