Belgian Honey Wheat

[BakerBeer]

I am about to bottle my first all grain batch. It was suppose to be a five gallon batch but I boiled it down to a little over 3 gallons. To prime this with dextrose I am reading one OZ per gallon.... True?

 

[BakerBeer]

So I am starting to prep all my bottles and using all clean on my bottling bucket,16oz bottles and equipment. I have everything ready and waiting to bottle till tonight. So, Curiously got to me to smell my wort.... I gently removed the airlock from the top and took a quick smell.... I about fell on my ass... Lmfo. It smells like pure grain alcohol. Has a wonderful beer like smell! However I think this might just be at the 10+% alcohol.

Should I maybe boil me a gallon of spring water and maybe mix it in really well?

 

[zzARzz]

You could do that or boil a gallon of spring water for 10 minutes, cut the heat and stir in your priming sugar. Chill it and put it in your bottling bucket before siphoning in the beer. Be sure to gently (you don't want to introduce air into it) but thoroughly mix it, though. You may also want to add some additional priming sugar (about 3 oz total should make it around 2.5 volumes).

 

[BakerBeer]

Ok, I used a little less then a half cup of dextrose. I did some re search online as to the ratio of gallons of wart to priming sugar and I found that a one to one ratio seems to work.

After bottling the color looks great, and the smell also has a nice beer aroma.

I think I am going to buy the ingredients again after the holidays and try again...

 

[zzARzz]

That's great you're going to try again. Just remember that with all grain your pre-boil volume (at least with this recipe) should be about 6.5 gallons. After an hour boil and cooling it will reduce to about 5 gallons at pitching, giving you a yield of 4.5 gallons at bottling (2 cases of 12oz bottles).

 

[BakerBeer]

Absolutely! Thanks for all your help! You have been such a great asset throughout this process! Happy holidays to you and your family.

 

[zzARzz]

I like to help people, so no problem. Happy holidays to you and yours as well.

 

[BakerBeer]

OK, so i decided to make this batch again!

Same Ingredients minus the honey, and instead of orange zest, i have pealed 3 large oranges and going to toss the skins in @ 30 min

My first question pertains to OG... Is OG your Preboil volume or before the first mash out?

Second Question... My last batch of this seems like it was much sweeter when i was draining from the mash tun... should i be concerned?

I know i hit my temperature numbers right on the nose! i check the temp in the mash tun every 30 min. never dropped below 152. I went out and got a new Igloo 5 gallon cooler and a mighty nice strainer that screws into my ball valve. I had very little grain pass through I am getting better at this!

I also added some PH right (5.2) to the pre mash so i feel my PH should have been good all throughout. (when i say pre-mash, i mean while i was mixing the hot water and grain together)

My pre boil volume is around 6.5 gallons and as i am typing this boiling down to 5.5 gallons... i may end up boiling down to 5 gallons.

Suggestions?

 

[zzARzz]

Practice gets you to Carnegie Hall.

Original Gravity is measured post-boil (right before you pitch). Pre-boil Gravity is measured after you have sparged and you're ready to begin the boil. For instance, on a honey wheat ale I did, my Pre-boil Gravity was 1.039 SG (6.25 gallons of collected wort) but my OG was 1.051 SG after the boil (5 gallons when I pitched). OG will be higher than PBG due to the sugar being concentrated because of water loss during the boil.

I've used pH 52 in several of my brews, especially if I have a large percentage of dark specialty grains (they tend to lower the pH of the wort by a large degree) and, having measured the pH, it really does work, at least for me. I've heard of people having mixed results with it and others with a subjective experience that it alters the flavor of their beer. I've not noticed a difference in mine having used it versus not and perhaps it works for the water chemistry of my area better than that of others, so really it is a matter of a trial and error for you to experiment with and see if you like it or not.

There are other ways to adjust mash pH, such as with chemical additives and grain choice, but that gets into some heavy duty brew science/water chemistry and you're better off just getting the basics under your belt for now. As long as you're in the 5.0-5.4 area you'll be fine.

And as far as pH testing I just use a roll of litmus paper I got from Amazon on the cheap. Yeah (to those of you tutting while reading this), I know it's not as fancy, accurate or compensating as a $300 lab grade, electronic pH meter, but it does the job I need it to do well enough. I'm making home brew, not working for NASA.

