Learning by Trial

[sudndeth]

Well, I have moved to all grain brewing 15 gallons (one ten gallon batch) and boy is it giving me hell. My brew days go awesome and smooth, but I'm missing my gravity and I think it's hurting my beer. And I'm running into problems I've never had before post brew day too.

First, my light hybrid has a slight skunk flavor. I think light went through the T-shirt I had over it. I had no clue that light could do what it does so fast. It was in a room with the shades drawn and I had a T-shirt over it that was sitting in a pool of water to keep the temps cool. I tasted the beer and the color was spot on, smell was pretty good and then the taste of the sample had a Heineken taste. Maybe it's the yeast (Wyeast Kolsch II) that I used. I'm pretty disappointed because I took a lot of care to control the temps with this one. But, maybe its too young still and need to mature.

Second, my 10 gallons of tripel finished so dry and high in alc I don't know what to do. I think I'm underestimating my efficiency a bit. One finished at .998 @ 64* (cultured yeast from Alagash Tripel) and the other, which I think is still going, is at 1.000 @ 64* (Wyeast 1214). When they were really going they smelled amazing through the airlock, but now it's just not there. I know there young, and I hope that they balance out when they age.

I need to learn how to calculate my efficiency, because both batches were higher SG then I was expecting.

 

[BOBTHEukBREWER]

I doubt that light has affected your beer. Do you treat your water? Do you add gypsum and epsom salts? What was your mash temperature? what was your fermentation temperature? Was the grain fresh?

 

[sudndeth]

You think the water would give it that taste? I used a calculator and built up my water profile from distilled water. That might be it. Here's the details:
Water: 4.5g of strike
4 grams gypsum
5 grams Calcium Chloride
1 gram epsom salt
Came out to a balanced profile.

Mash temp was 151*
Ferm temp was 11 days at 58*-60* and then I've had it around 39* in my kegarator for 8 days. I brought it out to rack to secondary Keg and left it at room temp for 2 days. Now it's back in the kegarator. FG 1.014@50* and SG 1.054@75*
The grain was fresh.

 

[sudndeth]

Are there any good calculator for efficiency? and when you take a preboil gravity do you adjust for the temp?