First AG UGGHH!!!

[pbowler]

soooo, I'll have to amend my $8 Home Depot Conversion Thread to say that the Copper Manifold will fill up and clog during the sparge if your using Darker Malts which have been finely ground.

I was gonna do this Sunday, but my stupid ass 8 month old smack pack just sat there like a lump until yesterday, then all the sudden it's about to freakin burst, so I decided to brew tonight.

OMG what a mess. just started the sparge when the trickle stopped completely. So I poured the rinse water out over a double folded coarse Grain Bag and a collander. Some grain still got into the Wort, so while it was warming to a boil I kept whirl pooling it and scooping it with a fine meshed hand strainer I just happen to have (my wife and I BOTH cook thank god). I got 99% of the grain cleaned out and had an uneventful boil, until I noticed the bubbled and burnt Formica next to the stove, SWMBO is gonna kill me.

as I'm waiting for the boil to start I knock over my 400+ piece O-Ring set (EVERYone should have one, especially if you have plastic valves. With the O-Ring added My Mash Tun leaked NOTHING). That was fun

ANYWAY, so I have a Half cocked Idea for a chiller using my Mash Tun cooler.
Siphon put of the Boil Pot through the Ice Filled cooler, then strain in to the primary. In theory it worked great, however all I have is plastic tubing which gives off exactly ZERO heat so the freakin Wort is coming out at 160F.

Now it's 1:00 am and I've got 4.5 gallons of 160F wort, I add 1 gallon cold water (straight from the tap at 1am) and get it down to 110, I've got the Primary sitting in a bucket of ice I manage to get it Down to 100 by 1:30 and it's now 2 am and the temp is, hold on a sec... 86F.

Here's the funny part.

I hit my Temps DEAD NUTS. My Mash was at 154F FREAKIN EXACTLY!!!!! (Strike water heated to 166F), and my during my ****ed up sparge the grain was 159F(Sparge water heated to 170F). I mean on paper this was a ****ing dead nuts kill.
The Wort was Filtered and Airiated completely.

og 1.030 @ 85F (<-- I'm writing this here so i can do my calculation in the AM)
I bet this will be one of my better brews

Thats how it works...



I HOPE

 

[pbowler]

OK, my Hydro is a 60F so my OG ends up at 1.033, sounds awfully low.

I assume this is due to my stalled sparge.
anyway I can Juice this with Corn Sugar? or should I just blow it off and live and learn.

I'm gonna be hard pressed to bother bottling if this ends up a 2.5% abv stout.

 

[sonvolt]

Sounds like a great time!

Hey Pbowler . . . I am still getting something ready to send you . . been kinda busy.

 

[pbowler]

Cool! thanks,

any thoughts on juicing that Brew?

 

[sonvolt]

Add some bourbon whiskey! Seriously, throw in some priming sugar to the the ABV up a bit. Then, secondary it with some oak chips. At bottling time, dose it with some good bourbon. You'll have an oak aged bourbon stout!!!

 

[ian]

That's weird about the ABV being so low from what amounted to a really extended Mash. I had my first stuck sparge two weekends ago and did pretty much the same thing as you - filtered the wort through a screened funnel. It resulted in a dead on O.G. and ended up the most efficient mash yet! I wouldn't worry about any grain that got through your seive, it'll settle out in primary I'd bet.

 

[pbowler]

Actually my Mash was perfect, it was the Sparge that got stuck, and instead of slowly rinsing the grains I dumped them in to the Boil pot.

as far as the grains go i didn't wan to Boil them at all becuase I was worried about the Tannins that could hurt the flavour.

 

[Turricaine]

You screwed up my friend. Better luck next time. Live and learn..

 

[pbowler]

You screwed up my friend. Better luck next time. Live and learn..

Helpful advice as usual I see

 

[andre the giant]

If you want to jack the gravity up a bit, boil a pound of DME in some water and add that to your beer. No matter what, your brew will likely be "off" but it will probably at least be drinkable.

If you're going to add stuff, do it soon while the yeast is still chomping away.

Sorry to hear about your experience. I'd like to say that I've never had days like that, but..... Hell, just last weekend I fought long and hard to sparge my pumpkin ale. Shredded pumpkin just gums up the false bottom. I ended up with some of the cloudiest wort ever. But the gravity was dead on.... so I've got THAT going for me. :S

 

[pbowler]

OK, I thought DME was mostly unfermentables?

Yeast have yet to start chomping, I didn't pitch until 3am

 

[Walker]

OK, I thought DME was mostly unfermentables?

It depends on which brand you buy. It can be as low as 65% (Laaglander brand from the Netherlands). UK and US DME is typically more fermentable than mainland European DME from what I've read.

