My first extract brew.....

[Polluted]

Holy cow I was all over the place. Was a frantic 2.5 hours. Had my brew book, notes, and everything all over the table, even took 30 min to prepare, but I still feel like preparation could had been better. Ill write up my notes in a bit if anyone cares to view them and to tell me if you think I did alright.

Biggest issue.....chilling the wort. The 10 lb bag of ice I bought melted instantly and the hose water I had the boiling bot sitting in turned too hot to touch. I had to go to sleep!

In other words, it sat outside (covered though) for 5 hours cooling. I woke up at 3am to use the bathroom and decided to finish it off. It is fermenting now....only time will tell Its a modified "pale ale" recipe taken from Palmers book. I have a few questions ill post after work, but either way im excited.....no matter what happens

 

[justenoughforme]

big tip about cooling the wort ...

... cool it to 120 or so before adding the ice. if you put the ice in right at freezing, it's almost a waste.

i actually use the sink sprayer attachment and spray down the outside of my brew pot with water until it's down a good ways... then plug the sink and add ice. that water originally gets too hot to touch, but within 3 or 4 minutes, it gets reasonable, and then i can add ice.

i add the ice directly to my wort, most people advise against this.

 

[mrgrimm101]

i add the ice directly to my wort, most people advise against this.

To each their own..whatever works for you.. but unless your ice was made from sanitized water (which could be the case), I would never trust this, nor would I advise anyone else to. They say that the chilling period is when the wort is the most vulnerable to contaminants, so adding anything that could be potentially unsanitized to the kettle at this point seems like tempting disaster.

When I did ice baths, I would plug my sink and put a layer of ice and water in the bottom, then put the kettle on top and start filling around it with ice. Then I would top it off with water. I've found that the ice/water mixture chills much more efficiently than just ice. Eventually the ice melts a bit, so I scoop out some water from teh sink and add more ice until it is full again. It takes about an hour, maybe more, to chill to pitching temps.

 

[justenoughforme]

my ice is made from sanitized water over the course of a few days before brew day.


ice / water chills much faster than pure ice due to increased contact area... but the big thing to keep in mind is that MOVING water moves a LOT more heat. otherwise you get hot and cold spots in the sink which i'm sure you've felt.

that's why i use my sprayer hose, it keeps the fresh cold water flowing directly over the metal surface of the kettle.

but really, cool the ice with the warmest stuff first (since is the temperature difference that determines the heat loss rate).
that way you dont waste your hard earned ice.


of course if you have tons of ice, just use tons of ice... ie. chilling in a snowbank !

and remember, the ice maker in your fridge uses more electricity than the rest of the fridge combined.

 

[unionrdr]

I put an inverted salad plate over the sink strainer, then the kettle, then fill around it with cold tap water. Chilling down to 120F or so doesn't take long. take out the kettle & the salad plate, drain,plug, plate, then kettle. Fill around kettle to the top of the sink with ice, then top off with cold tap water. Feed more ice as needed.l I sometimes use 2/3 to a whole 22lb bag of ice.

 

[kh54s10]

I use cold water in the kitchen sink. Swirl the water around the pot until it is hot, drain, add new cold water, repeat a couple of times. Then water and ice bottles, and cubes from the fridge to get the temperature down the rest of the way. It usually takes a little over an hour. For full volume I use my immersion chiller that I made - about $40 for the copper tubing, vinyl tubing and fittings.

I am too frugal to pay for ice.......

 

[unionrdr]

22lbs of ice is a couple bucks here.

 

[mrgrimm101]

22lbs of ice is a couple bucks here.

Yea same here. Without a chiller, I go through a 22lb bag of ice and it times out perfectly so that I don't usually need any more ice from my freezer.

That's one thing about Michigan winters that aren't so bad..lots of snow for chilling!

 

[unionrdr]

And really cold tap water!

 

[Sailingeric]

If you go to 5 gallon batches, I would get a wort chiller. I put mine in, turn the water on, let it cool some, then stir the wort around the chiller and it is down to pitching in less than 15 minutes.

 

[brewcat]

Simpler way to cool if you don't have an immersion chiller...Fill up your bathtub! With the lid off carefully swirl the water around the kettle and stir the wort occasionally. I never used ice with this method. The amount of water allows for better heat dissipation. Getting to 80 or so was about where I would dump to the fermenter and be at pitching temps with cold top off water. Took me 30 minutes or less, about the same as my immersion chiller now.

 

[Edbeenbreto]

I am lucky where I am working at there are ice machines. So I take all of my ice chest ( three big ass ones) and fill them with ice. Everyone knows what I do with it. when I would buy ice it would take me about 10 bucks worth of ice and still 45 minutes to cool it off.

 

[justenoughforme]

I am lucky where I am working at there are ice machines. So I take all of my ice chest ( three big ass ones) and fill them with ice. Everyone knows what I do with it. when I would buy ice it would take me about 10 bucks worth of ice and still 45 minutes to cool it off.

whoah ... what sized batch ?

i cool 4 gallons with my spray hose and 10 lbs of ice in about 15 minutes... sometimes 20.

