Dear Homebrewtalk Forum,
Tonight, I swigged my first selbstgebraeut (self-brewed), homebrewed beer. Here's the entire story- from brew day until now....
On the morning of brew day, I set up my equipment (which was cleaned after initial purchase a few days prior), and did a mental rehearsal/"dry run" using the convenient brew sheet/schedule that was produced by the awesome Beersmith program. After satisfying myself that all of the necessary equipment was properly pre-positioned, I began my opus...
The entire point of this post, I suppose, is to give newbies (like myself) who face a steep learning curve in a new (and potentially intimidating) endeavor a sense of hope and excitement, because of the potential rewards of such an ancient and magical process. I mean, shoot- we are taking barley malt and water, and with the help of a single-celled fungus, we are making an immaculate and divine beverage.... God bless we brewers!!! (I can finally include myself, now- Hallelujah!)
To begin, ....the mash...
I am a purist at heart, so I went all grain from the get-go. I do not mean to disparage malt extract or concentrate brewers at all, but I considered the greater ability to tweak my recipes a virtue, and I wanted to replicate what brewers do in a brewery, which includes mashing. Besides, I also wanted the biological process of saccharification/enzymatic conversion to happen in my kitchen, as that is another part of the "magic" of brewing that I wanted to have credit for at the end of my efforts.
I planned a stepped infusion mash, not knowing whether my electric stove would be able to easily or readily heat a B3 15 gallon mash tun. Here is where my first mistake/lack of knowledge of my system impacted my brewing process... My initial infusion was to be a 2.00 gallon addition of 118 deg. F. water, to heat my grain and mash tun to 108.0 deg. F. for 15 minutes for a mash in/glucanase rest (though I know it is likely unnecessary- I wanted to schedule a time to mellow, plan, act, and ready myself for the next step... and I also wanted my infusion water temperature to not near boiling, for fear that I would inadvertently denature some of my conversion enzymes. [anal, I know...]) ...Well...
I pour in the first two gallons of water at the 118 deg. F. temperature that the hot setting on my kitchen water faucet can produce...
The water does not clear the mash tun's false bottom... Phooey. One of the many lessons you only learn when either brewing for the first time with your equipment, or when doing a full dress rehearsal with water only (which I did not have to patience to do ).
With this bit of knowledge, this mash process just became a stepped heating mash rather than an infusion mash. I add 4 more gallons of 118 deg. F. water in order to provide a nice glucanase-ready bath for my malt. I add the 11.0 Lbs. of grain, and the mash temperature after stirring goes to 109 deg. F., well within the temperature range for the true intent of this mash step.
The grain bill was loosely based on a recipe for an English bitter, which called for 10.0 Lbs. of Pale Malt and 1.0 Lb. of 20L Crystal Malt. ...Being adventurous already, I substituted 40L Crystal Malt for the 20L malt. Damn it, I'm supposed to be a homebrewer, after all, am I not?!?!? Later, while fooling around on Beersmith, I discovered that, instead of making 7.5 gallons of ordinary bitters, I could make 5.0 gallons of an IPA. I knew that this would be interesting with Stirling Hops and WLP005 yeast (English Ale), which I had bought for a bitter, but eh- I was game to go for an IPA. (I digress..)
At the 15 minute mark of my unnecessary glucanase rest, I begin to heat to 140 deg. F.
After 19 minutes of heating on both the "MED" and "#8" settings across two burners on my electric stove, I crank the two burners to "HI", and 31 total minutes through those settings later, I finally reach 142.0 deg. F. I stir the mash to distribute the heat, and the mash quickly drops to 140.0 deg. F., reaching my intended mash step temperature. I intend to wait for 15 minutes at this step. In 11 minutes, though, the mash temperature drops to 130 deg. F., which I attribute to not stirring long or vigorously enough towards the end of heating, but I figure that the next heating will occur during the primary Beta Amylase conversion range and will take some time to do, so I will keep some good Beta Amylase activity during my mash time, anyway...
