A nice brewday, hittin' the numbers

[nostalgia]

Happy Easter and Passover, brewers! Since I wasn't spending this Easter with either side of the family, I decided to brew my AHS Oktoberfest lager to lager over the summer. You may have seen my big starter thread.

I've been dialing in my PM techniques with an eye toward going AG this year. I entered the recipe into Beersmith and tried to keep track of all my volumes and gravities.

I crushed my grain with my Corona mill. BeerSmith predicted I'd have a 1.021 SG going into the kettle, I had 1.020 for a 73% efficiency. SG into the fermenter was predicted at 1.062, I got 1.061 for a 71% efficiency. Not too shabby.

I also nailed my mash-in temp, which stabilized right at 154 in the tun. Instead of adding the water to the grains I've started adding too-hot water to the mash tun then letting it come down to my strike temp. Then I add the grains in my bag. That way the temperature of the cooler doesn't affect the calculations, taking one variable out of the equation.

Just wanted to share a little excitement. My wife's eyes glaze over when I talk to her about efficiency #'s

-Joe

 

[Boodlemania]

Congrats! I too brewed an Oktoberfest over the weekend but I didn't get the same efficiency as you. I hit 69%, which sucks but it's my 2nd AG. First AG was 75% but it had a lighter grain bill.

 

[chumprock]

Gotta love that... congrats!
Made my 4th AG batch yesterday, and everything went perfect except for an overly-aggressive boil.

I ended up with 4.5gal at 1.066 instead of 5.5 at 1.054. It was an easy fix whereas a month or two ago I would have been flipping out about it.

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

Congrats!

I hit a 'target' that I've never hit before with the Bock I brewed yesterday...I dumped in the 2-minutes-remaining hop addition...went back inside to get the IC icewater pump and when I came back out...out of propane...right when the boil was supposed to end.

 

[nostalgia]

Gotta love that... congrats!
Made my 4th AG batch yesterday, and everything went perfect except for an overly-aggressive boil.

I ended up with 4.5gal at 1.066 instead of 5.5 at 1.054. It was an easy fix whereas a month or two ago I would have been flipping out about it.

I actually had an under-aggressive boil - I boiled off just about 1/2 gallon in an hour. I was boiling a lot more than I usually do, so I was trying to be careful of boilovers. Midwest was out of Fermcap-S when I placed my last order

As for your problem, you can just add top-up water to your desired OG, right?

-Joe

 

[The Pol]

Awesome guys! A lot of great brew days! I did my Haus Ale and achieved 82% eff. collected 5.5 gallons at 1.040 with 7.5 pounds of malt!

Glad to see another successful weekend here on HBT!

 

[chumprock]

As for your problem, you can just add top-up water to your desired OG, right?

-Joe

Beersmith has a dillution tool.
So while it seemed like I could just top off, I was a little concerned with what impact it would have (ok, so I worried a little.. heh). Beersmith confirmed the numbers and I hit the target OG spot-on after the top off.

Best $20 I ever spent on brewing. I refer to that application so often.

 

[nostalgia]

Brewday update: Pitched the lager starter at 55F. after 12 hours at 50F there were the first signs of activity in the blowoff. After 24, there was a skim of bubbles in it. After 36 there was strong activity. It's got a big, fluffy kraeusen and it still bubbling away this morning. Hooray!

There was only one goof-up. While aerating the wort by shaking the bejeesus out of the fermenter, I had the blowoff tube in the sanitizer. The shaking apparently created a bit of a vacuum in the fermenter and it sucked up a few oz of sanitizer. Oh well

-Joe

 

[DonArmando]

Just wanted to share a little excitement. My wife's eyes glaze over when I talk to her about efficiency #'s

-Joe

I wish i had a wife like yours....

 

[jpc]

I wish i had a wife like yours....

Not me. I like the fact that my GF takes my gravity readings, does the temperature corrections, and figures my efficiencies for me (all on her own, without prompting from me) while I'm brewing. She's even done an all-grain on her own, after watching me a few times. Having her raid my beer stash every so often is a small price to pay.

She's a keeper, and no, she doesn't have a sister.

 

[nostalgia]

My wife supports me in my various hobbies/obsessions, never questioning a purchase and helping me when I ask for it.

I'm ok if she doesn't want to brew herself nor care about the science

-Joe

 

[Boodlemania]

My wife tolerates my brewing hobby. Barely.

 

[nostalgia]

Fifth day and it's still rollin' along. You can see all the bubbles in the Star-San.

Sure smells good in there!

-Joe

 

[nostalgia]

Day 7 and still bubbling along. Whee! I'm going to pull a sample tonight and see where we are in fermentation. Maybe warm it up a little for a diacetyl rest.

-Joe

 

[nostalgia]

After two weeks the gravity is only down to 1.020. I raised the temp to 60F to do a diacetyl rest, and the good news is it appears to have worked - the buttery flavor from last week is almost completely gone. The rest should come out while aging.

The beer is crystal clear, making me think most of the yeast has flocc'd out. I saved a liter of my original starter and it has a nice yeast layer on the bottom in case I needed to repitch. Beersmith claims my FG should be 1.018, so I think I'm OK. I'll give it another week or two at 55F and keg it for lagering.

-Joe

 

[bad coffee]

how did the hydro sample taste, besides being 'less buttery?'

B

 

[nostalgia]

how did the hydro sample taste, besides being 'less buttery?'

Really yummy It has that hard-to-describe flavor that I associate with lagers, and a nice malty backbone. Not much hop aroma or bitterness to speak of, but I think that's correct for the style.

-Joe