Burlap Sack for grain steeping?

[KaiserW]

Ok this is my first attempt at home brew, so bear with me.
My wife got me the "craft a brew" APA setup.
It came with a smaller, what appears to be muslin bag, I thought it was for straining. So I steeped the grains in the larger burlap sack that most of the dry components came in.

Will this affect my beer in any way?

I modified the recipe to closely resemble the more citra APA's and did a hybrid brew with mostly grains and some malt extract.

Thanks in advance from a newb. (Is there a forum/thread I should introduce myself in)

 

[thadass]

Hey there! There is an Introductions subforum if you'd like to make a post there.

Regarding steeping in a burlap sack, I wasn't able to find any other threads or sites mentioning the results of doing that. You might be the first

Only real way to know at this point is to proceed with the beer as normal and see how it tastes (which is the advice you'll receive and should follow 99% of the time)!

I guess the only real troubleshooting question I can think of is- how long was the steep for? It won't really help you since there's no data to compare to but it might be useful for the record

 

[erichsmith]

I've never brewed with burlap but I use a lot of it on the farm. IMHO burlap smells horrible and I'd hate to have any of that smell impart into my beer. Spend $80 and build a mash tun. You won't regret having one plus your brewing buddies will envy you.

 

[thadass]

I've never brewed with burlap but I use a lot of it on the farm. IMHO burlap smells horrible and I'd hate to have any of that smell impart into my beer. Spend $80 and build a mash tun. You won't regret having one plus your brewing buddies will envy you.

I believe it was an extract with steeping grains kit. He was not mashing in a burlap sack. He doesn't need a mash tun right now; the included steeping bag would have done just fine.

 

[KaiserW]

Ok, cool, I will just wait and see. Just wanted to make sure I didn't mis something and make my beer into a poison

All sorts of learning today, like I have to mill the grain to do what I was intending, but hey, it's my first time right.

Ended up steeping the following unmilled grains for about 75 minutes in 1 gallon of water;
1lb 2-row
1.5 oz each of 3 other flavor grains.
Took 30 minutes to get it back to a steep of 155 F, so I added the extra 15 to the end.
Boiled and added half the 1.25lb of DME, realized the way I did the grains, there would be little to no sugar produced, so I added the rest of the DME after about 10 minutes. Contnued to boil for another 50-60 minutes. Hopped at the begining, 15, 10, 5, 1. 1 ounce at the beginning, and spread another 1+ ounce evenly over the last 4 additions. Cooled and pitched with dry yeast. Aerated well, my arms are sore, (on that note, how do you aerate those 5 gallon carboys?). Tube is clean and plugged into my stopper and a glass of water.
Sediment is falling out nicely and the color looks good. Here's to hoping I see some fermentation signs in a few days.

Hopefully the burlap will not affect the flavor too much. The steeping smelt really good.

 

[thadass]

Hah sounds like a very interesting first brew! Glad you're able to keep your hopes up. It seems like some people start to freak at the slightest chance their first few brews won't be perfect. It's good just to do them, get them out of the way, and hope for drinkable results. At least you get knowledge and experience.

As far as aeration/oxygenation, there are quite a few different ways to make it happen. One is the shake-like-heck approach like you did, which does a decent job but does have the added effect of time and calorie expenditure some people don't like. If you did a partial-volume boil and topped up your fermenter with fresh water, a bit of shaking is all you need for some aeration and mixing, as the fresh cool water will still have some decent oxygen in it as compared to the deoxegenated boiled liquid.

Some people pump air through the wort with an aquarium pump:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/aeration-system.html
But the level of 02 able to be introduced using only atmospheric air is much lower than using pure 02, so there's that option as well:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/oxygenation-kit.html
That uses an 02 canister you can buy at a hardware store and works pretty dang well.

In the beginning though, I suggest spending your research and any more money you might spend on improving your steep/mash/boil/chill skills and abilities, and most importantly, figuring out how you will keep fermentation temperatures in the right range and as constant as possible.

 

[AgentHubcap]

Sounds to me like you were trying to do a mini mash. You'll definitely need to mill your grain to get anything out of it.

Best case here is you'll end up with a lower gravity beer. Nothing wrong with that.

I don't know what flavors you'll get from the burlap, but since you boiled after, you've killed any bugs that may have been in it.

Ride it out, it may turn out awesome

 

[unionrdr]

It sounded like steeping grains to me. But whether steeping or mashing,The grains def needed to be crushed somehow to get the good out of the inside of the grains. Not sure about the burlap funk,but it is possible. You should've used the included muslin grain bag. I started using a nylon paint strainer bag to steep or mash in that fits over the lip of the kettle. With a cake cooling rack under the bag in the bottom of the kettle to keep the bag from burning.
This allows stiring the grains to break up dough balls & evenly wet them for higher efficiency.

