Hoppy Wheat overnight mash BIAB

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
You can adjust bitterness anytime before kegging or bottling. if it is out of balance just make a hop tea. Woodlandbrew has some great articles on this topic. Unless one of my batches is infected, or just terrible. I always try to save them with adjustments. Hop tea, grain tea, etc. I've even taken a less than stellar batch and added a 2ndary sour fermentation to it, and created an award winner.... Never let a batch go down in flames! Thats my philosophy.

Well, I'm not in the least bit worried that it won't be drinkable or good for that matter.

This is just the base and I'll tweak until I get it where I want it to be flavor-wise, mainly just playing with the hops.
 
Well... I just couldn't help myself, patience has never been my strong suit, so I went ahead and took a gravity reading this morning, which would make it about 8 days from pitching.

Let's take a look.


0217050532.jpg


What the what? Lol... 1.009, thanks Notty.

Will put this brew around 6.7%. Not bad for missing my target OG by a few points. And, the taste, oh man. All grain baby... I am not looking back.

Dry hop today, cold crash later in the week, keg sometime next week.

I suspect this is the last FG reading I will take prior to packaging (on most beers), but really, just could not leave it alone. So, there we have it.
 
Give Notty a few more days to finish up. It looks like you have a lot of yeast suspended yet so your FG may still go lower.
 
Give Notty a few more days to finish up. It looks like you have a lot of yeast suspended yet so your FG may still go lower.

I think it probably won't based on my previous experience with notty... there are still quite a bit of yeast rafts floating on the surface and I probably picked some up when I took my sample.

Wouldn't a wheat be somewhat hazy anyhow?

Either way, it's still going to sit for a few days.
 
It tasted like grain?

I've never had a beer come out that light in color, god I hate using extract. That looks glorious.

Ha... syntax error on my part.

Tastes like a flat, warm, wheat beer. Not far off from a (very slightly) more hoppy Boulevard Wheat-type flavor at this point. I can't wait to get the dry hops in there and punch it up a bit.

My extract brews @ a week out would always taste much different, they were not as clean, a tad more cloying and had a little bite/twang to it.

However, in regards to color, I did really well with extract color by adding 75% of the DME at flameout. My blonde came out pretty light.

Hope you get some good weather for brewing soon, looks like a mess out that way.
 
Did you just drop those hops in the carboy last night or did you use a bag? Just curious. I was considering dry hopping the one I made last night with my whole leaf nugget but it concerns me, being whole leaf.
 
Did you just drop those hops in the carboy last night or did you use a bag? Just curious. I was considering dry hopping the one I made last night with my whole leaf nugget but it concerns me, being whole leaf.

I mainly use pellets for dry hopping just for the ease of it. I don't use a bag because, imo, you're just begging for an infection... but I know plenty of people do it.

If it were me, I'd just toss them right in there without a bag. Whole leaf hops do take up a lot more space, but might be easier to rack around... I usually have to cold crash for a few days to drop all the pellet particles out of suspension.

Definitely isn't the prettiest looking process when you're using pellets though. Smells amazing anyway.

.5 oz Simcoe, 1 oz Citra, 1 oz Mosaic


0217051220.jpg
 
I dry hopped the one IPA I made, did it in secondary with pellets. It turned out nice, but used citra so all the non hop lovers that tried it loved it. It's not so much the space that worries me with the whole leaf, but infection. I don't care when I use them in boil obviously, but I have so many. Would like to see how they contribute as dry hopped. Might just do it... although if it ruined this one I'd lose my mind.

That looks so dark compared to your samples! Maybe it's just the picture. Then again, my sample last night looked like Coors light, looked like Killians in carboy this morning.
 
I dry hopped the one IPA I made, did it in secondary with pellets. It turned out nice, but used citra so all the non hop lovers that tried it loved it. It's not so much the space that worries me with the whole leaf, but infection. I don't care when I use them in boil obviously, but I have so many. Would like to see how they contribute as dry hopped. Might just do it... although if it ruined this one I'd lose my mind.

That looks so dark compared to your samples! Maybe it's just the picture. Then again, my sample last night looked like Coors light, looked like Killians in carboy this morning.

Not really sure what to tell you about infection from leaf hops. Never used them for dry hopping, but a lot of people do. If you're worried about it, maybe post up in the Ask Me Anything thread or something. I usually get some traction there if I don't want to start a thread.

Otherwise, just go grab a few pellet pkgs for a couple bucks. I know you want to use yours, but if provides peace of mind, then it might be worth it. I agree, having an infected batch after waiting so long and the last one turning out "meh," I would be a little frustrated.

As for the color, 5.5 gals in a large vessel vs. a few oz in a small vessel definitely changes that. The lighting in my brewing area is ****ed anyway.

I just want to drink it now.
 