It's nice to see you're still into brewing and I hope you having a lot of fun expanding your knowledge and skill in your new found hobby.

 

[BakerBeer]

Absolutely! Thanks for your help!

This gives me hope... My OG was suppose to be 1.043 and when I measured mine pre boil volume... I was at 1.030'ish... It worried me but if you say it should go up some, then I should have hit my numbers.

After the boil, I didn't cool it rapidly... I dumped it into my primary bucket and covered it to cool slowly over night. When I get home from work I was going to *pitch* the yeast. / silly

We will see how it turns out... I have very high hopes for this batch!

 

[BakerBeer]

Good news! Last night when i got home (was kinda late) I was able to pitch the yeast. I took a OG reading before i did and i measured 1.049 - 1.050. Does this mean i got good conversions?

Before i pitched my yeast i used my siphon tool to aerate the wort a good bit. Then i just poured my liquid yeast into the primary fermentor and closed her up.

Its been almost 11-12 hours and i don't really see any bubbles coming through the airlock... from what i read it can take up to three days to see activity however, good brewing practice should see activity in 12-15.

What you think?

 

[zzARzz]

Yeah, you got about 70-75% efficiency which is about average for mashing and excellent for only your second AG batch.

If you didn't make a starter (i.e. you activated the slap pack and poured it in once it was bloated) then it can take as long as 24-48 hours to see activity. Even with a starter it can take 12+ hours. I've had it as quickly as 2 hours and as long as a day even using a stir plated starter, so it's mostly a matter of being patient and letting the yeast get acclimated to their new environment.

If you're really getting into it I'd suggest to start looking at the DIY stir plate designs around HBT and the web (like this one. They're actually very cheap, easy to build (even with a modest amount of handiness) and all you need other than a few RadioShack parts are an Erlinmeyer flask and stir bar which I ordered from Amazon. They save a lot of money in yeast and extract and you can use smaller starters:

BYO also has an excellent DIY stir plate project guide here. I just got a plastic project box from RadioShack when I was getting the rheostat, knob and switch since they make it easy to fit everything in. I also got a universal 1000mA universal power supply and it made fine tuning the fan speed much easier versus using an old cell phone power supply as some others have had great success with.

 

[BakerBeer]

Sweet! I will most certainly give that a look

I got up this morning to find my primary just exploding with life! In fact the carouse (sp) is all the way to the top and now I am afraid I am going to have a over flow. Is it possible to move this beer into larger bucket at this time? My local brew shop told me to keep it in a clear container to be able to watch how the wort is acting. He also mentioned once it gets going, not to disturb the wort and let it finish.

Do I just put something under it and let it go?

See picture

 

[zzARzz]

Instead of using an airlock during your initial primary fermentation I would suggest instead to use a blowoff tube, which is basically just a length of tubing running from your stopper to a jar with a few inches of water or sanitizer. Airlocks are great for secondary or post-krausen, but they have a tendency to clog which builds up pressure in the fermenter until it ruptures from the top like a volcano. Blow off tubes help to minimize the risk of a mess and/or infection. Case and point, this is what I found the morning after I brewed a brown ale before I started using blow off tubes when starting in primary:

 

[BakerBeer]

I think I read your mind... I had a tube that I bought for the brewing process but it never fit anything, so I just put it to the side. I used the same tube and inserted it into my airlock neck. Then put some sanitized water into the Rubbermaid tub and run the tube into that. I used the paddle to hold down the end of the tube.

Will this do ok? It's a little bigger then a mason jar....

So will this hurt the out come of the beer? Will it take from the FG?

 

[BakerBeer]

Sorry, here's some eye candy lol

 

[zzARzz]

You should pull the whole airlock out and push the tube through the hole in the carboy bung. The krausen tends to get clogged in the tip of the airlock and it looks like the same thing would happen with the way you have it now.

You also may want to just put the sanitizer in an empty, clean spaghetti sauce jar or a glass next to your fermenter so that there is a few inches of liquid between the end of the blow off tube and the surface. The way you have it now is acting kind of like what is known as a swamp cooler which may reduce your fermentation temp.

 

[BakerBeer]

Ok sounds good!

