Brewing Process

[eagle23]

Tl : DR

So last weekend I bottled my 3rd batch of beer. The brewing was slightly rushed because of a last minute change in venue and a power outage. It was a different recipe than the previous two because the reviews of my 2nd batch were very positive.

From reading i know i have a very drawn out process, but I like it.

I start with a 15 gallon stainless brew pot I use was a mash tun. it has a false bottom and a ball valve.

1) I fill the pot with mash water. The ratio i use is a gallon of water for every 3 pounds of grain.

2) When the water reaches about 117 degrees (measured using a regular thermometer) i pour the grains into the watch. it gets regularly stirred to make sure all the grains can get to the water, and to help the heat dissipate throughout the mash. It sits at that temperature for a glucan-rest for 15 minutes

3) I raise the temp up to 135 for a protein rest. And it sits for another 15 minutes. I know that the protein rest isn't necessary, and detracts from the body of the beer, but i like doing for peace of mine with final clarity.

4) The temperature raises up to 146 for an hour to do the Saccharification rest. I shoot for the lower end of the spectrum in order to get simplilar sugars and eventual a drier finish. After the first hour i bring the temprature up to 160 for a second Saccharification rest for 30 minutes. This is just to make sure that all the starches get geletinized and can get converted to sugars. At 30 minutes i do an iodine test to check for any unconverted starches. If it shows there are i will continue at 160 for another 30 minutes.

During the whole mash, it gets stirred in order for the temperature to raise evenly. (I don't know if stirring is helpful, detrimental, or just does not make a difference to the process. i just dont want to let the grains pack down at the bottom or let any one part get too hot and burn.)

5) The temprature goes up to 170 for a mash out. once it hits temp, i let it sit for 15 minutes. at that point i take the mash tun off the burner and set it to the side to vorlaup. a second pot with 6 gallons of water gets put on the burner to heat up.

6) I vorlaup happens until the sparge water hits 170. I put the mash tun back on the burner and set the other end of the line in the boil kettle and begin to collect the wort. i shoot for 6 gallon of wort at the end.

7) I'll put the boil kettle on the burner and begin the boil. Do that for an hour. Adding hops and whatnot. at 10 minutes i'll add irish moss and the immersion chiller.

8) At the end of the hour i kill the heat and start the chilling process. Once its down to the temprature specified by the yeast i'll begin draining it into a sanitized fermenter.

9) I'll aerate the wort. Granted this is somthing i have been known to forget. My goal is to get the equipment to oxygenate the wort with pure oxygen as opposed to shaking it. Then i pitch the yeast and let it sit for 4 weeks before bottling.


Now a few steps i have to adapt a little bit due to equipment. I cant set up anything permenant, because where i brew tends to change since i live in an apartment. If there is any comments or observations i would love to hear them.

 

[philipCT]

So, overall, I see no reason you shouldn't be making some outstanding beers - nothing obviously wrong with your process.

Some comments:

• your mash process seems pretty elaborate. if you were looking to simplify, you might try a straight ahead single sacc rest with a mash-out
• I know most would say that modern grains don't really need anything but a sacc rest - some even say the mash-out is unnecessary, but you probably already know that
• the other thing about the mash that seems like a lot of work is the mixing throughout. many things I've read suggest a good stir at the beginning, and then leave it alone to let the grain bed set up as a good filter (then you stir again at the sparge)
• I understand the mixing may be required because you're using a direct-fire and you want to make sure the grain bed is evenly heated
• if you were looking to simplify that, you could look at going to a HERMS/RIMS type system which is designed to maintain even temps
• the other option, which would be lower investment than HERMS/RIMS, would be to use a cooler mash-tun. that's what I used before I went to HERMS, I got great efficiencies and I was always amazed at how effective they were holding the heat
• I used to move big heavy pots full of really hot liquid too - if you wanted to get out of that business, you could add a pump (or two), and a burner
• you don''t say anything about controlling temps during fermentation, but I'm sure you're aware of how important that is to good beer

Brew on!

 

[RM-MN]

1. Your mash ratio of 1.25 qts/lb is standard but isn't required. For easy of stirring, you could go to 1.5 qts/lb or even higher. The trade off is that you would have less to sparge with.

2, 3. and 4. Modern malts from the US and Canada are fully modified and don't really need these rests. They are optional. If you like the work and time required, keep on with the realization that many brewers make excellent beers without the work. It has also been reported that modern malts don't respond well to the mash temp so your step mash may not accomplish a lot. Your choice.