5 days dry hopped right? How long will you bottle it for or are you going to keg it? I washed up and stored my keg away for a bit last night. I want to try to get a little pipeline started and that just wasn't happening with the keg. Got in on a group buy here in Buffalo so I'm picking up 50 lbs of 2-row this weekend. **** just got real!
 
5 days dry hopped right? How long will you bottle it for or are you going to keg it? I washed up and stored my keg away for a bit last night. I want to try to get a little pipeline started and that just wasn't happening with the keg. Got in on a group buy here in Buffalo so I'm picking up 50 lbs of 2-row this weekend. **** just got real!

5 days, give or take. Some of those days may spill into cold crash time, I don't know yet. I just roll with it. If I get a wild hair, I may try to keg Sunday. If the aroma isn't to my liking, I'll just dry hop some in the keg. Otherwise, I'll keg it sometime next week.

I bottled and my 'pipeline' is no more... hopefully kegging doesn't exacerbate that.

I've found out that I will need to brew once every two weeks to keep myself swimming in HB. I am going to try another method that may save even more time than this method next and a journal will follow.
 
Oh yeah? Man when I've had bottles, I would take maybe 4-6 over to my friends place once a week and share to supplement our mix of craft/coors/yuengling in the fridge. I never drank many at home for some reason, but when I had the keg... every time I walk by that damn thing I wanted to try it.

The biggest time killer for me is the kitchen stove. It takes it 45-60 minutes to boil 3.5 gallons of water. This is a huge turn off for me, limiting when I can or want to brew. The propane burner and new gear should help that but again, not until the weather breaks. Other than that, I need to find a better way to clean bottles. It is the only other set back. My wife helps but it is such a huge pain in the ass having a small sink and little room to put so many. Oh well.

Can't wait to hear how your recipe turns out, I used to love wheats before I got obsessed with hops. Sounds like a nice pair.
 
Oh yeah? Man when I've had bottles, I would take maybe 4-6 over to my friends place once a week and share to supplement our mix of craft/coors/yuengling in the fridge. I never drank many at home for some reason, but when I had the keg... every time I walk by that damn thing I wanted to try it.

The biggest time killer for me is the kitchen stove. It takes it 45-60 minutes to boil 3.5 gallons of water. This is a huge turn off for me, limiting when I can or want to brew. The propane burner and new gear should help that but again, not until the weather breaks. Other than that, I need to find a better way to clean bottles. It is the only other set back. My wife helps but it is such a huge pain in the ass having a small sink and little room to put so many. Oh well.

Can't wait to hear how your recipe turns out, I used to love wheats before I got obsessed with hops. Sounds like a nice pair.

I clean bottles by dumping a bit of oxy free in with a little hot water, swirl it a few times, soak the bottles in the bathtub for ~10 minutes, then hit the labels with steel wool and they come right off. You only have to do that once, then you can just rinse them out good when you empty a full one, and should be good enough.

Why not do a few quick 2.5 gal batches while the weather sucks?

Also, can you get Lagunitas where you are? Their Lil Sumpin' Sumpin' is what inspired this brew. It's... amazing. Of course, they filter it, so it doesn't look like a wheat at all. Doesn't taste like one either.
 
FWIW, about 80% of the hops I use are leaf and am usually dry hopping with leaf. In fact, I'm generally in the other camp of "I hope dry hopping with pellets in the keg works out okay" (because of particulate matter) :D

BTW, the beer is looking good psylocide. Can't wait to get your tasting notes after dry hopping and carbonation. :mug:
 
Also, can you get Lagunitas where you are? Their Lil Sumpin' Sumpin' is what inspired this brew. It's... amazing. Of course, they filter it, so it doesn't look like a wheat at all. Doesn't taste like one either.

Yeah we have their stuff, I just haven't looked for anything in particular. I grabbed a bottle of theirs for first time a few weeks ago, I think it was the cappuccino stout since I'm trying to get myself to enjoy some other styles. It was a little sweet. I'll have to look for the Sumpin', people seem to mention it a lot. That will be my Friday adventure at the beer store then.
 
Cold crash, Engage.

Smells like Blueberries, Tropical fruit, maybe some mango?, fresh cut grass (very faint), and mildly citrus and floral hints with just a dash of pine in there. Awesome.




0220050619.jpg
 
Kegged this yesterday... first time kegging, so last night I didn't get much sleep. Kept thinking I'd wake up this morning to an empty tank or beer everywhere or something.

It seems to be going fine, I've got it at 30 psi and I'll drop it down within the next day or so.

I got no pictures because I'm a huge noob apparently, so sample tasting notes will have to suffice.

Sample color was a hazy 6-8 SRM, looked pretty standard for a flat wheat pale.

Aroma is tropical fruit/citrus/blueberry/fresh grass - the Mosaic and Citra are right up front, the Simcoe may have gotten a little muddled, but I can detect a slight pine aroma there.

