Too good lautering?

[Progfan2010]

I´ve been researching and reading and basically just studying about brewing for over a year. I´ve read basically all of Palmer´s How to brew and understand all about efficiency, malt quantities planning for an specific OG, IBUs calculations and so on.

However, I had not brewed beer by myself until one week ago. It was an all grain batch. I don´t care about extract brewing.

I really believe I had a textbook grain crush. I worked very hard on building a good mash tun and had only one quart of mash tun loss.

I had a few issues due to lack of experience like the target temperature achievement and almost forgetting to hydrate the yeast in time and stuff. But if I did anything right, that was the lautering.

I was planning on re circulating as many times as needed. However, The first time I drained a couple of quarts to re circulate, the wort was so clean that it looked ridiculous to do it a second time. The wort was clear, clean of all debris. I drained what seemed to be 20 quarts with absolutely no impurities at all. Vorlaufing was really unnecessary.

I got a 1.052 OG, so I guess lack of grain crushing was not the cause. Has anything like this happened to anyone?. I built a manifold with 5 tubes, I set them facing down, just like Palmer suggests.

 

[cadwaladr]

what was the grain bill? are you not happy with the 1.052? target?

 

[emjay]

I got a 1.052 OG, so I guess lack of grain crushing was not the cause.

Not the cause of WHAT?

Was there an actual problem or is this just one of those so-called "humble brags"?

 

[Progfan2010]

what was the grain bill? are you not happy with the 1.052? target?

I was supposed to get a little over 1.070 but I missed my target mash temp by 4 degrees Celsius, the mash was messy I think. But still, the wort was very clear.

The main question is, if you think the lack of debris and impurities in the runnings are due to a very good mash tun system or I did something wrong.

 

[Progfan2010]

Was there an actual problem or is this just one of those so-called "humble brags"?

No man, my intention is not to brag. I´m concern I did something completely wrong. I actually messed up the temp target. I honestly felt proud when I thought my system was not letting any debris through, but then I thought that is not typical.

 

[cadwaladr]

missing way too much information... grain bill, temp, time, sparge method/time, grain bed thickness, so on....

 

[Progfan2010]

Not the cause of WHAT?

Was there an actual problem or is this just one of those so-called "humble brags"?

When I say that I got "some" gravity, I mean that lack of grain crushing was not the cause of a clear, debris-free wort.

 

[Progfan2010]

missing way too much information... grain bill, temp, time, sparge method/time, grain bed thickness, so on....

Right. I´ll have to convert from metric data to pounds, gallons and F degrees, otherwise it won´t mean much to you. I´ll come back with that

 

[emjay]

No man, my intention is not to brag. I´m concern I did something completely wrong. I actually messed up the temp target. I honestly felt proud when I thought my system was not letting any debris through, but then I thought that is not typical.

Sounds like you were fine, but you should calculate your brewhouse efficiency so that you can hit a lot closer to your target OG next time. Being off by that much OG isn't necessarily a sign your doing anything wrong - it's just reflective of the reality that different breweries/systems are able to extract sugars from the grain with a wide range of efficiency.

To brew the exact same beer, a system with 90% efficiency will need less grain than a system with 75% efficiency, both of which will need less grain than a system with 65% efficiency, and so on. But as long as your efficiency is above 50%, I wouldn't stress about it... it's much more important that you are able to have a consistent and reliable efficiency (eg batches vary from 64-68%) than it is to get a high but more variable efficiency (eg 82-95%). Make sense?

Unless you failed to open a lot of the husks (ie, you see more than just a couple fully intact grains in your crush), I don't think anything really went wrong, and missing the temp by just a few degrees is not a huge deal and wouldn't cause "problems" like these.

Are you fly sparging or batch sparging?

 

[Progfan2010]

Sounds like you were fine, but you should calculate your brewhouse efficiency so that you can hit a lot closer to your target OG next time. Being off by that much OG isn't necessarily a sign your doing anything wrong - it's just reflective of the reality that different breweries/systems are able to extract sugars from the grain with a wide range of efficiency. To brew the exact same beer, a system with 90% efficiency will need less grain than a system with 75% efficiency, both will need less grain than a system with 65% efficiency, and so on. It's more important that you are able to have a consistent and reliable efficiency (eg batches vary from 64-68%) than it is to get a high but more variable efficiency (eg 82-95%).