5. It isn't clear from you description whether you are batch sparging or fly sparging. If fly sparging you need the mashout. Otherwise you can skip it.

6. Vorlauf is to get rid of the grain husks until the grain bed is set. When you first open the valve, you likely will have bits of grain and husks. You don't need to continue until the wort runs completely clear, just until the amount of husks reduce to an acceptable level. Left in, if your pH raises above 6.0 during the sparge and your sparge is at or above 170, you might extract some tannins from the husks. Those of us who BIAB don't vorlauf at all. Our wort is very cloudy but it still makes clear beer. Figure that out.

7. You add the wort chiller to the boil to pasteurize it. You could wait until the boil was over because at boiling temperature pasteurization occurs almost instantaneously. You won't be able to chill the wort fast enough to avoid pasteurizing the wort chiller. It won't hurt to put it in early except that that addition usually stops the boil for a bit.

8. It won't hurt (arguably will help) to chill a little low, pitch the yeast, and let it warm up to the fermentation temperature. Much better that way than pitching too high with the expectation that the wort will cool to fermentation temps.

9. Aerating the wort provides the oxygen the yeast needs to create new cell walls, essential to reproduction. With liquid yeast this is more important than with the extra cells provided by the dry yeast packets. Do try to remember to do it though, it's a good practice. Your beer doesn't really need 4 weeks to ferment. If you ferment the beer at the proper temperature there won't be much for the yeast to clean up and that will be done in 2 weeks or less. The extra time does let more of the yeast settle out and starts the beer maturing. This is much more important for dark beers and beers with higher alcoholic content. I'd suggest that you start the ferment at the bottom of the yeast's preferred range (often in the low 60's) and then after 4 to 7 days let it warm to the low 70's if you can as this helps the yeast with the cleanup phase.

 

[eagle23]

philipmeese, could you please elaborate on stirring the mash during the sparge? Thats not somthing i think i have read or heard about.

As for the temp control during fermentation, that is going to be an issue. I know with this last batch there was a lot of temperature fluctuation, partially due to me looking at the thermometer and panicking a little bit. Down the road i plan to get a small fridge to freezer and set up with a temp control system but that's just not something i can do right now.

I am looking at the RIMS/HERMS systems. I just am not quite sure how they work or what it takes to make on. Due to space i'm trying to keep the set up on the smaller side until i get somewhere where i dont have about finding a place to brew.

When i do the next batch I am going to pay closer attention to the water. is ph somthing i should watch and try to adjust throughout the mash and boil, or can i just check it at the beginning, adjust as needed and move on?

 

[RM-MN]

philipmeese, could you please elaborate on stirring the mash during the sparge? Thats not somthing i think i have read or heard about.

As for the temp control during fermentation, that is going to be an issue. I know with this last batch there was a lot of temperature fluctuation, partially due to me looking at the thermometer and panicking a little bit. Down the road i plan to get a small fridge to freezer and set up with a temp control system but that's just not something i can do right now.

I am looking at the RIMS/HERMS systems. I just am not quite sure how they work or what it takes to make on. Due to space i'm trying to keep the set up on the smaller side until i get somewhere where i dont have about finding a place to brew.

When i do the next batch I am going to pay closer attention to the water. is ph somthing i should watch and try to adjust throughout the mash and boil, or can i just check it at the beginning, adjust as needed and move on?

Neither of us know whether you are fly sparging or batch sparging. If you are fly sparging you don't stir but let the sugar diffuse into the sparge water as it slowly makes its way down through the bed of grains. If you batch sparge, you add all the water for that sparge at once and then stir to get the sugars into the wort, then drain all that and if you want, you do a second sparge.

Temperature control has made the biggest positive change in my beer. Beer that ferments too warm gets off flavors, beer that ferments too cold doesn't attentuate properly and beer that is subjected to fluctuating temps can stall out before the fermentation is done. One cheap and easy way to control the temperature during fermentation is to set your fermenter into a tub of water and control that water temp by adding heat or ice depending on whether you need it hotter or cooler. The first 3 to 5 days is critical and once the fermentation has slowed you can let the beer come to room temp for the yeast to complete the cleanup phase.

