First all-grain batch, and some questions

[DVCNick]

Did my first all-grain batch yesterday... it was a kit from NB called "Tangerine Ravine". Questions and observations:

-Extract efficiency: The calculators are telling me I got over 85%? Is this possible on the first try? Seems like I've read many threads from experienced folks saying they have a hard time getting near 80%. I did note that the pre-crushed grain mix seemed a bit more crushed than many folks seem to recommend; maybe that was a contributing factor?

-Mash: Overall I think it went pretty well. My intention was to start just a little hot, since I was expecting the cooler to lose a little bit of heat during the hour mash. I ended up starting just 1 degree over the target though, and after an hour I was still getting the same reading, bang-on with no temp loss. I tried a "mash out" by adding an additional gallon of boiling water, but that only brought the temp up to 160 instead of 170. Still, waited 10 minutes and then started vorlauf. Possibly not helped by what might have been a slight over-crush, I was not able to get it to run really clear. During the first drain into the kettle, I got some pieces of grain transferred. I reached in with a little strainer and grabbed what I could. After adding 5gal of sparge water, waiting 10 minutes, and repeating the process, I drained the wort through my new fine mesh hop screen to grab any grain chunks that made it out of the mash tun. This was effective to remove the last little bit of debris... any issues with this?

-Boil: 60 minutes, uneventful except for higher volume than my previous partial-boil extract kits. I started with 6.9 gallons and finished with right at 6 gallons. Does that seem reasonable? This was less boil off loss than I was expecting.

-Cooling: This was an adventure. Used the immersion chiller for the first time. This got it down to 100 or so in probably 20-30 min and then it basically stopped dropping. After that I let it sit in the kettle a bit with the lid on hoping it would drop further. No dice. I eventually transferred it to a carboy and then put that in an ice bath, and quite a while later, it was still showing 80 degrees. It was after midnight at that point, so I just pitched the Safeale S05 at about 80 and went to bed. As of this morning (about 7 hours later) temp was down to 71, and there was ZERO movement in the airlock. I know that is a short timeframe and may not start that fast, but in my prior brews I've at least seen a little bit of something by then. This is also my first time using a Big Mouth Bubbler instead of a glass carboy, so maybe the lid isn't sealed up absolutely 100%.

-Other issues: I threw a little yeast nutrient into the carboy... that is new for me. When I went to aerate though, I found that my O2 tank was completely empty. I'm assuming that is because it is a $10 POS and I'm assuming the valve was faulty and didn't close all the way after last time, and probably slow leaked out when I wasn't looking. So all the O2 in the wort would have had to come from splashing it from the kettle into the carboy. Question: If I get a new oxygen tank on the way home today, and don't see any airlock activity by then, should I uncork it and aerate? That would be roughly 17 hours after the original yeast pitch.

Sorry for the wall of text, and thanks for any thoughts.

 

[Jag75]

One thing that I've done with my immersion chiller is connect it to a 20$ submersible pump and fill up my igloo with large bag of ice and water and pump freezing cold water through it. At first the outlet water is really hot and I drain in my fermenter. Then once it starts to cool I let it drain back into the igloo. That gets my wort down to about 68 in 20 -30 min. I've had it take 24 hrs or more to see the fermentation process start. You may just try and stir vigorously and see if you can help it. I'm sure it will be good to go.

 

[mongoose33]

You don't need to do a mash-out.

Lack of airlock activity is not necessarily a sign of anything, though if active it signals fermentation is ongoing. Often new brewers don't have the fermenter sealed up quite right, and CO2 escapes around the rim of the lid, or the stopper isn't tight, or....

You should see activity after 24 hours.

 

[DVCNick]

Thanks guys... should I go back and aerate tonight if I don't see activity yet (or even if I do?)

 

[RM-MN]

1. The efficiency you get is directly related to the crush of the grain and yes that high is quite possible with well milled grain. Good luck with repeating it.

2. Getting clear wort is really overrated. You only need to recirculate until big grain particles are minimized. A little husk particle in the boil will not be noticeable at the final product. Since you are batch sparging you don't need a mash out and you don't need to wait 10 minutes to drain. All you are doing is dissolving the sugars that are already present. Dump in the water, stir well, drain.

3. New evidence says that a hard boil is detrimental to your beer. Bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat until you see that it is just barely boiling. I only boil off about 1/2 gallon.

4. Cooling is misunderstood too. You need to quickly cool the wort below about 170F as until the wort is that cool, any late addition hops are still adding bitterness. If you have no late addition hops, slow cooling is fine. Keep the pot covered to keep out squirrels and bacteria. Most of my brews take 24 to 36 hours to show activity. Since you used dry yeast you don't need to do any aeration. I usually just dump the wort into the fermenter from waist height and that seems to be fine. Unless you brewed a high gravity beer, do not aerate now.

5. Your yeast nutrient won't hurt anything. It also won't help. Your wort has all the nutrients the yeast need, unlike making wine from fruit juices where the nutrient is lacking.

 

[doug293cz]

If you don't see a krausen developing on top of your wort, then it's probably ok to oxigenate, as fermentation hasn't gotten underway in earnest yet.

