New Forum member although been around reading for a while. My intro is in the intro thread but after my first brew day I have some questions and thought I'd post a summary of the day and get a bit of advice. Overall things went well but a couple things I'm not sure about.
First the recipe. I bought a More Beer all grain Two Hearted Ale clone - I Heart IPA. Grain - 10 lbs 2-row pale, 2 lbs Vienna Malt, 8 oz Crystal and 8 ox Carapilis. Centennial hops 1 oz at 60min, 30min, 5 min, 1 min and will have one to dry hop. Yeast - dry yeast - LalBrew Amercian West Coast Ale Yeast - BRY-97. I milled the grains myself and ran through the mill twice. I had a bit of trouble with the mill feeding but worked through it. Basically I put a hand in the grain and kind of stirred around the top of the rollers or things got hung up and the rollers would just spin and not pull grain through. I ran through the first time at 0.065 and second at 0.035.
Second the set up - I did a BIAB in a 15 gallon vessel with a 5 gallon carboy for fermenting (I learned after I ordered that I probably should have gone bigger but as you'll read later it was big enough for this time).
Process - target mash temp was 148. I heated 5.6 gallons water to 155 and added the grain and wrapped in sleeping bags. It stayed at 148 for almost all of the 60min period I left it. I did an iodine test and looked good. I let the bag drain a bit. Splarged with 1.9 gallons of water between 160-170 F by pouring over the bag. I "moderately" squeezed the bag and also put it in a bucket to drain and added that water a bit into the boil. Boiled what I thought was a moderate level of boil and then chilled with a copper coil which took about 30 minutes.
Questions -
First a question around yield/efficiency. I ended up with about 4.5 gallons in my fermenter and that was with leaving nothing in the vessel. I used Brewfather to help me with volumes of water. I ended up at a OG of 1.064. The recipe gave a range of 1.056-1.061 which I know from a discussion in my intro thread that if I had ended up with 5 gallons I would have been right in the middle of that at 1.058. My efficiency was 65%. My main question is on future batches how do I understand this a bit better and improve? I wish I had a little more information like the volume pre boil. How do people generally measure that? Marks on vessel? A probe with marks to measure depth? The what are the adjustments to look for next time? Let bag drain more? Less vigorous boil? Or just start with more water? I'm sure there are plenty of discussions about this on the forum already so feel free to point me to other places to look.
Second and my bigger question is I have a couple inches of lighter colored "gunk" for lack of a better word in the bottom of my fermenter. See attached picture. I read some places with similar pictures this is yeast but I noticed it immediately (I think before I added yeast but if not with in a minute or two of adding - memory is a bit fuzzy of exact time). I mentioned earlier that I didn't leave anything in the vessel due to the lower volumes but I did run things through a strainer at least for the bottom inch or so of the vessel. I haven't been able to find anything exactly like this in my searches so curious. I did notice with cooling there were some cloudy areas in the wort that looked a bit like this. Thinking back I wonder if they were by the hop bags which I left in until after it had cooled.
Anyway thanks for any feedback people have for me and I'm looking forward to being an active member of the forums.
First the recipe. I bought a More Beer all grain Two Hearted Ale clone - I Heart IPA. Grain - 10 lbs 2-row pale, 2 lbs Vienna Malt, 8 oz Crystal and 8 ox Carapilis. Centennial hops 1 oz at 60min, 30min, 5 min, 1 min and will have one to dry hop. Yeast - dry yeast - LalBrew Amercian West Coast Ale Yeast - BRY-97. I milled the grains myself and ran through the mill twice. I had a bit of trouble with the mill feeding but worked through it. Basically I put a hand in the grain and kind of stirred around the top of the rollers or things got hung up and the rollers would just spin and not pull grain through. I ran through the first time at 0.065 and second at 0.035.
Second the set up - I did a BIAB in a 15 gallon vessel with a 5 gallon carboy for fermenting (I learned after I ordered that I probably should have gone bigger but as you'll read later it was big enough for this time).
Process - target mash temp was 148. I heated 5.6 gallons water to 155 and added the grain and wrapped in sleeping bags. It stayed at 148 for almost all of the 60min period I left it. I did an iodine test and looked good. I let the bag drain a bit. Splarged with 1.9 gallons of water between 160-170 F by pouring over the bag. I "moderately" squeezed the bag and also put it in a bucket to drain and added that water a bit into the boil. Boiled what I thought was a moderate level of boil and then chilled with a copper coil which took about 30 minutes.
Questions -
First a question around yield/efficiency. I ended up with about 4.5 gallons in my fermenter and that was with leaving nothing in the vessel. I used Brewfather to help me with volumes of water. I ended up at a OG of 1.064. The recipe gave a range of 1.056-1.061 which I know from a discussion in my intro thread that if I had ended up with 5 gallons I would have been right in the middle of that at 1.058. My efficiency was 65%. My main question is on future batches how do I understand this a bit better and improve? I wish I had a little more information like the volume pre boil. How do people generally measure that? Marks on vessel? A probe with marks to measure depth? The what are the adjustments to look for next time? Let bag drain more? Less vigorous boil? Or just start with more water? I'm sure there are plenty of discussions about this on the forum already so feel free to point me to other places to look.
Second and my bigger question is I have a couple inches of lighter colored "gunk" for lack of a better word in the bottom of my fermenter. See attached picture. I read some places with similar pictures this is yeast but I noticed it immediately (I think before I added yeast but if not with in a minute or two of adding - memory is a bit fuzzy of exact time). I mentioned earlier that I didn't leave anything in the vessel due to the lower volumes but I did run things through a strainer at least for the bottom inch or so of the vessel. I haven't been able to find anything exactly like this in my searches so curious. I did notice with cooling there were some cloudy areas in the wort that looked a bit like this. Thinking back I wonder if they were by the hop bags which I left in until after it had cooled.
Anyway thanks for any feedback people have for me and I'm looking forward to being an active member of the forums.