First ever AG batch, unexpectedly high OG

[BikerMatt]

Hey guys this is what I did yesterday:

As shown in another thread here's my high tech brewery I'll walk you through what I did in case you spot something.

First I filled the kettle with 8 liters of cold water and lit the flame. Then I filled in boiling hot water that I heated on the side table with an electric kettle 1,5 liters at a time until I reached 12 liters, and pretty much at the same time around 74c. Flame out, quick stir, put in the BIAB bag, and filled with grains. 2kg maris otter pale/ 0,4kg weyermann cara aroma. Wrapped the kettle in aluminum foil lined bubble wrap, worked remarkably well as I only lost one degree over the mashing hour, mash at 68-67c. Then I hung the bag from my chain winch and let tit drain into a bucket, lowered it into a strainer, boiled one liter of water in the electric kettle, added half a liter of cold to reach 70c and slowly sparged the grains with the water. After that I dumped the results into the boil kettle and lit the flame, added 6 grams of admiral pellets at 60min and 24 grams of east kent goldings at 15, after 60mins flame out, lifted the kettle into the immersion cooler and let it cool until 24c. Poured into the fermenter where I already had measured 6g of safale s04. Took the OG measure after (forgot) and it showed 1.058 which is somewhat higher than I expected. Final volume a touch under 10 liters. After about 14h seems to be bubbling away nicely.

Edit: just realised the recipe was written for 12 liters so that might explain the high gravity? Should I have sparged more to reach the 12L?

 

[McKnuckle]

Congrats! So you ended up with about 2.6 US gallons of 1.058 wort. The only possible misstep is pitching yeast at 24c (75F). That's generally too warm, as perhaps you've read about in your travels here on HBT. Is the fermenter located in a cooler place where the temp would have stabilized a bit lower?

Next time, you can stop chilling at 24c but don't have the yeast sitting in the fermenter. Seal the fermenter, then wait til the temperature comes down a bit more before pitching. Safale 04 is an English yeast - it appreciates a temp more in the 18-19c range.

About the 12L vs. 10L - entirely your choice! Sparging (or mashing with) more water would have gotten you more beer at a lower gravity. All things being equal based on the OG you actually achieved, at 12L your wort would have had an OG of about 1.048.

 

[kh54s10]

For what it's worth, I brew most of my beers to the 1.058 range. I would enjoy the slightly stronger beer. Adjust on your next batch.

 

[BikerMatt]

Thanks for the input guys! I must admit I was getting really tired (and slightly drunk ) so started making small errors. Pitching the yeast pre wort was actually a bit of a brainfart, I measured it then tossed it into the fermenter before I realized what I was doing then went ffffff.... oh well the bottom is slightly damp from rinsing out the sanitizer so can't back out either, then went to the swamp cooler and saw the temp being at 24, the yeast bag saying 15-25 so went fuggit close enough it's 2am and I wanna go to the sauna already so decided to transfer. The fermentor is sitting in the back room in a steady 17,6-18c so should be ideal.

Can't mash with more water as my boil kettle is 15l (to the brim) so 12l is the max I can boil hence the side sparging. It's a learning curve to get my method honed but getting there! Ohhh I can't wait how this thing tastes like. I don't mind if it's on the strong side as long as it's not overly sweet or anything.