At 15 minutes at the intended Beta Amylase Saccharification rest, I start to heat to the next step by cranking the two straddled electric burners to "Hi" again. In 11 minutes, the mash reaches 158 deg. F., according to the analog probe thermometer on the face of the mash tun, and 164 deg. F. on the digital thermocouple probe thermometer, which I also have in the mash tun. I stir vigorously this time, bringing the digital temperature to 162 deg. F., and the analog probe to 155 deg. F.... ...The mash moves to 154 deg. F. (both thermometers) within 16 minutes of the initial 158/164 deg. F. reading achievement, at which point I turn both applicable burners to "Lo". This effectively retains the necessary amount of heat to keep the mash at 154 deg. F. for the remainder of the 45 minute Alpha Amylase rest, another lesson about how my system/pots function. ...At 45 minutes, the burners go to "Hi" again, in order to do a 170 deg. F. "mash out", whether necessary or not. I also add 2.25 more gallons of 175 deg. F. water to the mash tun in order to raise the overall temperature closer to 170 deg. F., and because I am worried about how much water I will lose from the wort during a 60 minute boil, as the surface area of a B3 15 gallon brewpot is pretty large for the volume of wort that I will be boiling. When the wort reaches 170, I wait for 10 minutes. Then, I drain to the boil pot.
Another discovery! The ball valve on the boil pot is open . I notice when the level of wort filling the boil pot is not rising quickly, and there is a syrupy brown pool growing around my feet. While writing this, I estimate that I lost at least a half gallon of wort. Another phooey!
I close the ball valve and clean up the kitchen floor. The floor is still sticky. It will require mopping later.
I slosh the boil pot out to the back patio, where my propane burner is waiting. I fire up the rocket motor under my brewpot, and in 22 minutes, I am at a rolling boil. 2 oz. of Stirling (7.00% AA) go in at the 60 minute mark. A Whirlfloc tab goes in at the 15 minute mark with the wort chiller. 1 oz. of Stirling (7.00% AA) joins at the 10 minute mark, and I pitch the final 1 oz. of Stirling (7.00% AA) hops at flameout.
I chill for about a half hour until the wort reads 70 deg. F. I pull out my pre-sanitized and positioned carboy, and I start to try and empty the wort out of the ½ ball valve on the brewpot, through a funnel in the carboy. The wort barely trickles out, due to the hop leaves (whole hops were used), and because I know as I type this that I did not try to whirlpool. (Stupid.)
After trying to fiddle in the ball valve with a sterilized bamboo skewer that I borrowed from my wife in order to poke out the hop matter in the valve, but yielding only the slightest trickle, I switchto just muscling the pot in order to pour the wort. Also dumb. I use a strainer before the funnel into the carboy, which I can only pour about 2 liters through before the strainer fills with hop cone leaves and overflows wort all over the place. Additionally, the finer filter in the funnel constantly clogs unless I stir in the funnel while scraping the fine protein and trub matter off of local spots in the filter in a circular motion. The longer it takes to get this cooled wort into the carboy, the more likely I face infection. However, I am spilling wort all over the carboy and the ground in my haste to get this wort containerized. Sheesh.
I lose at least another half gallon of wort to the back patio. This is the process that I need to fix the most (in my estimation) about my brewing technique. I resolve to make the next batch better with regard to boiler to carboy transfer at the least.
I take the carboy inside, and I open and add the powder from a servomyces capsule to the wort. I bung and swirl the wort vigorously, but the aeration from passing through two screens should have been sufficient in aerating my wort. The last thing I do before pitching my yeast is to draw out a sample of raw beer for a hydrometer reading. The OG comes out at 1.044. This is a bit low for an IPA, I discover later when looking at my style guidelines on Beersmith. I realize that I was not paying very close attention to this statistic while brewing, figuring that it would all fall into place. -No big deal (though I will try and come closer in the future). I save the gravity sample, and I then pitch my WLP005 yeast slurry from a 1600 ml starter that I had made (shake method) two days prior and then crashed in my refrigerator. It was warming to room temperature throughout my brew process.
