First AG and when a 60 minute boil becomes 90... becomes 120!

[bluelimbo]

Lordy... lordy... lordy...

Well, did my first AG today. It was a modified Zombie Dust clone with all Citra with a target OG of 1.073. All kinds of stuff went wrong.

Let's start with efficiency; it wasn't great (read: kinda horrible actually). I nailed my sach. rest temp (152) so that was awesome but I think my eff. sucked for two main reasons: 1) had the grain milled at LHBS and they need to get a better crush - going to look into some way to mill my own grain but don't have the moola for a mill at this point and 2) I think I sparged waaaaaay too quick. Instead of allowing an extended period of time to sparge, I wound up shooting through it with about 15 minutes. To boot, I used way too much strike water; used about 1.75 qt per lb (13.5lb grist). Needed to let it sit and sparge for a good long time but didn't. Learned my lesson there.

Q1: How long do you guys sparge for (IE: drain off your spage)? Is there a rule of thumb like: If your sparge water is 5 gal, your grain bill is 13lbs, magic calculation... sparge for X minutes? Based on my calculates, my efficiency was under 60%. BOO!

Q2: Home made grain mill ideas under 50 bucks?

So after this, I was left with 8.5 gallons for a projected 6 gallon batch. I figured, "No sweat. Just extend the boil 30 minutes to boil off a bit more water and then after that, bulk up with DME to try to your my numbers...". Simple. Naw. Daddy duties popped in and my additional 30 minutes morphed into over an hour. So my total boil time was around 120 or 130 minutes. I know there will be a very pronounced caramel flavor...

Q3: Are there negatives with having a boil for that long? Over double what I wanted... is there going to be a problem with tannins? Anything else? I know I am pretty much locked into it at this point but just looking to know what the negatives are going to be in advance.

All of this said, I did learn a couple of things:
- For all that is holy, if you have a little one running around, wait for mommy to play baby wrangler! Doing both is impossible. I know the order: daddy duties and then beer....but it sucks to know that your beer is not at all turning out the way you want because you tried to cram in a brew day. Just wait when the timing is better
- START EARLY! Wake up and brew. If you like sleep and you are not a night person (or you have a little one that has involuntarily made you a morning person) just wait. Don't cram it in.

 

[ShaineT]

You can boil 2 hours no problem, there may be some extra carmalization. An Octoberfest should be boiled 90minutes for example. I don't think your strike water volume was an issue, but the grind quality and especially that rapid fly sparging. Fly sparging that fast will only creat channels and compact areas of your grain bed, might as well batch sparge. I'll fly sparge a 10 gallon batch for 90 minutes and technically you can do that with smaller batches though slowing the run off that much can be challenging and may be more like 60 minutes. Unless you can set up a good quality fly sparge, you may as well add more base malt and just batch sparge. About the day/night thing, I work nights so my brew "days" are usually ending at around 4am. If anyone in my area likes nightshift brewing you can PM me, LOL.

 

[deadfall]

I've boiled for two hours before when I mixed up which recipe I was using and added to much water. I eventually added a quart of maple syrup to the boil to bring my OG up to where it was supposed to be.

As for the grain mill I wouldn't over look the Corona mill. I spent 20 minutes getting it tweaked and I couldn't be happier. I usually use a low RPM drill to run it. It takes 10-15 minutes to mill 28-38 lbs of grain.

The negatives for boiling to long is your hops. A 5 minute aroma hop will become a bittering hop if you end up boiling it for another hour. I tried to hold off on my aroma hop additions till I was sure I was close to the end of my boil. I hope you can understand what I'm trying to say.

 

[ShaineT]

I've boiled for two hours before when I mixed up which recipe I was using and added to much water. I eventually added a quart of maple syrup to the boil to bring my OG up to where it was supposed to be.

As for the grain mill I wouldn't over look the Corona mill. I spent 20 minutes getting it tweaked and I couldn't be happier. I usually use a low RPM drill to run it. It takes 10-15 minutes to mill 28-38 lbs of grain.

The negatives for boiling to long is your hops. A 5 minute aroma hop will become a bittering hop if you end up boiling it for another hour. I tried to hold off on my aroma hop additions till I was sure I was close to the end of my boil. I hope you can understand what I'm trying to say.

deadfall, goodmorning, its 4am here. I forgot to mention the hop issue with long boils, I was thinking about 90 minute boils when you add hops after first 30 minutes. I use a Schmidling mill and run it with in house child labor, he is also low rpm.

