Bad brew day- rethinking hobby

[Metalchef1]

I guess that would work. Not sure what the OG was supposed to be and depending on which yeast was used I would think this beer will finish on the high side thus boiling and adding water to get close to what it was supposed to be might be the easiest option. Not saying brewing a "small" beer wouldn't work. Never did it before.

I haven't either... I'd be curious to the outcome...

 

[Metalchef1]

I was kind of thinking the yeast may have conversion issues due to the gravity of what was basically thin extract? it's currently working on.
The small beer while repitching may help it finish?

 

[kh54s10]

You need to look at that more carefully. It says that you need 9.05 gallons for the mash and your boil of is only showing .75 gallons. You are certainly going to boil off way more than that in 90 minutes. I don't know why it says you only need 7.75 gallons.

Go to the videos portion of Beersmith and look at all of them. Beersmith is a tool that you have to use properly for it to work well.

I think you might be boiling too vigorously also. Seems like you boiled off about 4 gallons in 90 minutes.

 

[dustinthompson85]

I didnt know you could boil too vigorously. I kept it a rolling bubbling... is that too much?

 

[MaxStout]

You have just graduated into the world of all-grain. Congrats, you made a beer! Don't be too hard on yourself--give yourself credit for what you did accomplish. Ferment that beer, package it, and you might be surprised. Meanwhile, get back to work on planning the next one. It WILL get better. Dial in those volumes, based on your gear. And take good notes to review later. Don't give up.

 

[kh54s10]

I didnt know you could boil too vigorously. I kept it a rolling bubbling... is that too much?

Rolling is enough. If it looks like Niagara Falls that is too much. Unless you account for the amount of loss to evaporation. You need to determine your boil off rate to get an accurate amount. And this needs to be accounted for in any recipe software.

 

[dustinthompson85]

Oh, and stop straining the wort.

So you are saying to dump it all in the fermenter, hop gunk and all?

 

[kh54s10]

I drain through a ball valve. I bag my hops. I open the valve and let it pour into the fermenter until at the level of the valve. I usually need a little more in the fermenter so I tip the kettle to drain more. I leave the last couple cups of the thickest in the kettle. Everything transferred will settle after fermentation is done.

 

[dustinthompson85]

Does bagging pellet hops do anything or is that for whole leaf only.

 

[kh54s10]

I use paint strainer bags to contain pellet hops. A 5 gallon one clipped to the lip of my kettle during the boil. Open and dump in the next addition. I swirl the bag often to make sure the wort is circulating through. I bag dry hops, one ounce to a 1 gallon paint strainer bag and just drop them into the fermenter (carefully, as little splashing as possible.) I don't weight them down or anything. I just push them under the surface with a sanitized spoon, again move them around to make sure all the hops get to the beer.

 

[Bobby_M]

Does bagging pellet hops do anything or is that for whole leaf only.

Dont bag hops unless you use a plate chiller. There are so many more details to worry about before separation of trub. Make sure you select one of the biab equipment profiles

 

[kh54s10]

I use an immersion chiller and bag my hops. I use Better Bottle fermenters that are only six gallons. If I didn't bag the hops and filled the fermenters with enough to make sure I got 5 gallons out. I would have blow off every time.

 

[brew703]

I bag my hops as well and use an immersion chiller.

 

[ba-brewer]

After I mashed I took a reading Andrew was at 1.063 I (after the temp adjustments in beer smith). I had right about 6.5 gals to boil for 90 mins. I tired to filter it through a fine strainer when transferring into the fermenter and it plugged up on my because of the sludge. (It was a dogfishhead 90 min clone so a lot of hops). Took a reading when putting it in the fermenter and got 1.080 (it was kind of sludgy, so not sure if it was accurate or not or of that matters).

Recipe Grains:
16 lbs of 2 row
1 lb. Of munich

I mashed (biab) with 7.75 gals on water and took about .5 gals and tried to "rinse" my grain bag since my first reading was below target (target was 1.076 and I landed at 1.063) the rinsing didnt appear to help.

Hops:
3.5 oz. Of hops divided up and added every 5 mins to the 90 min boil.

I think the first thing you should do is fill your kettle with 6 or 7gal of water and do an hour long boil test. Play with the heat to get a decent boil then use that boil off amount in beersmith.

It is better to under-estimate your brewhouse efficiency a little, you can always add a little water at the end if your gravity too high.

