Harvesting and pitching fresh wort onto yeast cake.

[Bassman2003]

Yes, 200ppm is a lot of sulfites but you have firsthand knowledge which is priceless in my opinion. That much sulfite would require quite a bit of oxygenation before the yeast pitch to expend them all to avoid sulfur in the beer. So the community works on their process & hardware to lower the sulfite amount under 50ppm. The big three are YOS, mash cap and sulfites along with underletting and being careful with pumps etc...

 

[Miraculix]

Yes, 200ppm is a lot of sulfites but you have firsthand knowledge which is priceless in my opinion. That much sulfite would require quite a bit of oxygenation before the yeast pitch to expend them all to avoid sulfur in the beer. So the community works on their process & hardware to lower the sulfite amount under 50ppm. The big three are YOS, mash cap and sulfites along with underletting and being careful with pumps etc...

I don't want to change my simple biab setup because of woman and space reasons and this setup brings in a lot of oxygen by default. I wanted to tweak as much of the process possible, without actually really changing the process, if you know what I mean. I started with yos, a simple mash cap and I limited the stirring to a minimum. Underletting is not possible in my setup, so I lowered the pre loaded bag slowly, instead of throwing in the malt from the top onto the water with the bag in it.

I also did single infusion, full volume, not to introduce further oxygen with the hot water infusions.

No stirring during the chill till the water is about 40c or so.

As you can see, there are several steps that introduce oxygen, that's why I started at the upper end which is 200ppm. I can tell that there was some SMB left, so next time I try the same process, but with 170 ppm.

 

[Bassman2003]

I think you are doing things well. We have a person in the group that still brews on the stovetop. Hand scoops the grain into the mash pot and also transfers the mash wort to the boil kettle by hand. He only uses 35ppm. So If I were in your position, I would use 50ppm of sulfites and try to be careful. Check the condition of your pre-boil hot break foam as to how white/consistent and free of tieg it is. That is really the best indicator of how the mash went from a low oxygen perspective.

Lowering the bag is not a big issue, it is raising the bag out where all of the oxygen comes into play. The next best hardware change is having a separate boil kettle to drain away into rather than a single pot. But, you have to use what you have and brew the way you brew knowing you might not get all the way there but judge if you see enough improvements. It is not easy to minimize most of the O2 intake without the help of the right setup.

What about raising the temp of the mash almost up to boiling before raising the grain out? Sort of like a very hot mashout? As temperature increases, less oxygen is retained in the liquid. That might mitigate some of the damage. If you have a pulley system maybe raise the mash up to 185F and start your slow raise a bit at time to let a lot of the draining happen below the water line (most important part). So by the time you have the bag out, a) there is little to drain & splash and b) you are close to boiling so the wort will not hold on to much oxygen anyway. Keep your pH at normal mash amounts (5.4-5.6) and you should not have any tannin issues.

Just a thought. Either way, slow, slow, slow with the bag is your best bet.

I stir the mash once after all of the strike water is in the mash tun. I run a recirc the entire mash with a slowed down pump using a PWM voltage controller. This allows me to control the speed of the wort flow by slowing the pump impeller instead of having it spin at full speed and beat up the wort. During chilling I have a motorized stirrer going at 35RPM the entire time. So you can do things to the wort, it just needs to be slow and gentle.

 

[Miraculix]

I think you are doing things well. We have a person in the group that still brews on the stovetop. Hand scoops the grain into the mash pot and also transfers the mash wort to the boil kettle by hand. He only uses 35ppm. So If I were in your position, I would use 50ppm of sulfites and try to be careful. Check the condition of your pre-boil hot break foam as to how white/consistent and free of tieg it is. That is really the best indicator of how the mash went from a low oxygen perspective.

Lowering the bag is not a big issue, it is raising the bag out where all of the oxygen comes into play. The next best hardware change is having a separate boil kettle to drain away into rather than a single pot. But, you have to use what you have and brew the way you brew knowing you might not get all the way there but judge if you see enough improvements. It is not easy to minimize most of the O2 intake without the help of the right setup.

What about raising the temp of the mash almost up to boiling before raising the grain out? Sort of like a very hot mashout? As temperature increases, less oxygen is retained in the liquid. That might mitigate some of the damage. If you have a pulley system maybe raise the mash up to 185F and start your slow raise a bit at time to let a lot of the draining happen below the water line (most important part). So by the time you have the bag out, a) there is little to drain & splash and b) you are close to boiling so the wort will not hold on to much oxygen anyway. Keep your pH at normal mash amounts (5.4-5.6) and you should not have any tannin issues.

