first AG brew happening now.

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Soulshine2

Soulshine2

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2017
Messages
2,216
Reaction score
1,093
Location
Grant
AG kit from the LHBS ,called "Don't Tread On Weiss" Hefeweizen 5 gallon batch. This one is for my wife its similar to her favorite Two Brothers beer, Ebelsweiss. Her birthday is at the end of the month . Not sure if we'll be drinking it in time but I'll be close.
I was going to simply do up an extract batch but seeing the LME is probably (by the date? on the can bottom , reads 61911)I'm going to guess thats June 16 2011. So ...nixed that idea .
Since we're getting another snow day and theres nothing to do outside...
I am going ahead and get right on with AG brewing today , happening now, in the kitchen since the wife is at work all day. Before I got started of course I sanitized everything.
Got the kettle and everything in the house on the stove. 7 gallons took exactly one hour to come to strike temp. Had a few drips from the Brew-mometer fitting along the way and got that tightened down. After this session I need to take that apart and put more teflon tape on those threads. Brought in the stand that came with my table saw to set the MLT on ,perfect height to the spigot in the kettle sitting on the stove . Also , the spigot on the MLT is exactly the right height for the carboy when that time comes. Once I get to building an actual full time compact brew cart all I need to do is take these measurements and add 4 inches to everything so I can get it off the floor and caster mobile. I'll build that over the next 2 weeks while this batch is fermenting. Need some lumber out of my way so it will come in handy.
MLT right now is in mash mode ,3.3 gallons of strike water went in at 10:15am 167-8*F and with the 10 lb grain bill its mashing right along at 155*F until 11:15 .
Meanwhile my sparge water is idling on the stove and I have 2 smaller stainless pots ready to sparge . This is not rocket science and not difficult at all , so far. I figure by the time I sparge and boil and chill and carboy it'll be darn close to 3pm. Plenty of time to get it cleaned up and my covert brewing for the day will be done and yeast bubbling away by morning... Covert Brewing...hmmm, might need to change my brew name. Thats got a good ring to it.
 
sparge went just over an hour and 10 . nice color , nice and clear . I can read a paper through the wort. Boiling now(1:15pm). I had extremely sticky fingers after sparging, tastes like light syrup...nice conversion.
I add the first .5 oz Hallertau hops at 1:45
then the other .5 oz again at 2:20pm .
getting my IC rigged up to swim at 2:35pm.
I had a little bit of wort left in the MLT after the 7 gallons came off , so I put that in a smaller boil pot and I'll ferment that in the LBK .
No such thing as "extra" beer right? Just beer you hadn't planned on.
 
Pappers_ said:
Good luck on your first AG brew! FWIW, you don't need to sanitize things before the boil - just things that touch the beer post-boil.

Let us know how everything turned out!
Click to expand...


Understand that . I just want everything to go well the first time.
Wifes skepticism hinges on whether this batch turns out or not.
and Thanks , I will .
 
OG is 1.035 ...its lower than I'm supposed to have which is 1.047-053
 
I already pitched yeast at that point...which by the way the carboy looks like there's a comforter stuffed inside it. What the hell is going on . My yeast is going crazy
 
I always keep some DME on hand in case OG comes in less than hoped for. I've dialed in my efficiency pretty reliably now so it really doesn't happen much anymore, but it's nice to have. I always keep wheat, pale, and pilsner DME for just such an occasion.

Congrats on going AG. You will make mistakes, but your beer will advance light years. I was an extract and grains brewer for over ten years and thought the difference can't be THAT big - after all, I'm making good beer.
I was wrong.
 
Next time use a little less sparge water or mash water. You will have to dial in your equipment to match your boil off rate and dead space in the kettles. I use 1/2 gallon less than most recipes recommend for example because my MLT drains all but 1/4 gallon. And my BK I can drain almost completely by tilting it. I use hop bags so no hop residue in my kettle.
 
