Fastferment Conical

[Gvitag]

Good morning. I need a little help. I brewed my first all grain batch yesterday and have it fermenting in the Fastferment conical. I have spent hours reading and learning the process and am confident I did everything according to proper procedure. The recipe estimated OG to be 1040. I measured 1050. Now I am second guessing myself? I am even second guessing if I started with the 6 1/2 gallons I intended. I never measured the volume of my wort into the fermenter. In hindsight I should have put marking on my conical as to know the volume in. My questions are.........My wort made it to just above the thermowell in the Fastferment. Does anybody know how many gallons that would be? If the finished wort was less than the target volume or OG should I have "top offed?" I thought I was ready for the test.............now I am a little confused. Am I just over thinking this? My goal is not just a great finished product but consistency in my brews. Thanks for any help or input.

 

[JohnSand]

I don't use a Fast Ferment, so I can't tell you the volume. Missing gravity is not uncommon, don't sweat it too much. You can top off if your gravity is high. You can even do it now if there is room. But to get the adjustment right you have to know the volume. If you are using extract and a reliable recipe, only your water volume and boil off rate will affect your gravity. If you are mashing, it may be efficiency. Just keep practicing, and keep good notes. You will hit your targets. I overshot on my last batch too, made a silly math error on the water. And that was my 40th batch, so we all make mistakes. Your beer will still be good.

 

[Craighead]

Congrats on going all grain! Consistency is a long road. As you continue to brew all grain, you will also notice that the equipment, tools, and techniques will evolve, making it more difficult to be consistent without taking proper steps. You just stepped up to all grain, so you are well aware of this! I'm not trying to deter you from upgrading your equipment, but you will need to continue to learn what your equipment is changing in your process.

In my opinion, never top off the beer in the fermenter. As JohnSand said, your beer will still be good. Go with the flow when stuff like this happens and then take good notes. Yes, it sucks not getting everything exact, but it takes time and it happens to the best of us.

I never measured the volume of my wort into the fermenter.

Always measure... everything you can. This is going to be a big step in getting where you want with all grain. Figure out your brewhouse efficiency, and yes - make some marks on the fermenter.

I'm not sure if you use any software to help with your brew day, but I highly suggest doing so. I started using software a while back and cannot be more satisfied with my results. I'm not plugging anything, but you might want to check out the below on calibrating software. If you learn anything from it, you will learn what you need to measure in order to calibrate your recipes to your equipment.

http://www.beersmith.com/forum/index.php/topic,5140.0.html

A new brewer must take as many measurements as possible over at least 5 brews to learn their equipment. Here are four that you can do on each brew. Each reading helps confirm the others.

1. Mash Efficiency: Measure volume and gravity at the start of boil. (Ensure wort is well-mixed. Cover your hot wort sample in wrap to avoid evaporation while it cools).

2. Post-Boil Efficiency: As above but taken at the end of the boil. This should on average be very close to your Mash Efficiency. The post-boil volume figure you collect here will also enable you to calculate and confirm your boil-off.

3. Brewhouse Efficiency: Measure volume and gravity of wort in the fermenter.

4. Loss to Trub and Chiller: Measure the volume that remains in your kettle (and chiller if counter-flow) after transfer to fermenter. Typing this and your Brewhouse Efficiency into the attached spreadsheet, online tool or the actual fields of BeerSmith2 will help confirm your Mash Efficiency.

Doing all these measurements gives you practice at taking readings and will make you realize faster that variances between readings and single brews are not uncommon. At the end of these five brews you will also have excellent base figures from which to create your own equipment profile.

Good luck and happy brewing!

 

[Gvitag]

Thanks for the advice guys. I am using the Brew Boss system. The program and equipment operated flawlessly. I set the program to run according to the recipe. I only wish I had marked out the fermenter prior to transfer. I went as far as confirming I could keep the wort in the fermenter up to temp by attaching a heating pad to an STC-1000 I wired earlier in the week. That was my big concern, never gave yield a thought. As for "stepping up" to all grain.....it was a leap! I am a virgin, or was up until yesterday afternoon. Searched the internet and these forums for a year or so. I was going to build Kal's system then I stumbles upon a youtube video of the system at www.brew-boss.com With the first batch in the fermenter I am already pondering whether or not I should just order another fastfermenter so I can get on to #2....which will be a little more hoppy than the first one. Wish somebody could tell me the yield at the thermowell.......it is bugging the hell out of me. Woke this morning and my airlock was bubbling, slowly, but bubbling and my heating pad stuck to the side is keeping me at 68 give or take a degree or two.