Unless you failed to open a lot of the husks (ie, you see more than just a couple fully intact grains in your crush), I don't think anything went wrong, and missing the temp by just a few degrees is not a huge deal and wouldn't cause "problems" like these.

Are you fly sparging or batch sparging?

It was batch sparging. Yeah, I understand about not crushing enough husks, but in this case I was more concerned about having crushed them a little bit more than enough.

 

[onthekeg]

The only problem you run into by crushing too fine would be a very slow lauter. Your efficiency would go up with a finer crush, all other variables equal. Make sure your pH is in the recommended mashing range also.

 

[emjay]

It was batch sparging. Yeah, I understand about not crushing enough husks, but in this case I was more concerned about having crushed them a little bit more than enough.

Nah. Crushing them too much generally hurts wort clarity and can result in stuck sparges. UNDERcrushing can result in low efficiency and WON'T hurt clarity - and you were well short of the 1.070 mark. So you can see that if your crush WAS a problem, it'd be far more likely to be a result of an insufficient crush.

As for the "too clear" wort you seem to have, some systems just don't really need to vorlauf, and especially since it's your first time, I would guess that you're just not familiar with how clear it is. I know *several* brewers who initially thought they were getting exceptionally clear wort and didn't need to vorlauf. And while it's true that they didn't NEED to vorlauf (it's never strictly "necessary"), the truth was *always* that it was really just average wort with good starch conversion, ), and they simply didn't have the experience to know the difference. Consider that the particles continually fall out of suspension during the mash, as well as the fact that, while starchy water is nearly opaque, sugary water is transparent... so the incredible increase in clarity that the wort goes through during the saccharification rest tends to impress newer brewers so much that they often feel it can't get any clearer.

Have you calculated your brewhouse efficiency? It's important to know how efficient your system is if you want to be able to make use of all-grain recipes. Every system is only able to extract a certain proportion of the sugars from the grain, so the amount of grain that each brewer uses has to be adjusted according to their system so that they end up with the same amount of extracted sugars. In other words, you have to adjust the grain bill (ideally with each type of grain in the same proportions) for every recipe you follow, in order to end up with (relatively) the same OG as the recipe intended, because your system and process will leave malt sugars in the spent grain and dead space in an amount different from most other brewers (and thus different from most recipe writers).

I really hope that everything I just wrote makes sense.

 

[Progfan2010]

Nah. Crushing them too much generally hurts wort clarity and can result in stuck sparges. UNDERcrushing can result in low efficiency and WON'T hurt clarity - and you were well short of the 1.070 mark. So you can see that if your crush WAS a problem, it'd be far more likely to be a result of an insufficient crush.

As for the "too clear" wort you seem to have, some systems just don't really need to vorlauf, and especially since it's your first time, I would guess that you're just not familiar with how clear it is. I know *several* brewers who initially thought they were getting exceptionally clear wort and didn't need to vorlauf. And while it's true that they didn't NEED to vorlauf (it's never strictly "necessary"), the truth was *always* that it was really just average wort with good starch conversion, ), and they simply didn't have the experience to know the difference. Consider that the particles continually fall out of suspension during the mash, as well as the fact that, while starchy water is nearly opaque, sugary water is transparent... so the incredible increase in clarity that the wort goes through during the saccharification rest tends to impress newer brewers so much that they often feel it can't get any clearer.

Have you calculated your brewhouse efficiency? It's important to know how efficient your system is if you want to be able to make use of all-grain recipes. Every system is only able to extract a certain proportion of the sugars from the grain, so the amount of grain that each brewer uses has to be adjusted according to their system so that they end up with the same amount of extracted sugars. In other words, you have to adjust the grain bill (ideally with each type of grain in the same proportions) for every recipe you follow, in order to end up with (relatively) the same OG as the recipe intended, because your system and process will leave malt sugars in the spent grain and dead space in an amount different from most other brewers (and thus different from most recipe writers).

I really hope that everything I just wrote makes sense.

Yes, it makes sense, thank you. I´ll keep practicing, that´s the whole point right?. I ...well, my "assistant" made a mistake when adding the sparge water since he poured everything in the kettle, which was almost a gallon more than I wanted, I ended up using about 9 gallons for a 13.88 pounds grain bill.