This morning I got up to find the bubbler going strong. What looked like the stuffings out of a comforter last night now looks like small curd cottage cheese and floating on top ...Crazy KRAEUSEN !!! The LBK batch is going good too. The color of the wort has cleared a little, I can see some sediment. I'm very excited...
ok,ok back to the OG value...so I must have added too much sparge water ,which now would explain why I had the extra wort that I put in the LBK. What is going to happen with the FG with this so low as OG? I'm just going to guess a lower ABV ? See the description below . If it comes in between 4.7 and the expected 5.15% I'll be satisfied.
This is supposed to be -
5.15 % ABV
13.4 IBU
1.050 OG ( I was low)
3.58 SRM
Description- A delicious refreshing summer treat ! A 50/50 mix of German Pilsner and wheat malt is complimented by balanced flavors of banana and clove. Finished with German Tradition hops (Hallertau)

Next batch I'll have to hold back on sparge water . I can probably guess it would be better to have an OG bigger than expected and put in more water in the fermenter to make up for it for volume rather than what happened here and I already cooled it to pitching temp.
Lesson one learned. Will make note of that for next time.
 
Congrats on joining the AG community! For me, the most important mistake I made when I first started was not cooling the wort fast enough after boil which made beer that resembled medicine..... yeah medicine.... much more than anything drinkable. Don't rush your first batch. Biggest regret was not being able to drink my first AG (happily at least).
 
oh yes, chillin the wort . I should have gotten a 22 lb bag of ice or maybe 2. I got it down from boil temp to pitching temp in about an hour and 20 minutes. I had my IC in the main pot and put the "leftover wort" in a small pot which got chilled in the sink. That chilled fast , like 40 minutes.
The IC was driven by my pond pump that I had bought for another heat exchange project, always had clean water run through it and I ran star san through it beforehand ,just in case . The bucket of ice water didn't last long, but it got it from boil to 140 in 30 minutes. Next session I'll be grabbing a couple party bags of ice. Might up my copper coil from 3/8 to 1/2 too.
 
Went through my home brewing bible. Dummy me didn't see the water vs gravity chart in back...looks like I put about a half gallon of sparge water too much. I'll go high next batch and add water to make OG before pitching.
Can I add more priming sugar now early in fermentation or at bottling to adjust gravity up or just deal with the lower than expected ABV and get it right next time?
 
Let it ride and treat it as a learning experience at this point. You DO NOT want to add excess sugar at bottling! Unless you enjoy the sound of exploding bottles and a mess to clean up! Adding extra sugar now in the ferment is going to change the flavor profile quite a bit and maybe cause that extract tang flavor...
 
Thats pretty much what I thought. I'll take a lower ABV and learn from it.
Today I'm experimenting with the used grains ...play day .
I realize there isn't much of the sugars left in the grains but I've got 3 gallons of water in the BK and I'm going to batch sparge the spent grains with that and give it a good vigorous stir and add some orange zest to it somewhere along the way .I'll boil it down to 2.5 gallons and toss it in the LBK and pitch my started SafAle -05 and see what I get. Hoping for some sort of orange shandy type light . If it doesn't work , no loss but water and time. I just hate to think theres any amount of usable sugars in the grains I could be turning into beer. I'm kinda anally frugal about stuff .
Might play with building some sort of cpvc sparge armature that sits on the ledge on the inside of my mash tun too ...like I said , play day.
 
So far I think this may work,maybe even by pure accidental experimentation.
If so , I'll post the recipe.
I'm calling it Moon Over Miami if it works
if not its Apollo 13,lol.
 
Its looking like my Moon Over Miami is alive with yeasty goodness as well as my over-run of the Hefe. Last night there was a beautiful 1/2 inch layer of foam that looked like a freshly poured beer . This morning it has turned into a nice kraeusen layer .
The LBK's came in handy for these little micro-batches. I almost want to keep buying them up where I see them in thrift stores but if I bring home one more thing, my wife is going to have a fit.
Yesterday I went to go pick up some scaffolding frames that a guy was selling due to his going out of business/retiring. I walked into his almost empty pole barn and what do I see before me on the wall but a very large Leinenkugel tin sign...I asked what he planned to do with it , when he said sell it I guess. I gave the man his asking price and took it home.
For the bonus score of the day !
 
That looks like a good deal on a pump. The only thing that concerns me about these cheaper pumps, is none of them say that they are food safe. Just because something can handle the higher temps, doesn't mean that it won't leach chemicals in to the liquid. My paranoia is the only thing that's stopping me from buying 'em.
 