It did finish at 1.009, which was well below my estimate, but it didn't negatively affect the beer from what I can tell at this point.

Nice light body, the malt comes through ever so slightly but the flavor of the hops is balanced very nicely with the bitterness. It would seem that my experiment with aromas imparting a perceived flavor has been somewhat successful, as I had no hop additions from 30 mins until Flameout. The flavor did take on the very flavors that were used for dry-hopping and I am really impressed with the amount of flavor or "perceived" flavor those imparted when you take a drink.

Can't wait til it carbs/conditions for some time here, but this is by far the best tasting sample I've ever had out of the fermenter. I hope that is a sign of things to come for this particular brew.
 
Iteration 1 (overnight mash w/notty), it doesn't look like it, but I can fit 2 more kegs in this fridge:


0224051948a.jpg



Iteration 2 (30 min mash w/US-05):


0224051948.jpg
 
Well... this beer was a HUGE success. I can't even stress that enough.

This was a double experiment really.

1. To evaluate the effectiveness of an overnight mash to break up the brew day in to two blocks of time

2. To evaluate the effectiveness of no/minimal flavor additions but using hopstand/dry hop to impart flavors

Point 1: Obviously it was a raging success. I will attribute my low-ish (~60% range) efficiency to the grain crush. Looking back at the photos and remembering the day, I left a lot of whole-ish grains in there. If I had crushed to almost flour like I did with my latest batch, I have no doubt in my mind that I would have achieved higher efficiency (76% on latest brew with 30 min mash -- that thread is coming).

There is no bitterness, astringency or tartness from the overnight mash. No souring, just clean, delicious beer.

Point 2: I can only tell you folks that this was also a huge success. In fact, I think the 30 min addition was pointless and will ONLY bitter pale ales @ 60 mins, then do hopstand/dry hop for flavoring/aroma.

This is THE juiciest-flavored beer I have ever tasted. Huge tropical fruit aroma smacks you in the nose and ends up in your mouth. The aftertaste is akin to a somewhat-bittered fruit juice. If I had to compare it to any beer, it would be Deschutes Fresh Squeezed with less bitterness. Which makes sense, because I used the same hops they use for flavor/aroma, but have less IBUs. Imagine that?

This has only been in the keg for a week, but is very drinkable. Hell, I don't see how it could get better with age, but we'll find out if it lasts that long.

Cheers to my first successful Overnight Mash AG BIAB custom recipe, and if anyone is on the fence about trying it, I say, "Just do it." Grain to glass - 21 days.


259659d1425061309-what-you-drinking-now-0227051212.jpg


10361321_10152755698851705_7471650482022785748_n.jpg

259660d1425061309-what-you-drinking-now-0227051217.jpg



*Props to the HBT community for being super helpful at all times. This is the caliber of beer that I was striving for and my solo brewing career is less than 6 months old.
 
I don't know that I will do the overnight part of it, it would likely make me lose sleep. I'm probably going to make this my next batch though, my carboy will be free early next week or if this weekend is too horribly boring I'll just buy another one and ingredients and do it sooner.

If/when I do, I'll send you a bottle to compare to yours.
 
This was a great read Psy. Very nice descriptive narrative. Might have to give the overnight mash a go with my new insulating jacket for my pot.
 
This was a great read Psy. Very nice descriptive narrative. Might have to give the overnight mash a go with my new insulating jacket for my pot.

Hey, thanks for the feedback... I enjoyed your thread on your method as well.

I wish I could have got a better description/pics of the sparge-to-volume process, but it really is pretty self-explanatory.

The other thing that was a let down was my efficiency, which I am attributing solely to the grain crush at this point. I mean, looking at this picture, it's pretty obvious. Look at those whole grains! :rolleyes:


60% Efficiency

254460d1423272157-hoppy-wheat-overnight-mash-biab-downsized_0206051832.jpg



vs.



76% Efficiency


downsized_0219051216.jpg


But! The beer is great. I'm going to explore this further after reading up more on the science behind mashing. It did attenuate down further than I expected, and I'm not sure if that's due to the falling temperatures of the mash or something else.

Either way, was a fun experiment to share.
 
Hey, thanks for the feedback... I enjoyed your thread on your method as well.

I wish I could have got a better description/pics of the sparge-to-volume process, but it really is pretty self-explanatory.

The other thing that was a let down was my efficiency, which I am attributing solely to the grain crush at this point. I mean, looking at this picture, it's pretty obvious. Look at those whole grains! :rolleyes:


60% Efficiency

254460d1423272157-hoppy-wheat-overnight-mash-biab-downsized_0206051832.jpg



vs.



