Second Brew Day

[Mothman]

Thought I'd post my brewing experience from today.

I'm still waiting on batch #1 to carbonate/condition in bottles, and found some time today to do batch # 2.

For #1 I brewed with a buddy, today I was solo (other than my 8 yr old daughter looking over my shoulder and asking a ton of questions)

I decided to try the Blue Moon clone posted here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=24978, specifically Biermunchers extract version, which I tweaked.

I scaled the recipe to 3.25 gallons in Beersmith, rounded off the numbers, added a bit of oats, and a little bit of corn sugar (I had some laying around) to boost the ABV a smidge, and I reduced the boil to 30 minutes, increasing the hops slightly to compensate.

Everything went pretty well I think.

I treated the wheats and oats like a mash, more for practice than anything else, as I haven't actually done a real mash (partial or full), and was able to hold the temperature within a couple degrees for an hour.

I split the extract additions between start of boil and 15 minutes left, got it all added fine, got the spices added when called for, hops all good.

Decided to use a bag for the hops this time to reduce the hop debris I have to deal with later, and I think it worked well.

Full volume boil went well, I didn't get much hot break, but maybe that's normal for extract brews, cooling went pretty good, got it down to about 70F in about 30 minutes using an ice bath, got quite a bit of cold break.

I chose to try to leave some of the cold break in the kettle and siphoned into the primary bucket rather than dumping, I left behind maybe a liter of the thickest trub. Still got a fair amount of cold break in the bucket, which is totally fine.

Rehydrated the yeast before pitching the yeast into 67F well oxygenated (stirred the crap out of it until nice and frothy) wort.

Volumes were very close. Looking for 3.25 gal into primary, and pretty much got there... between 3.2 and 3.3 gal. (my measuring is crude)

I was a little low on OG. Beersmith predicted 1.054, I got 1.050 which I figure is at least partly from the wheat and oat issue. Beersmith, I think, treats them like a true mash, despite the fact that I really wasn't mashing them... they were on their own, so no conversion. The same recipe with the wheat and oats removed (so only the extract and corn sugar) predicted 1.048, which I was slightly over.

Beersmith tells me I got 44% efficiency, but I don't believe that really means anything, as I was relying on extract/sugar for fermentables, and the missed OG is seemingly due to the wheat and oats, which are not fermentable anyways, so I think the efficiency measure here is meaningless?

Got the primary into the Coolbrewing cooler, with a bit of ice, it's currently sitting at 65F, I anticipate it'll drop another couple degrees before fermentation takes off and heats things up a tad (that's what happened with my last batch).

All in all, it went pretty smoothly. Long brew day though. From the start of getting my supplies organized, to finishing with cleaning, was a 6 hour process.

I tasted the OG sample just for kicks, and it tasted like sugary sweet, but also bitter, nastiness, which I think sounds about on target. lol

Good day, I had a lot of fun doing it.

 

[jtratcliff]

Sounds like a successful brew day!

Congrats!

 

[Gnomebrewer]

I was a little low on OG. Beersmith predicted 1.054, I got 1.050 which I figure is at least partly from the wheat and oat issue. Beersmith, I think, treats them like a true mash, despite the fact that I really wasn't mashing them... they were on their own, so no conversion. The same recipe with the wheat and oats removed (so only the extract and corn sugar) predicted 1.048, which I was slightly over.

There most certainly is some conversion with the wheat (assuming it was malted wheat....I didn't read the recipe) - wheat has enzymes, so it was a mash.....Congratulations on your first partial mash recipe!
Depending on the wheat and oats quantities though, you might not have had enough enzymes for full conversion (again, I haven't read the recipe), hence the low efficiency (also, it would have been VERY hard to rinse/sparge with not husks in there, i.e. no barley).

 

[RM-MN]

Unless you compensated the amount of water to account for the less evaporation with a 30 minute boil you ended up with more volume than anticipated and thus the lower OG.

Now that you have found out how easy it is to hold the temperature correct for a mash, you are ready to do all grain. I'd suggest starting with the BIAB method as it removes many of the possible problems and still gets you experience in all grain mash. Many of us who have tried BIAB won't do it any other was as it is so easy.

 

[Mothman]

There most certainly is some conversion with the wheat (assuming it was malted wheat....I didn't read the recipe) - wheat has enzymes, so it was a mash.....Congratulations on your first partial mash recipe!
Depending on the wheat and oats quantities though, you might not have had enough enzymes for full conversion (again, I haven't read the recipe), hence the low efficiency (also, it would have been VERY hard to rinse/sparge with not husks in there, i.e. no barley).

It wasn't malted wheat, just wheat flakes... It is an odd recipe, and I had (have) doubts about it, but a number of people said they made it as directed and in the end I just decided to run with it.

 

[Mothman]

Unless you compensated the amount of water to account for the less evaporation with a 30 minute boil you ended up with more volume than anticipated and thus the lower OG.

Now that you have found out how easy it is to hold the temperature correct for a mash, you are ready to do all grain. I'd suggest starting with the BIAB method as it removes many of the possible problems and still gets you experience in all grain mash. Many of us who have tried BIAB won't do it any other was as it is so easy.

I did compensate for the boil. Well,Beersmith did it for me. I accounted for a half gallon loss and that's about what I got.

And I definitely plan on moving to all grain BIAB. I just wanted to get two or three successful extract brews done first.

 

[estricklin]

Congrats on another successful brew day!

I miss my first few batches, I had so much fun doing them. Brewing is still fun, but ya loose some of that spark over time I think. The trade off is my beers are better, and I have a slightly better idea of what the **** I'm doing now!

 

[Mothman]

Congrats on another successful brew day!

I miss my first few batches, I had so much fun doing them. Brewing is still fun, but ya loose some of that spark over time I think. The trade off is my beers are better, and I have a slightly better idea of what the **** I'm doing now!

Haha yeah I can totally see that.

 

[Mothman]

Brew is chugging along now at 64f, airlock gurgling like mad.

Interestingly the forming krausen on this brew is very different from the first brew. First one was very thick, chunky, and gnarly looking. This one is very light and frothy.