I get about 65% for a full volume BIAB, I let my chilled wort settle for a half hour or so and siphon the clear wort into the fermentor. I figure in a gal of trub.

If you were off by 10 points on your starting gravity you needed to give your mash more time to convert.


to go from 1063 to 1080 from 6.5gal you should of had about 5gal left in your kettle. That sounds like a reasonable 1gal/hr boil off. If you ended up with 2.5 to 3gal of 1080 either you did not have 6.5gal to start or you were not at 1062 to start.​

 

[dustinthompson85]

I think the first thing you should do is fill your kettle with 6 or 7gal of water and do an hour long boil test. Play with the heat to get a decent boil then use that boil off amount in beersmith.

It is better to under-estimate your brewhouse efficiency a little, you can always add a little water at the end if your gravity too high.

I get about 65% for a full volume BIAB, I let my chilled wort settle for a half hour or so and siphon the clear wort into the fermentor. I figure in a gal of trub.

If you were off by 10 points on your starting gravity you needed to give your mash more time to convert.


to go from 1063 to 1080 from 6.5gal you should of had about 5gal left in your kettle. That sounds like a reasonable 1gal/hr boil off. If you ended up with 2.5 to 3gal of 1080 either you did not have 6.5gal to start or you were not at 1062 to start.​

I had more "slurry" to put in but assumed it was stuff I shouldn't add to the fermenter. Not sure how much more I had, I had to dump my strainer twice when it plugged up.

 

[doug293cz]

After I mashed I took a reading Andrew was at 1.063 I (after the temp adjustments in beer smith). I had right about 6.5 gals to boil for 90 mins. I tired to filter it through a fine strainer when transferring into the fermenter and it plugged up on my because of the sludge. (It was a dogfishhead 90 min clone so a lot of hops). Took a reading when putting it in the fermenter and got 1.080 (it was kind of sludgy, so not sure if it was accurate or not or of that matters).

Recipe Grains:
16 lbs of 2 row
1 lb. Of munich

I mashed (biab) with 7.75 gals on water and took about .5 gals and tried to "rinse" my grain bag since my first reading was below target (target was 1.076 and I landed at 1.063) the rinsing didnt appear to help.

Hops:
3.5 oz. Of hops divided up and added every 5 mins to the 90 min boil.

For 17 lbs of grain in 7.75 gal of strike water the maximum possible pre-boil gravity (i.e. 100% conversion efficiency) is about 1.069. No way possible to get a pre-boil gravity of 1.076 with the amount of grain and water you used. Your pre-boil gravity (before sparge/rinse) of 1.063 represents a conversion efficiency of about 90-91%. This isn't terrible conversion efficiency, but it is possible to routinely get 95-100% conversion efficiency with a good crush, a long enough mash, proper mash temp, proper pH, etc.

Your 6.5 gal pre-boil with 7.75 + 0.5 gal of water gives a grain absorption rate of about 0.103 gal/lb, which is pretty typical for an unsqueezed BIAB with a moderate drain time.

Sparging (rinsing) will never raise the pre-boil SG. The sparged wort has a lower SG than the initial wort because it has a lower concentration of sugar. Sparging increases the amount of sugar in your BK, but it increases the amount of water even more, so the pre-boil gravity goes down, but the lauter efficiency goes up (because you got more of the available sugar out of the spent grain.)

As mentioned previously, your biggest issue seems to be much higher boil off than your calculations assumed.

Brew on

 

[doug293cz]

I had more "slurry" to put in but assumed it was stuff I shouldn't add to the fermenter. Not sure how much more I had, I had to dump my strainer twice when it plugged up.

Ok, all this wasted slurry volume also greatly reduced you fermenter volume. It might even be a bigger factor than your boil off. If you are going to BIAB, don't try to strain the wort going into the fermenter, just let all the trub settle out at the end of fermentation.

Brew on

 

[dustinthompson85]

For 17 lbs of grain in 7.75 gal of strike water the maximum possible pre-boil gravity (i.e. 100% conversion efficiency) is about 1.069. No way possible to get a pre-boil gravity of 1.076 with the amount of grain and water you used. Your pre-boil gravity (before sparge/rinse) of 1.063 represents a conversion efficiency of about 90-91%. This isn't terrible conversion efficiency, but it is possible to routinely get 95-100% conversion efficiency with a good crush, a long enough mash, proper mash temp, proper pH, etc.