When using an immersion cooler, it works best if you have agitation to improve heat flow. You can either stir the wort with the IC, or whirlpool the wort (easiest if your equipment is set up for it.) You can convince yourself of this by allowing the IC to sit undisturbed for a while in hot wort, and grab the IC near the outlet, should be warm but not hot. Now stir with the IC, while keeping your hand on near the outlet. It will quickly get too hot to hold. This is because with stirring, you have a much greater rate of heat transfer from the wort to the cooling water. Faster heat transfer means faster cooling.

Brew on

 

[doug293cz]

1. The efficiency you get is directly related to the crush of the grain and yes that high is quite possible with well milled grain. Good luck with repeating it.

2. Getting clear wort is really overrated. You only need to recirculate until big grain particles are minimized. A little husk particle in the boil will not be noticeable at the final product. Since you are batch sparging you don't need a mash out and you don't need to wait 10 minutes to drain. All you are doing is dissolving the sugars that are already present. Dump in the water, stir well, drain. Pedantic point: There is never any undissolved sugar in the wort, as the sugar is in solution when created, and you can't get concentrations high enough to cause sugar to precipitate out of solution. What you are doing is mixing the concentrated wort retained in the grain mass with the sparge water, in order to homogenize the concentration of sugar throughout the resulting more dilute wort. So, aggressive stirring is important, but wait time doesn't matter (except that waiting will improve homogenization slowly, if the initial stirring was inadequate.)

3. New evidence says that a hard boil is detrimental to your beer. Bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat until you see that it is just barely boiling. I only boil off about 1/2 gallon.

4. Cooling is misunderstood too. You need to quickly cool the wort below about 170F as until the wort is that cool, any late addition hops are still adding bitterness. If you have no late addition hops, slow cooling is fine. Keep the pot covered to keep out squirrels and bacteria. Most of my brews take 24 to 36 hours to show activity. Since you used dry yeast you don't need to do any aeration. I usually just dump the wort into the fermenter from waist height and that seems to be fine. Unless you brewed a high gravity beer, do not aerate now. Another reason to cool quickly to under 170°F, is to minimize the formation of DMS after boiling has stopped. Boiling removes DMS at a rate faster than it is formed, however once boiling ends, removal of DMS slows significantly. But, DMS continues to form until the wort is below about 170°F, so you want to minimize the time between end of boil and 170°F. You also want the BK uncovered when cooling to aid in DMS removal after end of boil. Agitation of the wort with the IC, or by whirlpooling will aid in the removal of DMS.

5. Your yeast nutrient won't hurt anything. It also won't help. Your wort has all the nutrients the yeast need, unlike making wine from fruit juices where the nutrient is lacking.

Lot of good information in the quoted post. A clarification, and some additional information added above.

Brew on

 

[DVCNick]

Thanks guys. I did have late hop additions at 10min and 0min, and I started the chiller probably within one minute of cutting the heat, so that is good.

Won't bother with mashout next time then.

Guess I'm most worried about the oxygenation at this point, however, my first extract kit wasn't oxygenated and came out fine as far as I can tell.

 

[DVCNick]

Roughly 32 hours in now, and very little bubbling/no krausen. I'm starting to get worried... my extract batches all took off faster than this.

 

[sniperd]

If you are really worried, get another pack of yeast, make a yeast starter, and dump it in. One of very first brews I messed up a killed my yeast like a dumb dumb. I thought I had to warm my yeast up so I put the tub of White Labs Yeast into warm water, very warm water like over 100F degrees. So that killed the yeast (which I didn't know) and put it in. 3 days later and nothing. So I got another yeast vial, dumped it in and it was fine.

 

[DVCNick]

What do you think the minimum temp would be that would kill a dry pack of US-05?

 

[Staylow]

If you're gonna add more yeast, I'd just add another dry pack. Dont make a starter with it - dry yeast is better off without it.

As was said by another poster, dry yeast doesnt need aeration.

 

[DVCNick]

Interesting...
Well just between early this morning and now, a thin layer of krausen is forming, so hopefully it's just a late bloomer.

 

[sniperd]

Dry yeast seems pretty durable. I'm not sure what temp would kill it

 

[RM-MN]

What do you think the minimum temp would be that would kill a dry pack of US-05?

Just guessing but 140F. is the start of pasteurization. When drying grain from the field, it that temperature was exceeded the grain could not be used to plant as it would not germinate. Dry yeast might be able to tolerate even higher temps.

 

[RM-MN]

If you are really worried, get another pack of yeast, make a yeast starter, and dump it in. One of very first brews I messed up a killed my yeast like a dumb dumb. I thought I had to warm my yeast up so I put the tub of White Labs Yeast into warm water, very warm water like over 100F degrees. So that killed the yeast (which I didn't know) and put it in. 3 days later and nothing. So I got another yeast vial, dumped it in and it was fine.

I'd have a different approach. Get another pack of dry yeast, make another batch of beer, dump that pack into the new batch. That will take your mind off the previous batch while the yeast have a chance to get started. I've never had a batch fail to start but some batches take a lot longer than others.

 

[DVCNick]

As of last night I'd say it was going, not fast, but almost 1/2" of krausen.
I forgot to look this morning.
But I think it is going to be fine. It just took longer to start than my extract batches.