I took your advise... see picture

I put some Sani water into a milk jug and use that.

I hope this don't take from the flavor of the beer or hurt the FG.

 

[zzARzz]

Looks good, except keeping the jug on the floor will prevent a gravity siphon as the beer cools after fermentation (cooling will create a vacuum in the carboy which may pull sanitizer into your beer).

Using a blowoff tube won't affect the outcome of the beer one bit, so no worries. In fact it's safer since there is little chance for a clogged airlock to risk an infection. Once the krausen dies down you can switch back to an airlock since there is no risk of a clog post-krausen.

 

[BakerBeer]

Nailed my FG!

Beer has a great color, and taste just great... Well for flat beer any ways

However, I thought I would have got more then 4 gallons out of it... Sucks because I primed for 5 gallons. I hope it don't hurt the beer being a little over carb'ed

I used about a half cup of corn sugar which is around 3.6 oz. I don't have scales yet so I had to guess

 

[zzARzz]

Looks nice! 3.6oz of corn sugar isn't too bad for 4 gallons of beer. It'll be a little fizzy, but should be good.

If you need a good scale, the one I use is here. Does up to 2 kilograms (4.4 lbs) and weighs in both metric and standard. I use mine all the time (the tare function is especially useful) and it measures in 1/10th of an ounce units. Can't beat the price for a good digital pocket scale either.

 

[BakerBeer]

Nice scale. A good scale is my next investment in this wonderful hobby. I like yours, it's pocket size too! I was going to attemp to wash my yeast this go around but I think I will save that for another go around.

Here's a picture of the final product!

This one I didn't fill up as close as I did the others. Some I got within 1- 1.5 inch of the top

Going to cross my fingers I don't have an explosion and mess on my hands.

 

[zzARzz]

That's a fine looking home brew! As long as you reached your FG and it held there for a few days you shouldn't have any bottle bombs. To be on the safe side, my first few go arounds I put my bottles in a large Rubbermaid bin. I only had 1 bottle leak due to a fracture in the glass, but better safe than cleaning up a mess.

I have a friend who uses the Mr. Beer kits and on his first one he primed and bottled it only 3 days after pitching (because the air lock stopped), then put it in his 85F closet to condition. That resulted in a $200 dry cleaning bill, lol. He learned to be patient after that.

 

[BakerBeer]

Well, you just taught me something then. I have been on travel to Connecticut this past week so I had my wife time the bubbles for me every night. This morning when I got home, I timed the bubbles again and it was at 1 min and 17 sec intervals. Not sure how long it's been sitting at the FG. I know better now for next time.

I will put them in a Rubbermaid container tonight. I store them in our nook area in a box that the bottles came in... This keeps it out of the sun light and kinda protects it if one were to bust.

 

[zzARzz]

Yeah, air lock activity pretty much means squat. When your FG holds for about 3-4 days then you're ready to bottle. I've had plenty of brews drop 10 points or more after air lock activity ceased in secondary.

 

[BakerBeer]

So you recommend only using the air lock to prevent the nasties from getting in?

Also, is there a better method of getting samples from the fermenter, other then removing the airlock and taking a small sample? I would think this method would give a much large risk of infection.

 

[zzARzz]

Yeah, airlock activity is exciting because it's something immediately tangible to the brewer, but as far as when the beer is done or not comes down to gravity readings.

I use a refractometer (this is the one I use) to track the activity and once it stabilizes I'll use a hydrometer to get a true FG reading.

Refractometers are nice because you only need 3-4 drops of beer to take a sample reading but the alcohol content of the beer will throw the reading off. There are compensation calculators out there, but even then they tend to be inaccurate by several gravity points. So, like I said, they're nice to track a steady march to FG until the activity plateaus off, but a good hydrometer is really the best method of getting an accurate FG reading to record, though the downside is that the hydrometer uses a lot more beer. I find a combination of the two tools limits how much I lose to the "scientist's share."

To pull reading for the refractometer I use a 25mL glass Mohr pipet (like this one) and for the hydrometer I use a 2oz glass turkey baster, both of which I sanitize in iodophor before taking a reading. The pipet is long enough that I can pull the sample from anywhere in the column of liquid in the fermenter, but it's unnecessary to fill it since you only need 3-4 drops of beer for a refractometer . The baster has the advantage of pulling a lot of beer quickly for the hydrometer test jar, limiting how much exposure the beer has to the outside world. As long as you follow sensible sanitation precautions there is little risk of infection.

