Help me sanity check my first grain brew

[Zadkiel]

Hey guys n gals,

So, I'm about to make a big leap up in complexity & process - my first 4 brews were with extracts using starter equipment, but my next one is going to be all-grain and using a 35L Brewzilla I just got delivered.

That's a LOT of 'new' at the same time. I'm really not confident in understanding all the processes for using grain and I'm adding on top of that using new and complicated machinery at the same time. So, I'm going to be posting things here and asking you to check things for me to make sure I'm not making any major screwups, thanks in advance

The main thing I would really love you to check is my brewday checklist - I'm going to write myself a detailed step-by-step brew-day process, it's what i did for my extract & bucket brews and that worked really well for me, no mistakes and 4 great beers, so I will do the same - I don't have that ready yet, I'm still studying up on the process, so I'll post that here later in the thread once I have my first draft.

For now I'd like to check my planned recipe, and confirm that my tap water is useless.

So I'm going to make an Anchor Steam clone. I can get Northern Brewer Hops here in the UK so that's great, but our malts are completely different to US ones so I've had to try and work out substitutions, also the recipe I'm using as my reference ( https://homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/anchor-steam-clone/ ) is from 2003 so I'm thinking of substituting the WLP810 in the recipe for saflager 34/70 instead - for higher attenuation and a drier finish.

Here's the recipe I've come up with.

4.2KG Weyermann Carapils Extra Pale Premiere Pilsner (edit)
500g Simpsons Crystal T50
250g Simpsons Amber Malt
60 minute mash
60 minute boil
30g Northern Brewer 7.2% @ 60m
25g Northern Brewer 7.,2% @ 20m
Protofloc tablet & yeast nutrient @ 10m
25g Northern Brewer 7.2% @ 0m

Am I OK to use dry yeast (1 pack of 34/70) sprinkled on the top as I've been doing so far, or for this recipe should I do the thing where you add it to some wort for 30 minutes and then pitch it as a liquid?

Sticking all the above into Brewfather and selecting Brewzilla equipment which sets efficiency at 78%, it comes out as follows:

21.6L mash water
11.2L sparge water
pre-boil volume 30L
pre-boil gravity 1.040
post boil volume 25L
post boil gravity 1.045
final gravity 1.007
ABV 5.0%

Next thing is - in another thread Mac recommended these to me as a space-efficient way to make effectively-RO water: https://shop.culligan.co.uk/ and I'm probably going to go with that, but I want to confirm that I'm right in thinking my local tap water is useless to use un-filtered

Putting the numbers from my water report into Brewfather, it comes out as:

7.8pH
Ca2 101 ppm (converted from 252 CACO3)
Mg2 4.2 ppm
Na 24 ppm
Cl 35 ppm
SO4 43 ppm
HCO3 247 ppm

SO4/Cl ratio 1.23
Hardness 269
Alkalinity 202
Residual Alkalinity 128

That's bad, right? There's no real way to adjust that, as it is, to something suitable to brew with? I should get the RO jugs? I could use store-bought spring water which is what I was doing with my extract brews.

Last question, on the subject of water - when I watch brewing guide videos, they always seem to add the salts to the mash water prior to adding the grain, which confuses me - shouldn't I do it to a combination of mash and sparge water together? if it's in the Mash water only then do I calculate the salts based on the total water volume, meaning the concentration is higher while mashing and then 'waters down' to the desired levels when the sparge water is added? it's the main thing right now that I can't get my head around.

 

[Zadkiel]

Oh, another question I forgot, the place I'm buying my ingredients from https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/ has 3 options for the malts, uncrushed, crushed and fine crush - I don't have my own crushing equipment (yet! one thing at a time) and don't know if I should select crushed or fine crush - I'm thinking just 'crushed' as I'm using a basket system, right? Also add some rice hulls?

 

[Zadkiel]

Aha! picked up my first mistake already. The recipe I used as my base just stated 'german pils malt' so I randomly picked this one called carapils which sounded like the right thing but I just looked again and it says up to 10% of the grist only, so it's not a main malt. I think this is the one I should use: https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/product/weyermann-premiere-pilsner-malt/

 

[Willy]

I think on your first go round on a Brewzilla 35L - you will be closer to 72-75% efficiency (not 78). Carapils is used to help with foam/head... I made an out of spec batch one time and the head was like merengue it was so think. Ha.