Your 6.5 gal pre-boil with 7.75 + 0.5 gal of water gives a grain absorption rate of about 0.103 gal/lb, which is pretty typical for an unsqueezed BIAB with a moderate drain time.

Sparging (rinsing) will never raise the pre-boil SG. The sparged wort has a lower SG than the initial wort because it has a lower concentration of sugar. Sparging increases the amount of sugar in your BK, but it increases the amount of water even more, so the pre-boil gravity goes down, but the lauter efficiency goes up (because you got more of the available sugar out of the spent grain.)

As mentioned previously, your biggest issue seems to be much higher boil off than your calculations assumed.

Brew on

How would beer smith come out with a estimated pre boil gravity that is higher than 100% efficiency?

 

[dustinthompson85]

Ok, all this wasted slurry volume also greatly reduced you fermenter volume. It might even be a bigger factor than your boil off. If you are going to BIAB, don't try to strain the wort going into the fermenter, just let all the trub settle out at the end of fermentation.

Brew on

So its typical for brewers to empty the entire kettle into the fermenter? Where did I pick up leaving the "bad stuff" behind?

 

[doug293cz]

I would have to see your BS settings, recipe, and equipment profile to figure that out.

Brew on

 

[doug293cz]

So its typical for brewers to empty the entire kettle into the fermenter? Where did I pick up leaving the "bad stuff" behind?

Many 3-vessel brewers leave behind BK trub, but then they start with a lot less particulate in the BK due to the filter bed created by the grain in their mash/lauter tun. With BIAB you will have a lot more fine grain particulate matter in the BK, which settles slowly after the boil. You could wait many hours for all of this to settle, and then just rack the clear wort to the fermenter, or just dump it all in the fermenter and let it settle out at the end. The second option is a lot quicker (total brew time.) As you found, filtering isn't easy to do because of the clogging issue.

Whirlpooling can help settle out the trub in the BK. It is very effective for leaf hops, but I don't know how effective it is for suspended flour.

Brew on

 

[ba-brewer]

So its typical for brewers to empty the entire kettle into the fermenter? Where did I pick up leaving the "bad stuff" behind?

many ways to skin the homebrew cat. Some say hot break is not good, but cold break is good. People get good results by dumping it all into the fermentor. Dumping it all into the fermentor helps with overall BHE.

I repitch my yeast and like to start with clear wort so there is less stuff in the yeast at the end.

 

[jrgtr42]

for curiosity, what was your expected volume? what was your recipe and process?
If you were hoping for 5 gallons and you ended with 3, there's something seriously wrong.

 

[IslandLizard]

Water volumes aside, I'm even more puzzled by the 17 lb grain bill...

 

[dustinthompson85]

Water volumes aside, I'm even more puzzled by the 17 lb grain bill...

Puzzled in what way?

 

[dustinthompson85]

Puzzled in what way?

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/dogfish-head-90-minute-ipa-clone/

That's what the recipe called for.

 

[ba-brewer]

I had more "slurry" to put in but assumed it was stuff I shouldn't add to the fermenter. Not sure how much more I had, I had to dump my strainer twice when it plugged up.

I think if you look carefully at your data points you got reasonable close on your first attempt, it was just the trying to strain your wort that messed you up.

Did you measure the volume prior to straining, was it close to 5gal? What was your boil-off set to in beersmith? If you are using the same pot for BIAB as you did for your extract batches, what was your boil-off for your extract batches?

Figure out your approach to dealing with kettle trub and I think next time will much better without much tweaking.​

 

[beernutz]

Wow, I like reading and researching brewing! But what a brew day. I think I ended up with like 2 gallons after 6 hours of work. How does this happen? I have the correct pre boil volume according to beer Smith. Super slurry from all the hops but that's ok, just disappointed in the yield. Gravity readings were right, it if you think about the volume something is off... just demotivated... maybe I need to back up to extract. Picture is of a 6.5 gallon fermenter. Finished about an hour ago. View attachment 585098

What type burner are you using? That seems like a lot of boil off even for a 90 minute boil.

 

[dustinthompson85]

What type burner are you using? That seems like a lot of boil off even for a 90 minute boil.

This one.

 

[dustinthompson85]

My brewsmith setup says I'll lose .5 gal per hour in boil. I am assuming that's super low based on what I have read, maybe closer to 1 gal