 

[KaiserW]

Yeah, My goal was a partial mash brew, skipped the milling step, didn't read enough up on it, I was a little excited to get started

Good news is I have bubbles after just 8 hours, so onward wih the process.

One more question, which I may re-thread as a new one;
The recipie calls for dry hopping on day 10 of 14 of fermentation. My basement is a bit cool, about 65 where the primary is. If I add a few extra days of fermentation should I also wait for the dry hopping too ( dry hop after 10 days or 4 days before I want to bottle?)

Thanks

 

[AgentHubcap]

The amount of time for primary should never be followed exactly like the recipe states. 65 degrees sounds fine for primary. Since you likely have a lower gravity beer, it may actually finish sooner.

Do you have the ability to take gravity readings? I wait for my gravity to be stable before dry hoping. I also dry hop for a week.

If you aren't able to take gravity readings, then I'd give it extra time to be sure it is done.

 

[GASoline71]

Hmm... hope you like the taste of burlap.

When burlap gets wet, it reeks. So not sure how it will taste.

Gary

 

[KaiserW]

Hmm... hope you like the taste of burlap.

When burlap gets wet, it reeks. So not sure how it will taste.

Gary

Hopefully it won't be too bad, the bag didn't smell bad at all, actually smelt good.

 

[GASoline71]

Burlap Pale Ale... new brew!

Gary

 

[sparkyinlaw]

To KaiserW..please update when your brew is done, I made the same mistake on my first batch...burlap beer! Let me know what I have to look forward to! I started mine 12/30/13.
Sparky.

 

[roastquake]

I'm interested too, I have a bunch of burlap coffee sacks from work and I would be lying if I said I hadn't thought about using them for this purpose. The only thing keeping me from doing it is the smell of dirty feet that the combination of burlap+green coffee makes

 

[KaiserW]

update:
Since this was only a 1 gallon batch I got a refractometer and used some calculations to determine my FG. It was stable after 21 days, but had a very high FG (1.044 FG with a calculated 1.055 OG)

On the plus side I had a few drops left each time I used the refrac, and it tasted great.

Dry hopped at day 21 and fermentation started up again, I figure there was not enough oxygen initially, and the opening of the carboy and adding of the hops re-oxidized(?) the batch and got fermentation going again.

Today is day 26, I bought a gallon jug of wine, that I am finishing over the next 2 days. I want to rack off the cake and into a secondary. From what I have read, 4 weeks would be good for primary before off flavors start arising from the yeast cake.

Once I see fermentation calming in the secondary I have about 1/3 oz of hops left to dry hop once more for about 5 days and then bottle. I am guessing at least another 7-10 days in secondary until I dry hop, and then at least 2 weeks of bottle time.

On a side note, I will now have a second carboy to start a second batch, I am going off the deep end and doing an all grain batch. Doing all my research now.

 

[KaiserW]

Update: ended up cold crashing for 3 days and just bottled last night.
9 bottles in total. Brix was down from previous readings, so I'm sure fermentation was stuck previously.
I took a taste, very hoppy, but a little lacking on the malt/beer flavor. No sweetness detected, so that is good. Oh and no dicernable burlap bag taste, not that I will ever do that again.

I'll get back to you all in about 1-3 weeks depending on how anxious I am.

Plan on doing an AG version of this APA by weeks end. A 2 gallon brew divided between 2 1gal carboys.

 

[KaiserW]

First bottled cracked after 10 days.

Well this thing was pretty hoppy, if there were any off flavors they were insignificant compared to the hop taste.



Overall I liked it, just light on the beer/malt taste, as stated before I bottled.

Hopefully I have corrected that with my AG BIAB batch brewing in the background there.

 

[sparkyinlaw]

Awesome Kaiser! Mine was a Heff and it definitely tasted burlapy, yet drinkable in a strange way. We had a good laugh at our Burlap Beer and moved on! I'm addicted to this new sickness already and have several carboys bubbling in my living room! Cheers!
Sparky

 

[Jmorrise2]

Ok this is my first attempt at home brew, so bear with me.
My wife got me the "craft a brew" APA setup.
It came with a smaller, what appears to be muslin bag, I thought it was for straining. So I steeped the grains in the larger burlap sack that most of the dry components came in.

Will this affect my beer in any way?

I modified the recipe to closely resemble the more citra APA's and did a hybrid brew with mostly grains and some malt extract.

Thanks in advance from a newb. (Is there a forum/thread I should introduce myself in)

Just did the same blunder. I'll let you know it comes out!