6.6 Six row base malt
3.3 wheat
1.0 Caramel 60
1.0 Caramel 90
1.65 Chocolate

Yeah, I know, the mix of the grains is a mess, My buddy and I just went crazy on the darkness intended. I know Chocolate for example shouldn´t be more than 5% of the grain bill.

Anyway. I use a 48 quarts cooler but never checked the thickness (I´m not that advanced yet).

I guess you are right about probably not knowing when a wort is not really unclear. But to me it really looked like nothing could be left behind by vorlaufing the runnings. It had a pretty good lautering speed. I did it at a 2 quarts per minute as some suggest (If I remember correctly).

One question, it started to bubble about 8 hours later and it got so violent that it transfered 3 quarts to the blowoff container, as if by a siphon. Then, about 36 hours later the activity almost stopped and just a few bubbles every minute could be seen. I´ve read that a full fermentation for Ales can take as little as that, but I´m concerned the fermentation is incomplete. I need to find a Thief to suck some wort and take a G reading still. I mean, not incomplete, I know it is, but I´m concerned it WILL be incomplete due to lack of preparation (Hidratating the yeast at the very last moment, etc)

 

[Andrew5329]

One question, it started to bubble about 8 hours later and it got so violent that it transfered 3 quarts to the blowoff container, as if by a siphon. Then, about 36 hours later the activity almost stopped and just a few bubbles every minute could be seen. I´ve read that a full fermentation for Ales can take as little as that, but I´m concerned the fermentation is incomplete. I need to find a Thief to suck some wort and take a G reading still. I mean, not incomplete, I know it is, but I´m concerned it WILL be incomplete due to lack of preparation (Hidratating the yeast at the very last moment, etc)

That's your active fermentation right there, and the blowoff is normal if you filled your fermentation vessel too high, or if you pitched your yeast at too warm of a temperature (80*F+) As for fermentation time, let it stay in primary for at least 3 weeks (preferably a month) because while most of the sugar to alcohol conversion is done, your yeast will over the next few weeks preform a ton of Organic Chemistry on the beer beside it, which among other things will remove off flavors, maximize attenuation, make your beer really, really clear (particularly so if you cold-crash right before bottling), and generally just make it taste "better'.


I would be concerned less with getting a super-clear wort after lautering unless your planning a mass-market Bud-Light clone... just eww... especially when your using chocolate/dark malts, which you're only using for the sake of their proteins/various unfermentable starches (caramel, maltodextrin, ect), as anything darker than Crystal 20 contributes next to nothing towards your final ABV.

Also, your wort should be slightly hazy regardless, because one of the things in there that causes haziness are the proteins in suspension, which your yeast need to be healthy. (the yeast then use them and take them out of suspension)

Healthy yeast get better sugar-alcohol conversion, produce less off flavors, and are generally preferable to a protein starved yeast which stops at 50% attenuation because it wasn't resilient enough to stay active in a beer that's more than 3% ABV.

 

[eastoak]

That's your active fermentation right there, and the blowoff is normal if you filled your fermentation vessel too high, or if you pitched your yeast at too warm of a temperature (80*F+) As for fermentation time, let it stay in primary for at least 3 weeks (preferably a month) because while most of the sugar to alcohol conversion is done, your yeast will over the next few weeks preform a ton of Organic Chemistry on the beer beside it, which among other things will remove off flavors, maximize attenuation, make your beer really, really clear (particularly so if you cold-crash right before bottling), and generally just make it taste "better'.


I would be concerned less with getting a super-clear wort after lautering unless your planning a mass-market Bud-Light clone... just eww... especially when your using chocolate/dark malts, which you're only using for the sake of their proteins/various unfermentable starches (caramel, maltodextrin, ect), as anything darker than Crystal 20 contributes next to nothing towards your final ABV.

Also, your wort should be slightly hazy regardless, because one of the things in there that causes haziness are the proteins in suspension, which your yeast need to be healthy. (the yeast then use them and take them out of suspension)

Healthy yeast get better sugar-alcohol conversion, produce less off flavors, and are generally preferable to a protein starved yeast which stops at 50% attenuation because it wasn't resilient enough to stay active in a beer that's more than 3% ABV.

amen. i don't vorlauf at all and those bits of grain and husk in the boil mean NOTHING when i pour the cold, crystal clear beer into a glass. i'm not saying not to vorlauf just that it is not critical to the end result. in my experience anyway.