My one piece of advice on the first brew is to ... Add a slow flow to the recirc arm. You want a slow trickle thru the mash. If it is open to wide, you will have wort running over the top of the mash pipe and maybe even a spillover.
Go slow on the amount recirculating over the mash.

Also good to play with it a bit just using water... Just to get familiar with how it operates. The wifi/Bluetooth aspect of the Brewzilla is great. Get that all dialed in too before you brew.

 

[Brockness Monster]

That jug doesn't have a membrane, so it is not going to give you RO. The jug will get rid of all of the nasties and make your water taste great which is all you really need. I would base your salt additions on what your water already has in solution (so you don't overshoot anything) and use a phosphoric acid or lactic acid solution to lower the mash pH. Don't worry about buying a pH meter (most people use them incorrectly), just use the Brewfather water calculations to get you into range. I'm pretty sure you don't have sparge water, your system should be setup for a full volume mash. Dry yeast can be sprinkled directly onto the wort via the instructions on the package.

 

[mac_1103]

That jug doesn't have a membrane, so it is not going to give you RO.

Did you bother to read the specs? Yeah, it's not a reverse osmosis system, but it removes 99.9% of total dissolved solids. Zero TDS is zero TDS. What do you think is going to be left?

Last question, on the subject of water - when I watch brewing guide videos, they always seem to add the salts to the mash water prior to adding the grain, which confuses me - shouldn't I do it to a combination of mash and sparge water together? if it's in the Mash water only then do I calculate the salts based on the total water volume, meaning the concentration is higher while mashing and then 'waters down' to the desired levels when the sparge water is added? it's the main thing right now that I can't get my head around.

I adjust both the mash and the sparge water. Some people add all of the salts to the mash. I think it's fine either way as long as the sparge water doesn't increase the pH above about 6. You could avoid the question entirely by doing a full volume mash.

 

[Zadkiel]

Also good to play with it a bit just using water... Just to get familiar with how it operates.

I was planning to do exactly that. The manual says to run it through with sanitiser at high temp to clean up any machining oil residue, so I was gonna use that process to play around.

 

[Zadkiel]

I'm pretty sure you don't have sparge water, your system should be setup for a full volume mash.

Well, it doesn't specifically have a sparge system built in, but I was going to do it manually - doesn't seem so hard when I lift up the malt pipe/basket and it's draining, to prepare the sparge water separately (my bottling bucket will work just fine, and I can use a kettle to heat it) and then use a large jug or something to manually sparge?

 

[Brockness Monster]

Did you bother to read the specs? Yeah, it's not a reverse osmosis system, but it removes 99.9% of total dissolved solids. Zero TDS is zero TDS. What do you think is going to be left?

https://shop.culligan.co.uk/pages/performance-certifications

Funny how their performance reads. For instance, they claim that is reduces an average of 99.9% of zinc, but the Max effluent is 50% of the influent. They must have had a really bad filter when that one was tested. btw, yes I read the specs (and the performance certs), but there is some obvious marketing speech going on. Still great filters, I am sure, but when things are too good to be true they tend not to be true.

 

[Zadkiel]

Thanks for the answers so far - does anyone have any thoughts on the question of crushed vs fine crush? I want to get the grain ordered soon.

 

[mac_1103]

Max effluent is 50% of the influent.

What are you talking about? There's no waste. You put a liter in you get a liter out.

TDS meter reads 0 on the water that comes through the filter. Again, what do you think is still in there (at > 1 ppm total)?

 

[Zadkiel]

What are you talking about? There's no waste. You put a liter in you get a liter out.

TDS meter reads 0 on the water that comes through the filter. Again, what do you think is still in there (at > 1 ppm total)?

he's talking about the datasheet at the link he posted. the numbers in there are wierd and I can't make sense of them either. for Zinc for example it says that at concentrations of 10mg/l the 'Maximum Permissible Effluent Concentration' is 5mg/l which sounds like it's only removing 50%, but then it claims next to it that's a 99.9% reduction.

 

[Brockness Monster]

^^^

 

[mac_1103]

5 mg/L is 5 ppm, right? 5 ppm of Zn would show up on a cheap TDS meter.

 

[Zadkiel]

I think the issue is more about bad maths than specific numbers. if they think 10mg/l in, 5mg/l out is 99.9% reduction, what else are they fudging.

I think I'm gonna try the jug anyway, but it's interesting.

 

[Willy]

Thanks for the answers so far - does anyone have any thoughts on the question of crushed vs fine crush? I want to get the grain ordered soon.