 

[RM-MN]

Let's think about this and see where you can cut some time, increase efficiency, and reduce costs over time.

1. Starting AG with a beer with that high of an OG was probably a mistake. Go for something more of the 1.050 as it will be a bit more forgiving of the mash efficiency.

2. Mash in with a bit less water, more like 1.2 qts/lb so your first runnings are a smaller quantity. When you collect your first runnings, you will be able to measure what you got and then batch sparge (once or twice) to get your planned pre-boil quantity.

3. Corona mills are under $50 delivered to your door. Check Amazon for "grain mill" and several will come up in the search. They aren't the fastest, they aren't the best, but they are adequate and inexpensive. Search out "conditioning grain" on this site because it can leave you with more intact husks that are essential to making your filter bed for your lautering and draining. When you batch sparge, stir and stir the grains and water as that is how you dissolve the most sugars.

 

[bluelimbo]

Hey Guys - Good to know I am not (totally) screwed. Definitely appreciate the advice! I do like caramelization... at least I hope I become a super huge fan after this batch. =) It actually play nicely off some of the smoked malt I threw in. I took a peek in the fermenter today and just had to laugh at how dark that beer was. It started off a nice light goldish-redish color and now it is just a super deep red. If you couldn't smell it, you would have thought I brewed up an awesome dark amber ale. The OG I finally wound up after adding 2 lbs of DME was right around 1.062 so still short, but not a complete disaster. 11 points off target... not a complete disaster... $hit, I will take it for my first AG LOL

@ShaneT - Yeah, me being in a rush did nothing to help my efficiency. Needed to really slow it down and just dedicate the extra hour to do a full correct sparge. What's the point of rushing if my efficiency really sucks (calculated my efficiency right around 52%... yuck)... I am guessing I can probably make a fine sparge arm out of some spare copper pipe I have laying around. All that said, the thought of child labor in the future though has me super encouraged! This is something to look forward to! lol My son already is constantly saying "beweer!" so I am really looking forward to involving him more in the making-the-wort-process (not so on the enjoying the results).

@deadfall - Right on. Totally missed the corona mill. I will definitely check this out. While it is double my original price range, I found the "cereal killer" grain mill from AIH. That definitely has my interest peeked. Maybe something to put on the wish list long term but the corona is something that won't break the bank and would be a good start that I can pick up in the next couple of weeks. Luckily i didn't add in all the hops figuring on the 90 minute boil so I only had the First Wort Hops in there. Even still, those hops will probably punch me in the face with bitterness given how long the boil was. Will be interesting to see how this thing turns out.

@RM-MN - Very true on #1. I got a little too excited about my first AG. Went in b@lls-out and kinda set myself up to miss my target OG given I had no clue on what my efficiency was going to be on my setup. Too many factors to try to compensate for all at the same time. Step 1: get the process down. On #2; after I doughed in basically said "oh $hit that is a lot of water..." and kinda laughed about it. I made a weird grain soup. I figured extending the boil 90 minutes was going to be able to compensate but that was just a hell of a lot of water. It was nutty. Coupled with a super fast sparge, I screwed the pooch. Definitely will mash in with far far less water next time. Just enough to cover the grain next time.

 

[bluelimbo]

Update on the brew - didn't turn out too bad. I regret using as much smoke malt as I did. It really fights like hell with the hops. I am hoping the drying hoping will help balance things out a bit.

Finished a bit sweeter than I was hoping - around 1.012 but serviceable (OG was 1.062).

Before carbonation (bottle conditioning), getting a very nice smooth bitterness (not harsh at all which I was fearing with adding in the FWH). Smell is a nice lemon grass with a bit of pear. Get smacked in the face with smoked cherry. A bit of a char taste comes through following that... not bad but needs to definitely dialed back (probably half of what I used - used a full 1lb). After quite a few sips the smokiness dies back a little bit and there is a caramel/burnt sugar followed by a smooth bitterness.

Not a bad first attempt at AG but really wishing I toned back on the smoked malt or just left them out for this recipe. Not to mention kept the boil time down. Meah, now I know!

Will definitely try this again at some point in the future.

 

[deadfall]

Good to hear it work out for you.

 

[jflongo]

Here is a video I did on my you tube channel with my corona mill, pretty easy and works well with a drill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcZZ1DW2siU&list=PLZXulhSVxhvRiwSt4u2X0fvH9jymkrYHC&index=3