Huis Pale Ale- 1st AG

[newkarian]

Hey guys going to do my first AG batch tommorrow and was just wanting a last minute critique on it. It will be a belgian Pale Ale styled after Eds Haus Pale Ale.
OG 1.055
FG 1.011
EABV 5.85%

8lbs Belgian Pale
2lb Vienna
1lb Munich
0.24lb Special B

0.5oz Green Bullet 60min
0.25oz Green Bullet 20min
0.25oz Green Bullet 5min

WLP 500 Yeast

Going to dough in with 1.25 qt/lb of water @ 167.7 F per Beer Smith. This should give me my rest of 152 F for 75 mins. I will then batch sparge with 2 equal volume at 175-180F whatever brings my grain bed to around 168. Shooting for around 6.5 gallons in my boil kettle with a final volume of around 5.5 gal. Going to cool this down with a IC recirculating ice water and ferment at around 65-68. Probably wont do a secondary just leave it on the cake for 3-4 weeks. Im stoked cant wait to get AG under way.:rockin:

Doing this for my second batch. Im using this first to learn my equipment and get a good yeast cake built up.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=69154

 

[Kauai_Kahuna]

- Remember to preheat your MLT with at least 2gal at target temp before you add your strike water and grains.
- Just recently I have been there and done that, I would recommend adjusting your efficiency to around 65 to 70 for your grain bill. A little over you can boil it off, under you will get some really great light beer. (Drinking mine now.) If not, add some DME to adjust to your taste.
Kind of tired right now so may I just say, Best of luck and I hope everything goes great for you.

 

[newkarian]

Thanks for the advice. I plan on adding my strike water a little over temp to my tun and letting it come down to the correct temp heating the mash tun at the same time.

 

[beefeater]

Isn't 152F a little high of a mash temperature, especially for a belgian ale that I'd expect to be quite well attenuated?

 

[newkarian]

Yes it is a little high for a belgian ale. This recipe was inspired by Eds haus ale which is mashed at 152. I guess I should go for the 148-150 range with my mash.

 

[newkarian]

Finished the batch today. Didnt go as planned but it still went well and was a learning experience.
First off I ordered some yeast from AHB and I think the trip from texas killed it. It was WLP500 was going to build up a cake with this recipe for the next one. Tried to do a starter but after a couple days no action and the yeast smelled like feet. SG was unchanged in the starter. No big deal I had an extra pack of Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II so thats what I used.

Heated my strike water 1.25 qt/lb to 175 and dumped it in my MLT to let it preheat. Doughed in when it reached 165. Rested @ 148 for 90 mins. Dropped a couple of degrees to 146 over the 90 mins. Decided at this point i would get real fancy and do a decoction mash for an alpha amylase rest @ 158. Took out 4qts of thick mash and heated it in a seperate pot to 158. I then let it rest there for 20mins for conversion. Then i heated and boiled for 20 mins. Took the decoction back to my mash and it raised the temp to 157. Not bad.
Let this rest for 30 mins. Vorlauf then drained 2.5 gals into brew pot.

I heated my sparge water to 180F so i could mash out and sparge at the same time. First sparge 2gals brought grainbed to 167 F. Let this sit for ten mins. Vorlauf drain. Second sparge @ 170. Vorlauf drain. All in all I ended up with 7 gals in my boil pot. Measured SG and corrected for temp @ 1.050. This came out to a efficiency into boiler of 82.3%.

Started my boil and boiled for 75 mins total. Followed everything else in the recipe including hop schedule. Ended up with 5.5 gals of wort @ 1.058. This is a Brewhouse Efficiency of 75.35%. Also used my new SS IC which I recirced ice water through with a fountain pump. I was able to get the wort down to 76F in 15 mins before I melted all my ice. I think with a little more ice I could have cooled quicker and lower.

All in all it was a great day. I think for my first shot I did very well and am now addicted. Thanks for all the advice Ive gotten on here. cheers

 

[jagg]

Sounds like everything went well for you, congrats on a job well done, let us know how it turns out.:rockin:

 

[newkarian]

I think it will be a little darker than I was shooting for so next time I will drop the Special B. Other than that I hope its good.

 

[Saccharomyces]

Very impressive for your first time. Took most of us a lot longer to get as good as you did your first time! :rockin:

I'm interested to see how it turns out, sounds good..