You can do a finer crush for BIAB. Depending on the style and recipe I use .30-.40. pretty fine but nothing like flour.

 

[mac_1103]

if they think 10mg/l in, 5mg/l out is 99.9% reduction, what else are they fudging.

I don't think that's what it's trying to say. It might just be a maximum allowable output level for QA/QC.

 

[Brockness Monster]

Short video showing that not even distilled or RO water gets to the magic zero number. Obviously not definitive lab tested experiment, but a normal everyday home test.

 

[Brockness Monster]

I don't think that's what it's trying to say. It might just be a maximum allowable output level for QA/QC.

Even at max allowable output that would be 5ppm. If QA/QC is letting that through, what happens when a user tests their water, and it is not zero?

 

[mac_1103]

As we all know "zero" depends on the limit of detection of the test. So a reading of zero really means less than the limit of detection. Most of the water gurus who post here say that a meter with a limit of detection of 1 ppm is more than adequate.

 

[Zadkiel]

You can do a finer crush for BIAB. Depending on the style and recipe I use .30-.40. pretty fine but nothing like flour.

Thank you!

 

[mac_1103]

what happens when a user tests their water, and it is not zero?

You seem to keep missing the part that I do test the water and it is zero.

 

[Brockness Monster]

You do you brother, I smell fish though

 

[mac_1103]

You don't smell anything, because the water has < 1 ppm TDS in it.

Do you have anything vaguely resembling a substantive answer to the question of what is still in water that reads "0" on a TDS meter with an LOD of 1 ppm, or are you just trying to be a jerk?

 

[Brockness Monster]

Yeah, trolling you a little because you came off aggro immediately. You know, raise that blood pressure a little.

Watching some vids does seem to substantiate the claim, but I am really confused by the numbers in the performance certificate. Even Chlorine says it only reduces by 50% in the effluant. Either way, trust it or not, the filter is gonna give you great water.

 

[DavidBD]

Hi @Zadkiel. Personally, I would go for the finer crush for better extraction rates, as long as the husks are not shredded, which would then lead to more tannins in the final beer. I suppose you won't know if the husks are mostly intact until you see it. Your recipe has rather a lot of water for that amount of grain. If you are going for an OG around 1.050 then you may find it useful to add more grain or reduce the water. You can easily add water at the end of your boil if the gravity is too high, which seems better than trying to raise gravity at the end by adding extract.
Also, some folks prefer a longer boil for lagers with lightly kilned malts in order to drive off DMS. It is a much debated topic.
A starter is generally recommended for lager yeast. However, a "steam beer" ferments lager yeast at a warmer temperature, which means you can perhaps get by with less. I would make a starter anyway.

 

[Zadkiel]

Hi @Zadkiel. Personally, I would go for the finer crush for better extraction rates, as long as the husks are not shredded, which would then lead to more tannins in the final beer. I suppose you won't know if the husks are mostly intact until you see it. Your recipe has rather a lot of water for that amount of grain. If you are going for an OG around 1.050 then you may find it useful to add more grain or reduce the water. You can easily add water at the end of your boil if the gravity is too high, which seems better than trying to raise gravity at the end by adding extract.

Hmm. I also tried plugging the same recipe into beersmith, I have to say I find it a lot harder to use, as it only has generic options for the fermentables and none of them match, but it also mostly agrees on the water values. it suggest Mash water of 20.1L (compared to 21.6L on brewfather) but splits it 12.9L 'mash in' and 7.2L 'mash out', beersmith seems to think I lose more water in the grain than brewfather does, and as a result thinks I should use 15L of sparge water (compared to 11.2L !!) to reach the same pre-boil volume of 30L

I mean, what you say makes sense, better to mash with less water and have the option to dilute it later, but both systems seem to agree on the mash water amount.

Also, some folks prefer a longer boil for lagers with lightly kilned malts in order to drive off DMS. It is a much debated topic.

I know nothing about that and given how many new things I'm dealing with, that sounds like something for future Zadkiel to worry about in later brews.

A starter is generally recommended for lager yeast. However, a "steam beer" ferments lager yeast at a warmer temperature, which means you can perhaps get by with less. I would make a starter anyway.

Thanks for that input But now I have one vote to use it dry and one to make a starter, heh.

 

[Zadkiel]

I think the difference may be that both systems assume higher efficiencies than others here think I'll get. Brewfather sets efficiency to 78% when I select brewzilla 35L, and beersmith sets it to 75% when I choose BIAB 5 gallon.

