looking to improve my all grain skills

[knocksbrew]

I am sure that this thread has the potential to go down a hundred different rabbit holes...but I am looking to improve my all grain skills. I have brewed maybe 30 ish batches. Some have been great, some mediocre, and a few bad. The thing that bugs me is that I have had trouble with reproducing the the really good ones.

Here are some of my methods:
I either create my own recipes or manipulate ones all on BeerSmith.
I always use a yeast starter with a stir plate.
I run the basic all grain setup with an igloo cooler and heated by propane.
I ferment temperature controlled in a freezer.

I am mainly looking to improve my brew days by incorporating recirculating mash and boil with a chugger pump. Is it worth it? I brew on propane and want to keep it that way. I am willing to upgrade to a keggle for a MLT. I would like to use the chugger to just recirculate the mash in the igloo but wouldn't that more quickly lower the temperature? My mash efficiency is around 65 -70 percent though so its really not that bad...

Thanks

 

[eric19312]

Hard to say where to start. Unless you can tell us more about what you think is lacking in your current batches. I know lots of people that mash in cooler without recirculation just fine.

 

[madscientist451]

Is recirculating mash worth is? Maybe, depends on how much you care about efficiency.
If your efficiency is low, you can adjust your recipes with more grain. This means higher costs per gallon of beer, but does that really matter all that much at the homebrew level?
Is adding a pump and hoses to clean an "improvement" to your brew day?
Some will say yes, some say no. If you are brewing batches larger than 5 gallons maybe a pump makes sense, some may say to keep things simple, it makes everything easier in the long run.
I've been trying lately to simplify my brew day, reduce things that could go wrong and just make it easier and more fun. I may not get the highest efficiency doing that, but the extra cost is worth it to me.
Improving your brewing skills and improving your recipe formulation skills are two different things.
Can you take a clone recipe of a well known great beer, brew it and compare it to the commercial example? How does your brew measure up?
Why are some of your beers mediocre or bad?
Do you keep brewing notes? Do you take gravity samples of the final runnings? The pre boil and post boil wort?
Are you bottling or kegging?
If you're not kegging yet, I'd spend money on that before buying a pump, I noticed a big improvement with kegged beer and a lot less work as well.

 

[ChelisHubby]

X2 on Kegging, The beer just taste better with less work. Do you know why some of your brews are less than you care for? That is what to work on, The pump is not going to greatly affect quality.

 

[mongoose33]

There are several places you might look to for issues of consistency.

1. Mash temp. I use an igloo cooler as a mash tun, but always pre-heat it with a gallon of boiling water, and then I wrap it up in a big quilt to maintain that heat.

Related to this is the temperature of the grist. Early on, I made the mistake of crushing grain the night before and keeping it in the garage prior to the next morning's brew. Temp was somewhere around 40-45, which meant the grain was also that. It lowered the resulting mash temp below what I expected. Since then, I always aim to keep the grist at about 70 degrees, so the amount the grain lowers the temperature is consistent and mostly predictable.

If you're mashing one batch high, the next low, that would account for variation.

2. Water. What are you doing for water? RO, tap water, what? Different recipes may require different water profiles. Dealing with chlorine or chloramines?

3. At what temps are you fermenting? Are you consistent in fermenting at the same temperatures or do you vary them?

These are a few things that might account for differences between batches. I don't think your mash tun has anything directly to do with the variation you're experiencing.

 

[ba-brewer]

I agree with Eric, but here are a few things you can do.

If you were able to make good batches with your current setup you dont really need to change things up, just pay closer attention to what works and what does not.

Maybe pick a recipe or two and keep brewing them until you get consistent results. Take notes and compare what you did on good batches and not so good batches and adjust accordingly.

Brew often to fine tune your process. Maybe brew smaller batches if that helps to brew more often.

And I mash in a cooler without recirculating and get good results.

 

[kh54s10]

IMO if you are getting inconsistent batches and don't know why, adding recirculation will not help. If I was to do recirculation I would set up a rims system. You can then still boil on the propane burner.

I am at 93 batches and have yet to try recreating a recipe. The ones that I have done more than once I have tried to improve them so the recipes have been different.

 

[knocksbrew]

Is recirculating mash worth is? Maybe, depends on how much you care about efficiency.
If your efficiency is low, you can adjust your recipes with more grain. This means higher costs per gallon of beer, but does that really matter all that much at the homebrew level?
Is adding a pump and hoses to clean an "improvement" to your brew day?
Some will say yes, some say no. If you are brewing batches larger than 5 gallons maybe a pump makes sense, some may say to keep things simple, it makes everything easier in the long run.
I've been trying lately to simplify my brew day, reduce things that could go wrong and just make it easier and more fun. I may not get the highest efficiency doing that, but the extra cost is worth it to me.
Improving your brewing skills and improving your recipe formulation skills are two different things.
Can you take a clone recipe of a well known great beer, brew it and compare it to the commercial example? How does your brew measure up?
Why are some of your beers mediocre or bad?
Do you keep brewing notes? Do you take gravity samples of the final runnings? The pre boil and post boil wort?
Are you bottling or kegging?
If you're not kegging yet, I'd spend money on that before buying a pump, I noticed a big improvement with kegged beer and a lot less work as well.

Yes, simplifying the brew day as much as possible is definitely something i want to do as I am usually wore out at the end of the day. However, I figured the pump would actually help that as it would reduce some of the manual labor but in turn, i guess it would increase the number of things to clean.

I do try to take as much notes as possible although sometimes I get lazy.

I do keg actually. That was a game changer. Mostly improved the overall quality of my beers and obviously, make racking SO much easier.

I really think it is my recipe skills that need work. Like I said, I use BeerSmith to help keep me within the lines but that doesn't necessarily mean it will be a quality beer. I will post on here soon for critiques soon as I am planning on brewing a bunch this weekend.

 

[knocksbrew]

I agree with Eric, but here are a few things you can do.

If you were able to make good batches with your current setup you dont really need to change things up, just pay closer attention to what works and what does not.

Maybe pick a recipe or two and keep brewing them until you get consistent results. Take notes and compare what you did on good batches and not so good batches and adjust accordingly.

Brew often to fine tune your process. Maybe brew smaller batches if that helps to brew more often.

And I mash in a cooler without recirculating and get good results.

Good call. I actually plan on doing this. I usually have little motivation in making the same beer multiple times because that seems boring but it is a good way to learn and understand how tweaking little parts of the process will affect it.

 

[ChelisHubby]

It is easy to make Bum recipes, I know that firsthand. There are a lot of good recipes on this forum in most styles. If you want to make the recipe yours just change one thing at a time. The recipes that you want are the one with several pages of good comments. I have had my best. success with my own recipes when I keep it simple. A simple recipe has a cleaner taste usually and is easier to troubleshoot.

 

[MaryB]

One thing you didn't mention...

Are you keeping a log sheet for every brew day? I log everything, temps, times, anything I screwed up... even how hard the boil is.