Soulshine2 said:
oh yes, chillin the wort . I should have gotten a 22 lb bag of ice or maybe 2. I got it down from boil temp to pitching temp in about an hour and 20 minutes. I had my IC in the main pot and put the "leftover wort" in a small pot which got chilled in the sink. That chilled fast , like 40 minutes.
The IC was driven by my pond pump that I had bought for another heat exchange project, always had clean water run through it and I ran star san through it beforehand ,just in case . The bucket of ice water didn't last long, but it got it from boil to 140 in 30 minutes. Next session I'll be grabbing a couple party bags of ice. Might up my copper coil from 3/8 to 1/2 too.
Click to expand...

Not sure of you ground water temp this time of year, but I see you are in Chicago, so figure it is the same as me. Mine is 60ish, this time of year.I use a 25' 3/8 chiller. Maybe takes 30 minutes total. I chill using just ground water first to get down to 100-120ish. If not lower, make sure you have a slow flow if using garden or sink. The slower the water runs through your IC the more heat its extracting from the hot wort. Then at 100-120, I do ice bath with pond pump. From Boiling to 100F you will save yourself a lot of ice, and restricting water flow may cut down your time. :mug:
 
Our tap cold side is fairly cold . Usually ground water is a 50*F avg (found that out during some cave tours in the past )but have never put a thermometer on the tap . My IC is 20ft of 3/8 but may step up to 1/2 and build a reverse flow chiller .
I'm still playing with it. I don't mind.
 
BGHSmt7 said:
That looks like a good deal on a pump. The only thing that concerns me about these cheaper pumps, is none of them say that they are food safe. Just because something can handle the higher temps, doesn't mean that it won't leach chemicals in to the liquid. My paranoia is the only thing that's stopping me from buying 'em.
Click to expand...

I understand (and appreciate) the concern, BUT , this is rated for 212*F and meant for constant flow of boiler temperatures and I will be pushing nothing over 170*F for a proportionately short time... USUALLY in plastic the ratings applied for maximum temperature are less than that of residual breakdown of the material itself, aka leaching. I'm not worried about it. I still drink well water out of the garden hose.
 
Congrats on the next big step in brewing! I have been doing AG since last summer. It took 3 or 4 batches to get my eff. rate and boil off rates dialed in but now I call hit my numbers most of the time and almost always get really close to 5 gallon in the fermentor. :mug:
 
Thanks, yeah I just couldn't see myself keeping with extracts. As my wife says that I'm " kinda fancy" when it comes to my hobbies. Most guys watch or play sports ,hunt and fish ( I do miss doing those,just nowhere good to go) .Not me- I have made fresh hides into leather both chemically and Indian brain tan,I've done taxidermy,I grow my own tobacco and roll cigars, leather work, and now I make beer. I jump feet first into my hobbies and then excel at them.
I don't half ass anything if I can help it.
 
Soulshine2 said:
Thanks, yeah I just couldn't see myself keeping with extracts. As my wife says that I'm " kinda fancy" when it comes to my hobbies. Most guys watch or play sports ,hunt and fish ( I do miss doing those,just nowhere good to go) .Not me- I have made fresh hides into leather both chemically and Indian brain tan,I've done taxidermy,I grow my own tobacco and roll cigars, leather work, and now I make beer. I jump feet first into my hobbies and then excel at them.
I don't half ass anything if I can help it.
Click to expand...

nice! Same here. Learned how to scuba dive and logged 70 dives my first season. Now 4 years later, I'm an instructor. I do the same. If it's worth doing right, it's worth over doing. :)
 
hmm, I am PADI certified too. my first checkout dive was almost 30 years ago in a murky cold(50*)quarry, my only other dive was White Sand Reef off of Negril Jamaica in 2013 . Quite a welcome difference,and probably hard to beat .
 
Soulshine2 said:
So far I think this may work,maybe even by pure accidental experimentation.
If so , I'll post the recipe.
I'm calling it Moon Over Miami if it works
if not its Apollo 13,lol.
Click to expand...

I tasted this just this morning. Its only less than a week fermenting in the LBK at normal room temps with a dark towel over it. The wort is incredibly cloudy but the taste is tart and bitter , carbonation is just coming in. Not altogether terrible at all. In fact , the hop-heads would probably say it needed more hops and bitterness. I can see serving this as a Blue Moon type on a hot summer day with a slice of orange on the rim. I'd like to get some of the cloudiness gone ,I think it is very heavy with yeast activity at the moment. I made the mistake of not adding any whirlfloc to the boil, didn't have any and I was experimenting. Wondering if after next week of fermentation goes by if it still hasn't cleared up can I put gelatin in it to help settle it out.
The "leftover" Don't Tread On Weiss wort in the other LBK tasted nice , and just as I expected it to taste. Light clove and banana ester flavors. I think my wife will like it.
 