 

[Brockness Monster]

@Zadkiel

Disregard my post in the other thread. The pH drops from the Zerowater water because of atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolving into solution. Happens with all water, but since there is no alkalinity to buffer such a weak acid, the pH drops by a lot. Once you add even a little bit of Ca or HCO3 it should buffer the solution. So using a pH of 7 should suffice.

 

[Zadkiel]

On that subject - I'm buying my malts/hops/yeast now (no-one said they were wrong so I'm assuming they are good) and I can get water treatment stuff from the same site so I'm trying to work out what to buy.

I already have some calcium chloride flakes, and some 60% lactic acid. If we assume the jugs do indeed give me effectively-RO water, what other chemicals do I need to be able to reach any given water profile? (I havn't worked out what the profile will be yet)

 

[Zadkiel]

never mind, sorry, I need to learn how to RTFM. I worked out how to use the water section in beersmith, set source to RO and picked a random target (Amber Balanced) and it gave a list of chemicals.

 

[Brockness Monster]

Probably Gypsum & Baking Soda. You don't need to add Mg because the wort will provide all that the yeast need. Some people like to use table salt for Na and Cl2, but Baking soda and Calcium Chloride will give you those. I would use minimal baking soda because it will hamper the effect of the acid, but you might need a little as a buffer for carbonic acid.

Sounds like you got it.

 

[mac_1103]

Zinc for example it says that at concentrations of 10mg/l the 'Maximum Permissible Effluent Concentration' is 5mg/l which sounds like it's only removing 50%, but then it claims next to it that's a 99.9% reduction.

So just to clear this up for posterity - "Maximum Permissible Effluent Concentration" is the highest amount allowed under the relevant NSF/ANSI standard:

"The concentration of the indicated substances in water entering the system was reduced to a concentration less than or equal to the permissible limit for water leaving the system, as specified in the relevant standard."

"Average Percent Reduction" is the data. A 50% reduction in Zinc would be acceptable; a 99.9% reduction was observed.

I think the difference may be that both systems assume higher efficiencies than others here think I'll get. Brewfather sets efficiency to 78% when I select brewzilla 35L, and beersmith sets it to 75% when I choose BIAB 5 gallon.

Your efficiency is your efficiency, not anyone else's. You won't know what it is until you've done a few batches and dialed things in the way you want them. And neither will Brewfather or Beersmith, but they've got to start somewhere.

 

[Zadkiel]

So just to clear this up for posterity - "Maximum Permissible Effluent Concentration" is the highest amount allowed under the relevant NSF/ANSI standard:

Ah.

Your efficiency is your efficiency, not anyone else's. You won't know what it is until you've done a few batches and dialed things in the way you want them. And neither will Brewfather or Beersmith, but they've got to start somewhere.

Yup, I know. I was just responding to someone saying they thought my gravity would come out lower than the numbers I was getting from brewfather, as to a possible reason why that might be true. His point, that I should use less water to cover that possibility, and I could add more after if I needed, was a good one I thought.

 

[jerrylotto]

Mashing is an enzymic conversion process of starches (polysaccharides) to simple sugars. Ions and pH both play an important role in that process (calcium in particular). You don't want to mash in zero TDS water because the pH will swing widely and the efficiency will be low. Concentrations of various ions should be specified in the recipe you're following for mash water or can be figured out with calculators online like the ones at Brewer's Friend.

 

[Zadkiel]

OK, so here's my brewday plan. I think this is going to seem excessively detailed and pedantic to some of you, but I found doing a list like this for my extract brews was super helpful, and given it's my first ever grain mash and first ever on the machine, I'm super worried that I'll forget something important or do something out of order.

I really really appreciate those who are taking the time to help me with this. You folks rock

For those short on time, I'll bolden the major steps, as those are the ones I'm wanting to check I'm doing correctly and in the correct order.