 

[andre the giant]

No... Dry malt extract is pretty darn fermentable. I mean, DME is basically a dryed version of what you were producing with your mash. There are plenty of people in the
"Extract brewing" section that use dry malt extract and hops and produce pretty good stuff.

I occasionally use 1-3 pounds of DME in my batches to increase the gravity. This is especially important when I'm a few pounds short in my base grains.

 

[sonvolt]

OK, I thought DME was mostly unfermentables?

Huh??!! DME is Dried Malt Extract . . . it is just the dried version of the liquid malt that extract brewers use. It is the base of an extract beer - the primary fermentable ingredient. Using DME will definitely up your ABV. In fact, you will then have a "partial mash" beer.

 

[pbowler]

ok, I thought it sounded stupid too, I read it somewhere here but it must've been in refrence to a very specific brand.

 

[Orpheus]

ok, I thought it sounded stupid too, I read it somewhere here but it must've been in refrence to a very specific brand.

Maybe you're thinking of MD (Maltodextrin) which is an unfermentable brewing adjunct many use to add to the body of their beer.

Sorry your first AG turned out the way it did. This is why I'm going to take my sweet time switching over to AG. The fear factor is great!

 

[the_bird]

Sorry your first AG turned out the way it did. This is why I'm going to take my sweet time switching over to AG. The fear factor is great!

See, I did a PM last weekend, used a bit more than 7 pounds of grain, and it really was easy. Got 64% efficiency, I can get that up I'm sure. The only problem I really had was related to my electric turkey fryer not having much more power than an Easy-bake oven, so I had to split my batch in half and do part of it on the stove.

Rubbermaid cooler for mashing, stainless steel braid doesn't clog, batch sparging means no worries about water PH... it really was not that tough. Of course, the proof will be in how the beer comes out, but so far it's lookng real good.

 

[pbowler]

Hey Bird, what software do you use (or how did you calculate you efficiency?)

I actually didn;t think it was that tough either really.

It makes for a funny story, but I can't wait to make my fixes and try that Hoppy Red Ale I'm thinking about...

 

[the_bird]

I just used ProMash (still demo-ing, haven't decided whether to buy that or something else). Input my grains and DME adjusted the efficiency percentage until the OG matched what I hit. Very easy (I hope I did it right!)

Incidentally, my second batch had an extremely low OG, also 1.03 as I recall. Where I screwed up was the measurement - I never stirred the wort before taking the reading. The sugars tend to settle, so you have low-gravity wort at the top. Is that a possibility for you?

 

[pbowler]

ok, I am thinking of buying it.

how does it calculate efficiency? I'm not sure how to use it yet, but it has a tutorial which looks cool.

I am just clueless.

I stirred the heck out of it but I guess it's possible I grabbed a watery spot.

I'm gonna boost it with a Lb or so of DME just in case...

 

[the_bird]

5 gallon batch, you could probably get by and salvage things with a couple pounds. Hey, on the positive side, you were boiling lower-gravity wort and therefore got better hops utilization!

What was the target OG? Someone smarter than me can tell you how much DME to add to get up to that level, I can't remember how to do the calculation.

 

[pbowler]

Closer to .050 I think.
again, I'm clueless with the software

 

[pbowler]

1.046 according to Promash (duhhh, start new session...)

 

[the_bird]

Adjust your efficiency percentage until it shows the OG being 1.03. Then, add some generic DME to the grain bill, and increase the #s until the OG hits 1.046. That should give you a good idea how much to add to get to your original target.

 

[pbowler]

awesome.

Thanks

 

[pbowler]

ok, 2.5 lbs of Alexancers Pale LME brings me to 1.048.

I'm gonna pitch a little dry yeast in the extract as well, just to keep the stout dry.

Thanks Bird! I REALLY appreciate the suggestions, this is turning into a great learning experience!

 

[pbowler]

OK, real world stuff now.
When I adjusted the Pro Mash for 6 gallons it gave me an OG of 1.046 (at a whoppping 56% efficiency).

I added 2.5 lbs of LME, warmed then tempered with Wort, and about 1/4 tsp dry yeast (hydrated).

The OG then read 1.046 (dead on) and it is currently bubbling away.

I guess my first AG turned in to a partial mash

 

[andre the giant]

There's nothing wrong with a partial mash. Heck, there's nothing wrong with extract brews either. But don't let this first AG experience shake you. Its not rocket science, and you learn something new with each batch.

My suggestion... brew another batch as soon as possible to take advantage of your local memory. Practice makes perfect... well.... I guess I still need a lot of practice.

Good Luck.

 

[pbowler]

I'm on it.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=14174

SWMBO kinda booted me from the Kitchen over the burnt Formica (house is only 2.5 years old) but I think I can sneak one more in...