Hello all. Just brewed my second batch today, mistakes were made but I think I saved it. I'm planning on dry hopping the beer and bottle carbonating. If I rack to a secondary after the yeast flocculate out, will I lose too much yeast to finish fermentation and carbonate in the bottle? Can I dry hop in the primary fermenter with all the trub?
All grain American Pale Ale. I am trying to clone Sunking Osiris. 5 gallon batch, 10 lbs 2 row
.75 Crystal 40L
.25 Victory
1oz Cascade pellet @ :60 minutes
1oz Cascade whole leaf @ :30
1oz Citra whole leaf @ flameout
1oz Citra pellet dry hopped after primary fermentation
RO water built up with Brunwater spreadsheet
4.1 gallons of strike water
4.1 gallons of sparge water
I caught the homebrewing bug after my sister in law wanted to brew and got her hands on two kegs. I got one and turned it into a mash tun with a false bottom, dip tube, sight glass and a thermometer. We brewed our first batch of all grain American Pale Ale on my parents driveway in the Florida sun. It turned out drinkable but had very little carbonation, and I'm guessing yeast was the cause. Bought a Concord 20 gallon tri ply brew kettle and 60 feet of 5/8" OD soft copper for a wort chiller. Bayou Classic KAB6 burner and several Better Bottle carboys.
Today's brew started out hopeful enough. I put the strike water in the mash tun and lit the burner. I picked up a carbon fiber welding blanket to insulate the mash tun and wrapped it around while the strike water was heating up. I figured that the thing was designed to withstand 3000 degrees so it would be safe. Wrong! I thought the awful smell was coming from the paint burning off the new burner. It was the welding blanket that continued to burn after the burner was turned off. The blanket was on fire and after adding the grist to the 168 degree strike water the temp only went down to 160. That's when I pulled of the blanket and discovered it was still on fire. Put that out, added a little cool water and the mash was rock solid at 154. Put the welding blanket back on to insulate and it did a great job holding temp. Mistake number one.
After an hour we went to vorlauf and nothing came out of the spigot. I should have been a machinist. The dip tube was within a 1/32" of the bottom of the mash tun and whatever grain got past the false bottom immediately clogged the tube. We eventually took a welding rod and bent it to grab the dip tube and elevate it to get some flow. So vorlaufing was a bust but I did put a nylon bag at the end of the transfer hose to catch any grist and it seemed to work ok. Mistake number two.
Towards the end of fly sparging I checked the gravity of the wort and it was 1.010. I thought this was ok until I checked the pre boil gravity and it was a little low at 1.031. So, I thought I could boil for :90 instead of :60, evaporate some water off and get closer to my desired starting gravity of 1.045. Mistake number three. My boil was a little more vigorous than I anticipated and post boil volume that transferred to the fermenter was only 3.1 gallons with a gravity reading of 1.071. Then I thought I could boil some water to sanitize, let it cool to pitching temp and add it to the wort. That plan worked great. 5 gallons in the fermenter with a gravity of 1.050. We also had a huge amount of trub in the boil kettle even after whirlpooling. Added one whirlfloc tablet with :15 left in the boil. I'm wondering if this 20 gallon pot is more suited to 10 gallon batches. A bunch of break material made it into the fermenter.
The DIY wort immersion chiller worked better than I had anticipated. Flameout to 100 in five minutes. Pitching temp in :15 minutes. Ground water was 65 F.
Made a starter a few days ago with light pilsen DME, Wyeast nutrient and a Wyest 1056 smack pack. Had it on a stir plate I threw together and it seemed to finish quickly. OG 1.040 FG 1.010. Pitched the slurry into the fermenter and it's already bubbling.
Hoping I had good sanitation throughout the day and didn't infect the batch. I'll know in a month. Really enjoying the new hobby and planning to learn enough to brew some really good beer. Thanks for any advice.
John
All grain American Pale Ale. I am trying to clone Sunking Osiris. 5 gallon batch, 10 lbs 2 row
.75 Crystal 40L
.25 Victory
1oz Cascade pellet @ :60 minutes
1oz Cascade whole leaf @ :30
1oz Citra whole leaf @ flameout
1oz Citra pellet dry hopped after primary fermentation
RO water built up with Brunwater spreadsheet
4.1 gallons of strike water
4.1 gallons of sparge water
I caught the homebrewing bug after my sister in law wanted to brew and got her hands on two kegs. I got one and turned it into a mash tun with a false bottom, dip tube, sight glass and a thermometer. We brewed our first batch of all grain American Pale Ale on my parents driveway in the Florida sun. It turned out drinkable but had very little carbonation, and I'm guessing yeast was the cause. Bought a Concord 20 gallon tri ply brew kettle and 60 feet of 5/8" OD soft copper for a wort chiller. Bayou Classic KAB6 burner and several Better Bottle carboys.
Today's brew started out hopeful enough. I put the strike water in the mash tun and lit the burner. I picked up a carbon fiber welding blanket to insulate the mash tun and wrapped it around while the strike water was heating up. I figured that the thing was designed to withstand 3000 degrees so it would be safe. Wrong! I thought the awful smell was coming from the paint burning off the new burner. It was the welding blanket that continued to burn after the burner was turned off. The blanket was on fire and after adding the grist to the 168 degree strike water the temp only went down to 160. That's when I pulled of the blanket and discovered it was still on fire. Put that out, added a little cool water and the mash was rock solid at 154. Put the welding blanket back on to insulate and it did a great job holding temp. Mistake number one.
After an hour we went to vorlauf and nothing came out of the spigot. I should have been a machinist. The dip tube was within a 1/32" of the bottom of the mash tun and whatever grain got past the false bottom immediately clogged the tube. We eventually took a welding rod and bent it to grab the dip tube and elevate it to get some flow. So vorlaufing was a bust but I did put a nylon bag at the end of the transfer hose to catch any grist and it seemed to work ok. Mistake number two.
Towards the end of fly sparging I checked the gravity of the wort and it was 1.010. I thought this was ok until I checked the pre boil gravity and it was a little low at 1.031. So, I thought I could boil for :90 instead of :60, evaporate some water off and get closer to my desired starting gravity of 1.045. Mistake number three. My boil was a little more vigorous than I anticipated and post boil volume that transferred to the fermenter was only 3.1 gallons with a gravity reading of 1.071. Then I thought I could boil some water to sanitize, let it cool to pitching temp and add it to the wort. That plan worked great. 5 gallons in the fermenter with a gravity of 1.050. We also had a huge amount of trub in the boil kettle even after whirlpooling. Added one whirlfloc tablet with :15 left in the boil. I'm wondering if this 20 gallon pot is more suited to 10 gallon batches. A bunch of break material made it into the fermenter.
The DIY wort immersion chiller worked better than I had anticipated. Flameout to 100 in five minutes. Pitching temp in :15 minutes. Ground water was 65 F.
Made a starter a few days ago with light pilsen DME, Wyeast nutrient and a Wyest 1056 smack pack. Had it on a stir plate I threw together and it seemed to finish quickly. OG 1.040 FG 1.010. Pitched the slurry into the fermenter and it's already bubbling.
Hoping I had good sanitation throughout the day and didn't infect the batch. I'll know in a month. Really enjoying the new hobby and planning to learn enough to brew some really good beer. Thanks for any advice.
John