Prepare 35L of water at desired water chemistry.
Test pH of room temp water, adjust to about 6.0
Clean Brewzilla & other equipment. Check tap is closed, jacket is on, false bottom & HED is in. Add basket but no grain yet.
Set thermometer source to built-in
Add 20L water
Heat to strike temperature (73C).
Set temp to 67C
Add grain, stirring to break up any dough balls.
insert temp probe into middle of grain, change settings to use temp probe.
add recirculation arm & tube, add top cover and lid, set to low-medium flow rate.
Start 60 minute Mash at 67C
After a few minutes, take sample, cool to pH meter calibration (room temp). reduce to 5.6 (at mash temp this will be 5.2-5.3).
Stir occasionally (every 10-15m?)
Raise Mash to 75C (aim for 10 minutes) and heat sparge water to 75-80C
Raise basket and let drain
sparge (approx 15 minutes?)
remove grain basket and put in bucket as will drain more.
Aim for 28L pre-boil. Hopefully gravity should be 1.041-1.046 (adjust for temp)
Raise temp to boil.
boil additions:
30g hops @ 60m
25g hops @ 20m
Protofloc tablet & yeast nutrient @ 10m
insert whirlpool arm & chiller @ 2m to sanitise
25g hops @ 0m
Heater off. This is now cold side, anything touching wort must be sanitised
Chill to 80C, turn off water
Whirlpool 20m
Check gravity & temp adjust. Target is 23L @ 1.045-1.050.
Turn water back on, Chill as low as possible, will probably get to about 25C, whirlpool arm on low will help chill rate
swap to recirc arm, pump to sanitised FV
FV into fridge set to 16C to continue to cool (approx. 6 hours from 25C)
prepare starter, cool to 16C and pitch (Aerate wort)

 

[mac_1103]

1) Don't worry too much about the pH of the water before the mash; even with the chemical additions it's not going to have that much buffering capacity and might be frustratingly unstable.

2) Don't chase pH during the mash; add the salts and acid that the software tells you to use and you will be close; check it about 10-15 minutes in and adjust the acid addition for your next brew.

 

[Zadkiel]

acid that the software tells you to use

I have zero doubt that your advice is good, but I'm struggling hard with working this out. I've spent hours today wrestling with various water addition calculators and can't get any of them to agree with each other and just don't understand what they are telling me Brewfather, the one I am currently preferring because it lets me select the specific EU grains I'm using, just gives me a nonsensical result to add 0.23ml of acid lol.

That was why I kinda 'gave up' and figured I'd just take a reading and adjust on the fly.

 

[mac_1103]

The problem with adjusting on the fly is that you'll never catch up. You dough in, you stir well, you wait ten minutes, you pull a sample, you chill the sample, you test the sample, you decide you need to add more acid... OK, but how much more? And guess what - by the time you add it and get your pH where you wanted it (you hope) you've already converted half (or more) of the starches under the "wrong" conditions.

I've spent hours today wrestling with various water addition calculators and can't get any of them to agree with each other and just don't understand what they are telling me

I bet if you post screen shots of what they're telling you, folks will be happy to explain it to you.

 

[Zadkiel]

The problem with adjusting on the fly is that you'll never catch up. You dough in, you stir well, you wait ten minutes you pull a sample, you chill the sample, you test the sample, you decide you need to add more acid... OK, but how much more? And guess what - by the time you add it and get your pH where you wanted it (you hope) you've already converted half (or more) of the starches under the "wrong" conditions.

Oh, I guess I didn't realise that would be so time consuming. my PH meter only wants a small amount of liquid to sit in, 10ml in a small dish works fine, and I figured I could chill that in like a minute or so. I'll take your word for it.

I bet if you post screen shots of what they're telling you, folks will be happy to explain it to you.

OK, let's have a go!

So, using brewfather, here's where I input my base settings: grains, volumes etc. I set the water 'source' to RO (as hopefully I'll be as close to that as makes no difference) and choose the inbuilt profile for Cali Common as the target.

The next part had me confused for the longest time, because it then showed me water additions that came out way off from the profile and with a really high pH. This had me stuck for ages, until 10 minutes ago I suddenly realised that you have to click the little 'gear' icon which opens another screen where you select which chemicals you can use, and baking soda was disabled. I enabled it and boom suddenly everything 'works'. This has kinda fixed everything.

Now that part lines up, I can enter a value into the mash acid box and the 'mash pH' value up top changes. This was showing nonsensical values before. Now if I put in 5ml that sets the Mash pH to 5.26 which should be good?

There's another part to this called Acid Sparge - I *think* this is an adjustment phase? it requires me to fill in the water pH & target pH so I think it's saying to take a pH measurement at the start of the sparge and if it's off, how to correct it?

If this is all correct, then my last problem is converting the lactic acid value. This is giving me a result in ml, so I assume that means it's an acid solution. My 60% lactic acid is a powder. I'm not sure if this is a 1:1 ml:mg conversion or not...