Brew Day Gone Bad - All that could did,.. well not really

[phendog]

So,... I tweaked the original Pliny The Elder recipe for an 8 ½ gallon batch. Didn't have enough room in my mash tun for all the grain, so I substituted 6.6lbs of LME for what would have been the rest of the 2 Row and left all the other grain the same but scaled for 8 ½ gallons - ended up with about 20lbs of grain. I also scaled the hops down to around 120IBUs.

Started out good. Used my pump to recirc the wort after conversion and will be doing this again in the future – worked great. Boil went well and used a muslin bag for my hops, but didn’t get the aroma I usually do pitching them directly into the wort. At flame out I had a pretty large hops edition and couldn’t get the bag open again so I just tossed them into the kettle. This is where the day came off the rails.

1st: I forgot to add my Whirlfloc at 15mins before flame out

2nd: I turned the water on for my plate chiller, and after about 1 gallon, I had to back flush. Reconnected and same thing happened. Back flushed again

3rd: After the third clog, tired and frustrated, I just dumped the hot wort into my Ss Conical fermenter with all the trub only to realized the chill coils on the bottom of the fermenter lid didn’t reach the wort – - - 8 ½ gallon batch in a 13 gallon fermentor

4th: With hot wort in my fermenter, I checked my gravity and decided I could tolerate loosing some ABV so I topped off with 1+ gallon of water. I was really hoping for an 8.5ABV, but I should get a solid 6% if my fermentation is good. Given my original ABV predictions I made a 2-liter starter.

All in all not horrible and if the beer comes out ok I get an extra 1 ½ gallons for all my troubles.

I guess some days it just doesn’t go the way you planned.

 

[friarsmith]

That sucks. Sorry to hear it, but more beer is never bad. If you forget during the boil (we all do from time to time) Whirlfloc will still work really well if added right after flameout. Then give the kettle a big whirlpool stir for a min or two, then let it settle 20-30 mins. A few weeks back, I forgot, then had to add the whirlfloc at flameout on an IPA and the wort settled out about like I would expect if it was fined at the usual time. The more I brew, the more I've come to believe in the importance of a good whirlpool/settle time post-boil, especially for heavily hopped beers, regardless of when whirlfloc is added. My $0.02.

Speaking of brain farts, I just dry hopped a German Pilsner tonight because I forgot to add the hops during the whirlpool. Who knows, maybe it will turn out to be a fortuitous mistake...

 

[phendog]

Thanks for the great advice friarsmith. Lucky for me I have a trub dump on the bottom of my fermenter. Gonna dump the trub after ferm is done. I may rack out into two 5gal carboys, then back into the conical for secondary and then cold crash, but don't like the risk of aeration or contamination. Dunno,.....will see.

Regarding the whirlpool. I am using a standard keggle. I do have a pump and use it through my plate chiller 10mins before flame out to sterilize. If I get the angle of the hose in the brew kettle right, could I just keep the pump on to create a whirlpool after flame out to get the trub to settle in the middle?

Good luck on your German Pilsner. Always wanted to do a lager and thinking that will be my next. I am a sucker for a dry crisp hop forward pilsner.

 

[ryanryates]

Thanks for the great advice friarsmith. Lucky for me I have a trub dump on the bottom of my fermenter. Gonna dump the trub after ferm is done. I may rack out into two 5gal carboys, then back into the conical for secondary and then cold crash, but don't like the risk of aeration or contamination. Dunno,.....will see.

Regarding the whirlpool. I am using a standard keggle. I do have a pump and use it through my plate chiller 10mins before flame out to sterilize. If I get the angle of the hose in the brew kettle right, could I just keep the pump on to create a whirlpool after flame out to get the trub to settle in the middle?

Good luck on your German Pilsner. Always wanted to do a lager and thinking that will be my next. I am a sucker for a dry crisp hop forward pilsner.

Why would you rack put out of your conical into carboys? And then rack back? Kind of defeats the whole purpose of the conical. Dump your trub when fermentation is complete. Cold crash. Then rack to keg / bottling bucket.

 

[friarsmith]

Regarding the whirlpool. I am using a standard keggle. I do have a pump and use it through my plate chiller 10mins before flame out to sterilize. If I get the angle of the hose in the brew kettle right, could I just keep the pump on to create a whirlpool after flame out to get the trub to settle in the middle? .

I'm not sure if the pump would have enough draw to pull the break to the bottom of the kettle. That's the whole point of the whirlpool, and it takes time for the break material to settle.