76% Efficiency


View attachment 260801


But! The beer is great. I'm going to explore this further after reading up more on the science behind mashing. It did attenuate down further than I expected, and I'm not sure if that's due to the falling temperatures of the mash or something else.

Either way, was a fun experiment to share.

I think it could be due to the smaller size of the grains of wheat. Barley is substantially bigger meaning more of the wheat may sneak through the mill without getting the same crush.
 
I think it could be due to the smaller size of the grains of wheat. Barley is substantially bigger meaning more of the wheat may sneak through the mill without getting the same crush.

I crush in my blender and did barley/wheat separate :D

The picture of the 76% efficiency contained ~40% wheat... I'll chalk it up to being in a major hurry that night and not knowing the full impact of "Eh, good enough."
 
I crush in my blender and did barley/wheat separate :D

The picture of the 76% efficiency contained ~40% wheat... I'll chalk it up to being in a major hurry that night and not knowing the full impact of "Eh, good enough."

Of course! I forgot the blender pictures at the start. Had a little chuckle at that. Does it take much time to mill 11 lbs of grain this way? I got a basic mill but it took me a few attempts to get the thing to work well. A lot of effin and blindin on my part before working out a few kinks.
 
Of course! I forgot the blender pictures at the start. Had a little chuckle at that. Does it take much time to mill 11 lbs of grain this way? I got a basic mill but it took me a few attempts to get the thing to work well. A lot of effin and blindin on my part before working out a few kinks.

Well, the 76% efficiency crush took about a half an hour. Not super efficient for time management purposes, but I now crush the day before brew day.

The biggest problem is that you can really only do about a cup or a little less at a time because otherwise, the whole grains will fall to the bottom and the flour will stay flying around the blades.

So, a cup at a time, hold the button down for about 3 seconds, dump, repeat.

Haha! My whole thought behind this thread was, "look, this is how easy it is to make the jump to whole grain. You don't need a bunch of fancy equipment or to be super meticulous. Just go for it."
 
I just chew my grains until they are the right consistency for a mash. The saliva actually helps start the saccharification process, it just takes a little while and your jaw will get tired the first few times you do it. If you do decide to go this route, you can try chopping the funk out of the grains first with a chefs knife like you would do for parsley.
 
I just chew my grains until they are the right consistency for a mash. The saliva actually helps start the saccharification process, it just takes a little while and your jaw will get tired the first few times you do it. If you do decide to go this route, you can try chopping the funk out of the grains first with a chefs knife like you would do for parsley.

Dogfish head did just this on an experimental brew. Chicha I think it's called. Had the whole company chewing grains for weeks to get enough for the brew. A South American drink. Saw it on Netflix. Crazy stuff
 
Dogfish head did just this on an experimental brew. Chicha I think it's called. Had the whole company chewing grains for weeks to get enough for the brew. A South American drink. Saw it on Netflix. Crazy stuff

Wow I was just being an idiot, but now that you mention it... I remember that episode and how miserable everyone looked trying to fill cups of chewed grain. Hah... Awesome.

I am looking forward to trying this recipe.
 
Wow I was just being an idiot, but now that you mention it... I remember that episode and how miserable everyone looked trying to fill cups of chewed grain. Hah... Awesome.

I am looking forward to trying this recipe.

Lol... that sounds terrible.

This is as solid a pale ale as I've had... although it's damn near a Wheat IPA at 6.7% and 50 IBUs.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
instead of the blender for a mill, spend $25 and get this
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000U5NZ4I/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
i do some other stuff to get my mash eff% up there, but i normally get 85% sometimes up to 90% eff.

other than that, with another kid on the way, i may look into this to split the brewdays up!

Thanks for the tip. Others have recommended that mill as well... I'm just such a cheap ass that, if the $25 could brew me 5 gal of beer, I would rather do that since the blender is working out well. No doubt I'll get one eventually though.

Congrats on kiddo #2... the wife and I have just started that conversation. Scary stuff, my 2 year old is crazy enough, haha.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
haha, thanks! if it makes you feel any better, my kid just turned 16 months and the new one is due in july. so i'm not sure i'm ready for the sheer lack of sleep, but i'm glad to have this all done while my body is used to it! :)

back to brewing - i thought the same thing honestly... but i spent the 25 and didn't look back.
1 - it'll save you a ton of time vs maybe 8oz in the blender at once
2 - it wont wear your blender down
3 - it's fun to have purposeful brewing equipment :)
4 - you'll get consistent batches

not trying to diss on your brewing, if it works, it works! but just lending a hand out 'cuz i'm a cheap ass myself (i'll spend $3 less yeast and go for dry just to save a few bucks)
 
instead of the blender for a mill, spend $25 and get this

I did not know there was an option this affordable... and I just bought a 50 lb sack of 2-row. Nice heads up, I might have to get one. I don't think I'd get away with using our blender.
 
Back
Top