If you're going to use gelatin, you're going to need to cold crash it. As a hefe, it's supposed to be a bit cloudy. If it was me, I'd just put it in the fridge for a couple days to cold crash it and help it clear a little without the gelatin.

Nice dives btw. I've only dove in local quarries, lake michigan, florida, bahamas, and cozumel. Kinda jealous about the Jamaica dives.
 
It still has a week to ferment so I'm going to let it run its course for now. Maybe it will do it on its own some.
I think what I've created is quite the example of an accidental Belgian -low alcohol, cloudy,hoppy and bitter ,flavorful for sure. I don't know what else to call it. I used safale-05 instead of US-06 that came with the main AG kit. Didn't want the same ester flavor as the hef.
 
I'm assuming you mean US-05 and WB-06.

US-05 is a good floccing yeast so it should clear quite a bit. Also, as it ages, it will clear more.

I'm surprised that you are getting clove/bananna with US-05 as it's a "clean" yeast.

With my math, your batch will prolly end up being around 3.25%-3.50%--Nice ABV for a session bitter :D
 
BGHSmt7 said:
I'm assuming you mean US-05 and WB-06.

US-05 is a good floccing yeast so it should clear quite a bit. Also, as it ages, it will clear more.

I'm surprised that you are getting clove/bananna with US-05 as it's a "clean" yeast.

With my math, your batch will prolly end up being around 3.25%-3.50%--Nice ABV for a session bitter :D
Click to expand...

Fermentis WB-06 in the main recipe ,US-05 in the LBK. sorry for the confusion. I did a starter culture of each. By the time I had added it to the wort in the LBK (Little Brown Keg) it was almost climbing out of the measuring cup.
 
So this morning was raining hard, made for a good bottling day . I put up nearly 9 gallons of beer. 5 gallons of just the AG weiss and after I had my buddy taste (same buddy who gifted me a lot of my equipment )my batch of Moon Over Miami hopped Belgian he said it was a bit sharp on the hops and the coriander was a bit much , so I combined it with the over run of the weiss to calm it down and come up with the other 4 gallons. Tastes pretty much perfect now. Nice bitterness and tang and the orange zest comes through without overpowering. I can't wait to taste it carbed up and chilled. I still think a slice of orange would be good with it. Probably a little low on the intended ABV but I know now not to add too much more water or boil it down more. Instead of 5.15% it'll be more like a session beer at 3.8% Still very satisfied for the first time AG.
 
Tonight I plan on trying these beers . I put a bottle of each in the fridge first thing this morning. The Weiss was nice and clear, the Moon Over Miami hopped Belgian had a 1/8" of sediment but only a little cloudy otherwise. I'll pour carefully. Crossing my fingers for a good conditioning.
 
Both beers were a success... Wifes Weiss she said tastes just like her favorite Two Brothers Ebel's Weiss. (which means my brewing hobby has a future!) Very nice light banana and clove .
My experimental Moon Over Miami Hopped Belgian in my opinion was a spot on hit. Wife didn't care for the bitterness. It has a dry hop finish, the citrus zest wasn't overpowering and the coriander was pleasant. I still think a slice of orange will pick this up for a summertime beer. Might try that tonight . Both poured with about the same color and the head rose strong and tall settling down to lacy legs on the glass. I'm very happy with the results of both.
 
oh I must say the Moon Over Miami with an orange slice is the bomb. Totally made this beer what it needs to be.
 

Similar threads

PashMaddle
First brew day is on the books.
Replies
39
Views
2K
GoodTruble
G
P
Steep to convert - Steeping grains
Replies
5
Views
356
hottpeper13
H
C
Best brewing system for 5-15 gallon batches
Replies
25
Views
1K
Ninoid
Ninoid
D
First Recipe: 1 Gallon Maris Otter / Goldings SMaSH (Comments, suggestions?)
Replies
6
Views
357
Northern_Brewer
Northern_Brewer
G
Connecting up a prefilled keg
Replies
3
Views
522
hottpeper13
H
BrewSwag 300

Latest posts

Back
Top