- Eric

 

[newkarian]

Oh forgot to mention earlier. I used those fermcap drops as my pot is kind of small for AG. Its 7.5 Gal which is probably the bare minimum. I was able to do a hard boil with 7 gal in the pot with no foam over. So for me those drops worked great.:rockin:

 

[newkarian]

Moved it from my bathroom to a dark closet today. The fermentation is slowing to a crawl. I have been keeping it @ 66F for most of the fermentation and let it slowly ramp up to 70 over the last day. The closet stays a constant 70F. Wanted to make sure it fully attenuated so I moved it to a warmer area. Plan on letting it sit in primary 3-4 weeks then bottling.

 

[PalmBeachPaul]

Oh forgot to mention earlier. I used those fermcap drops as my pot is kind of small for AG. Its 7.5 Gal which is probably the bare minimum. I was able to do a hard boil with 7 gal in the pot with no foam over. So for me those drops worked great.:rockin:

Hi newkarian, I also have a 7.5g pot and boilovers are a real problem for me. Are you using drops to prevent boilovers? What is a fermcap? Any help on that department would be great.
Thank you for your time.
Cheers

 

[newkarian]

Paul,
Yes I used the antifoaming drops. there is some debate over them but they worked perfectly for me. Like I said I was able to boil almost 7 gals in my 7.5 gal pot. Also noticed that there was less krausen formation than normal too. The bubbles in the krausen seemed more compact if that makes sense.

 

[PalmBeachPaul]

Ok, so fermcap is an anti-foam product. Does it affect the beer flavor in any way? Does it only control the foam during the boil or is it going to reduce the foam on the finished beer also? Where do I buy fermcap?
Sorry to be a bother, but I'm new at this, and on my first AG boil I had a lot of foam and boilovers.

Thank you for your time and help.
Cheers

 

[newkarian]

Paul,
This was the first time I used this product. I couldnt taste any change in the wort and from what Ive read it is undetectable. As for affecting the foam several people on here have used it with no affect to the end product. Apparently this stuff settles out into the trub after the primary fermentation is complete. Heres a couple links where you can purchase. I believe the stuff I got is from AHB but they are the same from what I can tell. Eventually I would like to get a larger pot and then I wouldnt have to add this but for now its a perfect solution for me. This was my first AG batch though so maybe some more experienced could chime in on this issue.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/beer-additives.html
http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_21_187_399&products_id=10388

 

[PalmBeachPaul]

newkarian, thanks a lot for your help and data, I'll try this product in my next batch and hope to prevent boilovers until I move to a bigger kettle.
Thanks again.
Cheers

 

[TwoHeadsBrewing]

What kind of flow does your fountain pump have, and do you have any pics of your setup/connections? I'm thinking about doing this too, as my city water is about 75-80F here in the summer.

 

[PalmBeachPaul]

Same problem here, I'm looking for a fauntain pump but I don't know how much GPH should I get.

 

[newkarian]

Heres a link to the pump I got. Granted there are better and more expensive ones but it worked for me. I was able to get 5.5 gals of wort down to 76F when it was about 90F outside. Took 20lbs of ice and about 15 mins. Im sure I could have gotten a little better efficiency if I had more Ice as it was melted but still cold the last 5 mins or so. I have one of those big RO/Ice despenser things by my house so 20lbs bulk is only $1.50. My IC is 25Ft of Stainless 3/8 tubing. Check out eds recirculator for pics I did basically the same thing except used a 5gallon bucket.

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=58910-45001-MD200

 

[newkarian]

Check out this thread if you havent will answer a lot of questions. Looks like I even have the same pump.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=38235

 

[newkarian]

Took a sample today. SG is @1.010. Tasted pretty good too. Even at this SG still had a good malty backbone from the Decoction. Also dry hopped a week ago with 1oz EKG. Will bottle this next weekend which will be 4wks in the primary. I think this is going to be good especially for my first all grain.

 

[Kai]

You are a hero, sir. Did you crush your own grain, or did you manage to get ~80% with your LHBS crush?

Also, holy cow you're ambitious to decoct your first AG, and succeed. Fantastic. How on earth are you going to top that?

 

[newkarian]

Actually this grain was precrushed by AHB. Will take on crushing my own grain soon. Just cant talk SWMBO into more toys right now. For my second AG, which I will be brewing next weekend, Im going to make a monster Belgian Imperial Stout. Will probably do a double decoction mash. I was just using this first brew to fine tune my equipment and build up a yeast cake and in the process have something damn tasty. Thanks for the kind words but I am in no way a hero, all the knowledge and advice from this board made it possible. Also being in the medical field im a little OCD with details too, that doesnt hurt. The credit for the decoction goes to kaiser with his video. Honestly didn't understand it till I watched that.

 

[MikeFlynn74]

fermcap rocks!

 

[newkarian]

Bottled this up yesterday. Tasted pretty good for being flat and green. Will post some pics and how it tastes in a few weeks when its carbed.