Just a thought. Either way, slow, slow, slow with the bag is your best bet.

I stir the mash once after all of the strike water is in the mash tun. I run a recirc the entire mash with a slowed down pump using a PWM voltage controller. This allows me to control the speed of the wort flow by slowing the pump impeller instead of having it spin at full speed and beat up the wort. During chilling I have a motorized stirrer going at 35RPM the entire time. So you can do things to the wort, it just needs to be slow and gentle.

Good tips, thanks.

My boil kettle is my mash tun and I'm using the stove top too. I'm lifting the bag by hand and squeeeeeeeze it. That is ertainly splashy. Maybe I will use 80 ppm smb next time, if the other guy is getting away with 50 ppm, I might give it an extra bump for the squeeze.

I have no pumps, no pulley system, just a kettle and a bag.

 

[Bassman2003]

He is using 35ppm and transferring things from pot to pot. So less disturbance. Lifting on your own and squeezing is tough but you gotta do what you gotta do. Some sort of pulley etc... would help a lot to slow the process down.

 

[corkybstewart]

that looks great.

i was wondering why it was flat. lol

few months ago i got lazy and descide to just pitch onto yeast cake in the fermenter. now i always repitch into uncleaned fermenter. i try to keep it to 2 batches i am sure it could go more but i dont want to be cheap with yeast as dry yeast is cheap enough to be more than reasonable for 2 batches of beer.

I started brewing in 1992 with Papazian's book and nothing else for references. It was well before the thousands of internet experts were available to prevent me from doing stupid stuff. Because of my oilfield job I had no day off schedule and had to brew whenever I found myself at home, so often I would keg one batch while chilling the next batch and rack directly into my SS conical. Routinely I would do a pale ale of some sort, then a stout, finally an Imperial stout. Or a belgian blonde, a tripel, and then a monstrous 12% quadruple. For me 3 batches was the sweet spot to maintain a great variety in my 2 kegerators while avoiding contamination or other problems. Once I found a thin ring of mold in the krausen after the 3rd beer but it didn't affect the beer.

 

[Miraculix]

He is using 35ppm and transferring things from pot to pot. So less disturbance. Lifting on your own and squeezing is tough but you gotta do what you gotta do. Some sort of pulley etc... would help a lot to slow the process down.

The good thing is, my batches are limited to 17 liters in the kettle and I mainly brew lower abv beers like British bitters around 4% abv. This means that I start with about 3kg of grain so even with the absorbed water, the bag is not that heavy and can be handled manually easily.

I think 80 ppm smb could be a good next trial for the next brew. Still probably erring on the high side which is fine with me.

 

[Miraculix]

I think you are doing things well. We have a person in the group that still brews on the stovetop. Hand scoops the grain into the mash pot and also transfers the mash wort to the boil kettle by hand. He only uses 35ppm. So If I were in your position, I would use 50ppm of sulfites and try to be careful. Check the condition of your pre-boil hot break foam as to how white/consistent and free of tieg it is. That is really the best indicator of how the mash went from a low oxygen perspective.

Lowering the bag is not a big issue, it is raising the bag out where all of the oxygen comes into play. The next best hardware change is having a separate boil kettle to drain away into rather than a single pot. But, you have to use what you have and brew the way you brew knowing you might not get all the way there but judge if you see enough improvements. It is not easy to minimize most of the O2 intake without the help of the right setup.

What about raising the temp of the mash almost up to boiling before raising the grain out? Sort of like a very hot mashout? As temperature increases, less oxygen is retained in the liquid. That might mitigate some of the damage. If you have a pulley system maybe raise the mash up to 185F and start your slow raise a bit at time to let a lot of the draining happen below the water line (most important part). So by the time you have the bag out, a) there is little to drain & splash and b) you are close to boiling so the wort will not hold on to much oxygen anyway. Keep your pH at normal mash amounts (5.4-5.6) and you should not have any tannin issues.

Just a thought. Either way, slow, slow, slow with the bag is your best bet.

I stir the mash once after all of the strike water is in the mash tun. I run a recirc the entire mash with a slowed down pump using a PWM voltage controller. This allows me to control the speed of the wort flow by slowing the pump impeller instead of having it spin at full speed and beat up the wort. During chilling I have a motorized stirrer going at 35RPM the entire time. So you can do things to the wort, it just needs to be slow and gentle.

Had another one yesterday of that batch, now two weeks in the bottle. Still not 100% clear, but getting there. Unfortunately, there is the slight hint of fart comming from the glas. This would fit a lager but not a bitter. Well, it is what it is . 80 ppm next time.