Chaos_Being
Well-Known Member
I got to try out my new brew equipment yesterday- 8 gallon pot, immersion chiller, and SQ14 burner- and made my first all-grain brew. All went pretty well (as I'll outline below,) but once I was done and the wort was chilled, I noticed that there was a massive amount of trub- much more than I've ever seen from any of my extract or partial mash brews. This is what I did:
The recipe is pretty simple, to make a Belgian Pale- 9lbs of Belgian Pale Malt, and 0.5lbs of Crystal 20. (I based it on the "Patersbier" kit that NB sells.) I was using DeathBrewer's stovetop mashing technique, so all of my grains were in a large strainer bag, in a 5 gallon pot which I heated on my stovetop- the final boil was in my garage. I mashed at 149 degrees, but I mashed it for nearly 2 hours due to some issues with my burner (I had to stop and start over when I was heating my sparge water due to the paint on the burner smoking off. I knew the paint was going to do that, and tried to burn it off earlier, but ended up having to sand it off and start again.) I'm assuming the long mash will end up with a drier beer- I was aiming for a dry-ish beer anyways, so no worries. I did get about 75% efficiency, which is more than I expected.
So, two hours after I started my mash, I had resolved the burner issue and started boiling 6 gallons of wort. I used whirlfloc for the first time (I usually use irish moss,) and then got a good quick chill (about 15 minutes) using my wort chiller. I whirlpooled the cool wort, and let it sit for maybe 20 minutes while I cleaned up and sanitized my fermenter. When I went to siphon it, I noticed that I had a layer of crystal clear wort on top- and a ton of trub on the bottom. Siphoning just the clear part only got me about 2.5 gallons maybe, so I ended up just siphoning all of the trub into the fermenter too. Now that it has settled (as my yeast hasn't taken off yet,) about 1/3 of my fermenter is trub.
I'm not really worried about the trub per se (I've never been really anal about keeping it out of my fermenter, and all of my beer has been good,) but I was just surprised at how much I got. I am curious though: does all-grain usually result in more trub, or was it because I used whirlfloc and got a really good hot/cold break due to a vigorous boil and quick chill? Should I have tried to keep more of it out (by letting it sit longer before siphoning, perhaps)?
Any which way, yesterday was a fun experience and I'm glad that I have the additional options that all-grain offers now
The recipe is pretty simple, to make a Belgian Pale- 9lbs of Belgian Pale Malt, and 0.5lbs of Crystal 20. (I based it on the "Patersbier" kit that NB sells.) I was using DeathBrewer's stovetop mashing technique, so all of my grains were in a large strainer bag, in a 5 gallon pot which I heated on my stovetop- the final boil was in my garage. I mashed at 149 degrees, but I mashed it for nearly 2 hours due to some issues with my burner (I had to stop and start over when I was heating my sparge water due to the paint on the burner smoking off. I knew the paint was going to do that, and tried to burn it off earlier, but ended up having to sand it off and start again.) I'm assuming the long mash will end up with a drier beer- I was aiming for a dry-ish beer anyways, so no worries. I did get about 75% efficiency, which is more than I expected.
So, two hours after I started my mash, I had resolved the burner issue and started boiling 6 gallons of wort. I used whirlfloc for the first time (I usually use irish moss,) and then got a good quick chill (about 15 minutes) using my wort chiller. I whirlpooled the cool wort, and let it sit for maybe 20 minutes while I cleaned up and sanitized my fermenter. When I went to siphon it, I noticed that I had a layer of crystal clear wort on top- and a ton of trub on the bottom. Siphoning just the clear part only got me about 2.5 gallons maybe, so I ended up just siphoning all of the trub into the fermenter too. Now that it has settled (as my yeast hasn't taken off yet,) about 1/3 of my fermenter is trub.
I'm not really worried about the trub per se (I've never been really anal about keeping it out of my fermenter, and all of my beer has been good,) but I was just surprised at how much I got. I am curious though: does all-grain usually result in more trub, or was it because I used whirlfloc and got a really good hot/cold break due to a vigorous boil and quick chill? Should I have tried to keep more of it out (by letting it sit longer before siphoning, perhaps)?
Any which way, yesterday was a fun experience and I'm glad that I have the additional options that all-grain offers now