 

[Edbeenbreto]

It was only 5 Gals but I do live in the hot Flippen Desert of California

 

[Polluted]

Thank you so much for the replies, it means allot. Id like to post a short brew log for those who are interested and could possible tell me what you would do differently.

Brew log
-Boiled water to rehydrate yeast and to let cool naturally to pitching temperature.

-Items cleaned with hose and oxy clean. 1 scoop with unknown amount of water but definitely concentrated

-Started boiling 2.5 gallons RO water and 2.5 gallons tap water. Around 110 degrees specialty grins added with muslin bag and removed after steeping at 170. Heat returned after removing.

-1 oz bittering hops (cascade 6.3 AA) once water started boil.

-Once grains removed placed 6 lbs of LME in bathtub of warm water to "Loosen" inside bag.

-NOTE- Starsan water that was made is extremely cloudy, worried about possible elements in tap water decreasing effectiveness. Dumped out and remade with RO water. Stayed clear.

-at 100 degrees on my stove I added yeast to re-hydrating solution, sired with sanitized spoon and covered pot with plastic wrap. This mixture sat for 5 hours while wort was cooling.

-Finishing hops added with 12 left on the 1 hour boil (spaced the 15 min mark, too busy freaking out)

-Wort chilling outside at night time temp of 59 while I wait for it to cool. 1lb bag of ice added but melted within minutes. Have to get to work, decided to go to sleep. Mixture not aerated and mixed with yeast until 3am (or 5 hours total of cooling)

Lets see how this goes

 

[unionrdr]

I hope that "water" was wort from grains & some extract? You need a light wort for partial boils to get good hop utilization. 100F is ok for re-hydrating yeast, but 80-90F is better, according to some yeast PDF's I've read. 12 minutes left is a decent flavor addition. Cooling that long with no aeration might be a minor concern?

 

[brewcat]

I like to hold steeping grains at temp (150 - 160) for about 30 minutes.

You usually want some LME before your hop addition. Search late extract addition.

 

[justenoughforme]

i dont understand rehydrating the yeast ?

this is a dry yeast packet ? or a liquid yeast (starter) ?

... dry yeast sprinkled directly on the wort has always done wonders for me in both beer and wine.

 

[mrgrimm101]

i dont understand rehydrating the yeast ?

this is a dry yeast packet ? or a liquid yeast (starter) ?

... dry yeast sprinkled directly on the wort has always done wonders for me in both beer and wine.

It's basically proofing the dry yeast to bring some life back into it before they start to get to work on the wort.

They say that by just pitching dry yeast you kill off about half of the viable yeast cells. By rehydrating you are helping make sure there are more yeast cells when you pitch.

Watch this video

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL92Bd4kfbQ[/ame]

 

[justenoughforme]

similar to the idea of a starter ... get the yeast active a little early.

 

[Rolsom]

I'm still new at this as well, and have brewed eight 5 gallon batches since March.
This is my method

For liquid yeast, make the starter the night before, for dry yeast I hydrate first thing. For my imperial stout I used Safeale 04, and the instructions said to sprinkle onto the wort and not rehydrate.

Clean my equipment with oxy clean and rinse well.

Fill my sink with hot water and let my LME bath.

Start heating my 2.5 gallons of water. When the water hits 150 °F, I put in my steeping grains and hold the water temp for 20 minutes.

After removing the grains, the water to a boil. Remove from heat, stir in warm LME and return to a boil.

Once the wort returns to a boil I do my hop addition, and set timer for other additions.

After the hour boil I set my pot in the sink filled with cold water, drain the water, refill with more cold water. I do this a few times before I add my ice cubes and ice bottles to the water.

Sanitize everything I'm going to use from here on out in starsan.

When the temp is right I strain the wort through a fine mesh strainer into my fermentor. This oxygenates the water and cleans the hop pellets.

Top off with water I have chilled for at least 16 hours in the fridge.

When I have the temp I'm looking for, I pitch the yeast and let them party until they're pooped.

 

[unionrdr]

Try late extract additions for cleaner flavor & lighter color.

 

[mrgrimm101]

Try late extract additions for cleaner flavor & lighter color.

Whenever I plug in late extract additions on Beersmith it increases the IBUs considerably. Is this because you get better hop utilization by using late extract additions?

 

[justenoughforme]

brewgr shows zero difference in IBU by adding hops at flame out.

actually, the less boil time, the less of your hops get turned into IBU ... and subsequently, the more hops are left as aroma/flavor.

so the later the addition, the less it should effect your IBU.



sorry misread... late EXTRACT additions : / i thought it was late hop additions.

 

[unionrdr]

A lighter wort in the BK with partial boil should give higher IBU's, so that when it's topped off in the fermenter, you should be getting the same IBU's as a full boil. In theory, anyway.