 

[zzARzz]

Btw, if you're looking for something new to try, here is a recipe for a Scottish Heavy I developed for a friend of mine from Scotland. He loves it and it's the reigning favorite among my ilk. It has a really nice floral aroma and flavor to it thanks to the combination of adding hops to the mash and the use of treacle at flameout. If you have an international food store near you I use Lyle's Black Treacle imported from England. You can also order it from Amazon. It comes in 1 lb cans and is pretty inexpensive.

Donald's Scottish Heavy
Type: Scottish Export 80 Shilling
Size: 5 gal
Water Needed: 7.75 gal
Pre-Boil Vol: 6.25 gal
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.035 @ 75% eff.
Carb: 2.1 vol
SRM: 16
IBU: 19
OG: 1.046
FG: 1.012
ABV: 4.4%

Water Treatment
I use a combination of different water treatment chemicals based on the water profile of my area, but for you I would suggest just using a single

1 oz pkg of Burton Water Salts; Mix in with all 7.75 gal of water before starting mash

GRAIN (7 lbs 14 oz Total)
6 lbs -- Pale Malt, Maris Otter (Munton's) 71.6%
1 lb -- Aromatic Malt (Dingemans) 11.9%
8 oz -- Carapils (Briess) 6%
4 oz -- Special B Malt (Dingemans) 3%
2 oz -- Roasted Barley (Briess) 1.5%

Mash Schedule (Medium Body, Single Infusion)
Mash-In: 12 qts water @ 166F (152F Step Temp) for 60 minutes
Mash-Out: 7 qts water @ 200F (168F Step Temp) for 10 minutes
Sparge with 3 gallons of water @ 168F

Hop Schedule
0.50 oz -- Sovereign (5.5% AA) in Mash for 70 minutes (Add to grain when mashing in)
0.50 oz -- Sovereign (5.5% AA) Boil @ 60 minutes
1 oz -- Fuggles (4.5% AA) Boil @ 10 minutes

Other
1 tsp -- Irish Moss @ 30 minutes
8 oz -- Lyle's Black Treacle @ Flameout (8 oz by weight, not volume)
3.25 oz -- Priming Sugar (Dextrose); 2.1 vol @ Bottling

Yeast
1 pkg -- Wyeast Scottish Ale (1728); 0.75L Starter on stir plate (or 1.25L simple starter) @ 65F for 2 days

Fermentation Schedule
Chill and Pitch @ 65F
Primary: 7 days @ 60F
Secondary: 14 days @ 55F
Cold Crash: 2 days @ 40F
Condition 30 days w/ 3.25 oz Dextrose (2.1 vol) @ 65F

This recipe will introduce you to more refined methods of controlling temperature, cold crashing, water treatment as well as mash hopping. For this beer to really shine the temps must be held very stable (this recipe was the reason I built my temp controlled fermentation chamber). Scottish Ale Yeast has a temp range of 55-75F, but the really clean, crisp flavor of Scottish heavies happen at the low end of the spectrum. Like I said, this is one of my favorite ones to make and it's so smooth that Donald and I tend to get ourselves in trouble with them.

 

[BakerBeer]

Interesting that you use both a refracto and hydrometer. I have a saltwater aquarium and I use a refracto to measure the specific gravity of the water every so often. I am fairly sure it might have the brick scale on one side too.

That recipe looks intense! I have never heard of a heavy ale before. What could I compare it to?

 

[zzARzz]

Refractometers for salt water are calibrated to measure salinity where as those for brewing are calibrated to measure sugar content. Each has a different refractive index since salt bends light differently than sugar (I think 1.5:1.38 respectively). But I suppose your salt water one would work just to watch the activity and once it stops the hydrometer would give you a real gravity reading.

"Scottish Heavy" is a bit of a misnomer because they are lower ABV session beers. The closest thing I could compare them to would be a Newcastle Brown Ale, but they are less carbonated, more malt forward and much "heavier" in mouth feel (maybe something in between a brown ale and a porter). Scottish heavies also tend to have a slight smokiness to them in the background.