 

[eagle23]

Its a fly sparge. And just to clarify, i dont stir during the sparge. just during the mash to keep the temperature even

 

[eagle23]

UPDATE:

Did my latest batch since i started this thread last Friday, in the fermentor now.

I tired some different things and I'm excited to see how it turns out. The biggest thing is that i changed the water. Rather than using the tap water since it was easy. I used water the the artisan well down the street from my apartment. The water itself tastes really good.

I tried adjusting the PH of the water for the 1st time. Needless to say it didn't go well. The PH strips i was using ( meant for beer) would not change when applied to the water, and any lactic acid i added also made no change. So i didn't adjust the sparge water in order to compensate.

The mash and sparge went great. I cant prove it ( hard time reading the hydrometer numbers and cant really trust the accuracy of my calculator) but i read 99% efficiency on the sparge.

The boil was another trouble spot. I turned up the heat to bring it up to a boil quickly, but i never turned the gas down, and had problems with the Wort wanting to repeatedly boil over. So i lost more water than i wanted to. I picked up some yeast nutrient, added that towards the end of the boil.

When i went to transfer to my fermentor, I didn't have a way to filter out any of the hop residue or anything so a lot of that made it into the fermentor. I will definitely account for that next time.

I picked up a oxygenation kit and was able to properly oxygenate my wort.

I am trying to do temperature for the fermentation, which is hard in an apartment without a real way to do it. Basically i let it sit in a pantry where it could sit in the low 60's for about 3.5 days. then moved it out to where it could sit for 5 days around 68 degrees. On Saturday I brought the temp up to 70, and i'm planning to keep it there for 3 more weeks.

My thinking is that by fermenting it at cooler temps, along with the oxygen and the nutriance, the yeast will be less stressed and will produce less off flavors and fusels, the latter i have had a small issue with in past batches. Now at the warmer temps, the yeast can really clean up after themselves.

It seems to be working too. Its day 10 if fermentation, and i still see a little bit of airlock activity.

 

[Doctor_M]

Ph strips are worthless, throw them in the trash where they belong and buy a pH meter.

Also look into buying kettle defoamer. It prevents boil overs.

 

[eagle23]

So my last batch turned out ok. My Gravity is a little high for the IPA style that i am going for ( FG = 1.022). The beer had a slight broth taste too it. I think that was from the Melanoiden malt that was used. I did a 1 gallon beer of just melanoiden and it had the same flavor. Also i let it sit in the primary for 4 weeks.

I did that because i wanted to have more yeast fall out of suspension before bottling. It worked great for that, but i lost a lot of the hop aroma in the process. Could i find a way to cold crash it after 2 weeks and then bottle without having to add new yeast to the mix?

I am looking at trying a little different recipe this weekend and I am hoping to get some opinions on it:

12.7 lbs: 2-Row
1 lb -Victory
1 lb -Munich

1.5oz Columbus @ 60 min
.5oz Centennial @ 10 min
.5oz Simcoe @ 5 min
1oz Citra @ 0 Min
1oz Columbus 0 Min
.5 oz Cenntennial @ 0 Min
.5oz Chinook @ 0 Min

Wyeast 1054

Thoughts?

 

[RM-MN]

So my last batch turned out ok. My Gravity is a little high for the IPA style that i am going for ( FG = 1.022). The beer had a slight broth taste too it. I think that was from the Melanoiden malt that was used. I did a 1 gallon beer of just melanoiden and it had the same flavor. Also i let it sit in the primary for 4 weeks.

I did that because i wanted to have more yeast fall out of suspension before bottling. It worked great for that, but i lost a lot of the hop aroma in the process. Could i find a way to cold crash it after 2 weeks and then bottle without having to add new yeast to the mix?

I am looking at trying a little different recipe this weekend and I am hoping to get some opinions on it:

12.7 lbs: 2-Row
1 lb -Victory
1 lb -Munich


1.5oz Columbus @ 60 min
.5oz Centennial @ 10 min
.5oz Simcoe @ 5 min
1oz Citra @ 0 Min
1oz Columbus 0 Min
.5 oz Cenntennial @ 0 Min
.5oz Chinook @ 0 Min

Wyeast 1054

Thoughts?

i think the trick is to let your beer stay in the fermenter for 3 to 4 weeks, then dry hop for 3 to 5 day just before bottliing. That should give your beer a nice hop aroma. Do it with the Citra, Columbus, Centennial, and Chinook instead of putting them in at flame out.