 

[stpug]

I am even second guessing if I started with the 6 1/2 gallons I intended. I never measured the volume of my wort into the fermenter. In hindsight I should have put marking on my conical as to know the volume in. My questions are.........My wort made it to just above the thermowell in the Fastferment. Does anybody know how many gallons that would be?

I suspect the thermowell is fairly low in terms of volume height (~3.5-4 gallons) based on this photo:

 

[Gvitag]

That was my fear. Thanks for the picture. Now I've gotta figure out what I did wrong. Lid off too often. Leave too much in the brew kettle? Back to self teaching I go.

 

[augiedoggy]

That was my fear. Thanks for the picture. Now I've gotta figure out what I did wrong. Lid off too often. Leave too much in the brew kettle? Back to self teaching I go.

Fyi you do not want the lid on at all when boiling wort... it traps DMS and other nasty things which is bad for the beer and gives it a cream corn flavor you want that stuff to esape in the steam as it normally would...
best thing is to boil water for an hour at the same power setting you would use for the wort and record the boil off rate... then adjust your recipe to compensate.

Good luck!

 

[Gvitag]

Fyi you do not want the lid on at all when boiling wort... it traps DMS and other nasty things which is bad for the beer and gives it a cream corn flavor you want that stuff to esape in the steam as it normally would...
best thing is to boil water for an hour at the same power setting you would use for the wort and record the boil off rate... then adjust your recipe to compensate.

Good luck!

Thanks for the advice. I did have the lid on for the last 10 minutes or so, I was concerned I was loosing too much. Cant wait to see how this one turns out.

 

[Gvitag]

I suspect the thermowell is fairly low in terms of volume height (~3.5-4 gallons) based on this photo:

Guess I am little off 5 gallons, and I have a slight tilt in an effort to cover the thermowell.

IMG_1915 by Greg Vitagliano, on Flickr

 

[Gvitag]

I used a hop spider during boil as to not clog my plate chiller. How much wort should I have left behind in the kettle? There was al least a gallon of some ugly wort I tossed out. Should that have all gone into the fermenter?

 

[vincentAlpha]

Depends who you ask when it comes to what to leave behind. I usually go for as much as I can, but I also use a counterflow chiller which would be a beast to clog with stuff as soft as trub. I don't worry about clarity any more, after a couple weeks in the keg I can read the paper through my glass more often then not.

 

[1975brewer]

The fast ferment has volume marks. You should be able to see how many gal. you finished with. Grab a flashlight & take a look.

 

[Gvitag]

The fast ferment has volume marks. You should be able to see how many gal. you finished with. Grab a flashlight & take a look.

LMdumbAO.....volume marks clear as day, if one would have actually looked. Sad thing is......2.75 gallons isn't what I was gunning for.

 

[1975brewer]

LMdumbAO.....volume marks clear as day, if one would have actually looked. Sad thing is......2.75 gallons isn't what I was gunning for.

Well I find them a little hard to see depending on the light but I'm an old guy. I followed the advice of another member & highlighted them with a marker.

 

[JohnSand]

Well, maybe it's a good thing. 2.75 gallons at 1.050 is about 3.6 gallons at 1.040.

 

[Dade0]

Did you figure for the loss of water to the grain. I lose about 1.25 quarts per pound of grain. A # I got from the interwebs or a book. So when I use 10 lb of grain. I add 12.5 quarts of water to the recipe for that expected loss. I loos 1 gallon of wort volume in a 60 minute boil. A # my brother worker out. I used Excel to create a sheet to go through the steps of water additions and loses during the brew day. It worked great the 1st time I used it. The second time, it did not. I must if miss calculated something. I would suggest walking through the brew day and trying to figure out where and when the water is added and lost. The hardest part will be the losses due to absorption and boiling IMHO.

Try again.
Good luck.

 

[augiedoggy]

Did you figure for the loss of water to the grain. I lose about 1.25 quarts per pound of grain. A # I got from the interwebs or a book. So when I use 10 lb of grain. I add 12.5 quarts of water to the recipe for that expected loss. I loos 1 gallon of wort volume in a 60 minute boil. A # my brother worker out. I used Excel to create a sheet to go through the steps of water additions and loses during the brew day. It worked great the 1st time I used it. The second time, it did not. I must if miss calculated something. I would suggest walking through the brew day and trying to figure out where and when the water is added and lost. The hardest part will be the losses due to absorption and boiling IMHO.

Try again.
Good luck.

This is an area where electric heat shines... The boiloff rates are consistent and you can estimate them very well...