(continued)
Tonight, I swigged my first selbstgebraeut (self-brewed), homebrewed beer. Here's the entire story- from brew day until now....
On the morning of brew day, I set up my equipment (which was cleaned after initial purchase a few days prior), and did a mental rehearsal/"dry run" using the convenient brew sheet/schedule that was produced by the awesome Beersmith program. After satisfying myself that all of the necessary equipment was properly pre-positioned, I began my opus...
The entire point of this post, I suppose, is to give newbies (like myself) who face a steep learning curve in a new (and potentially intimidating) endeavor a sense of hope and excitement, because of the potential rewards of such an ancient and magical process. I mean, shoot- we are taking barley malt and water, and with the help of a single-celled fungus, we are making an immaculate and divine beverage.... God bless we brewers!!! (I can finally include myself, now- Hallelujah!)
To begin, ....the mash...
I am a purist at heart, so I went all grain from the get-go. I do not mean to disparage malt extract or concentrate brewers at all, but I considered the greater ability to tweak my recipes a virtue, and I wanted to replicate what brewers do in a brewery, which includes mashing. Besides, I also wanted the biological process of saccharification/enzymatic conversion to happen in my kitchen, as that is another part of the "magic" of brewing that I wanted to have credit for at the end of my efforts.
I planned a stepped infusion mash, not knowing whether my electric stove would be able to easily or readily heat a B3 15 gallon mash tun. Here is where my first mistake/lack of knowledge of my system impacted my brewing process... My initial infusion was to be a 2.00 gallon addition of 118 deg. F. water, to heat my grain and mash tun to 108.0 deg. F. for 15 minutes for a mash in/glucanase rest (though I know it is likely unnecessary- I wanted to schedule a time to mellow, plan, act, and ready myself for the next step... and I also wanted my infusion water temperature to not near boiling, for fear that I would inadvertently denature some of my conversion enzymes. [anal, I know...]) ...Well...
I pour in the first two gallons of water at the 118 deg. F. temperature that the hot setting on my kitchen water faucet can produce...
The water does not clear the mash tun's false bottom... Phooey. One of the many lessons you only learn when either brewing for the first time with your equipment, or when doing a full dress rehearsal with water only (which I did not have to patience to do ).
With this bit of knowledge, this mash process just became a stepped heating mash rather than an infusion mash. I add 4 more gallons of 118 deg. F. water in order to provide a nice glucanase-ready bath for my malt. I add the 11.0 Lbs. of grain, and the mash temperature after stirring goes to 109 deg. F., well within the temperature range for the true intent of this mash step.
The grain bill was loosely based on a recipe for an English bitter, which called for 10.0 Lbs. of Pale Malt and 1.0 Lb. of 20L Crystal Malt. ...Being adventurous already, I substituted 40L Crystal Malt for the 20L malt. Damn it, I'm supposed to be a homebrewer, after all, am I not?!?!? Later, while fooling around on Beersmith, I discovered that, instead of making 7.5 gallons of ordinary bitters, I could make 5.0 gallons of an IPA. I knew that this would be interesting with Stirling Hops and WLP005 yeast (English Ale), which I had bought for a bitter, but eh- I was game to go for an IPA. (I digress..)
At the 15 minute mark of my unnecessary glucanase rest, I begin to heat to 140 deg. F.
After 19 minutes of heating on both the "MED" and "#8" settings across two burners on my electric stove, I crank the two burners to "HI", and 31 total minutes through those settings later, I finally reach 142.0 deg. F. I stir the mash to distribute the heat, and the mash quickly drops to 140.0 deg. F., reaching my intended mash step temperature. I intend to wait for 15 minutes at this step. In 11 minutes, though, the mash temperature drops to 130 deg. F., which I attribute to not stirring long or vigorously enough towards the end of heating, but I figure that the next heating will occur during the primary Beta Amylase conversion range and will take some time to do, so I will keep some good Beta Amylase activity during my mash time, anyway...
At 15 minutes at the intended Beta Amylase Saccharification rest, I start to heat to the next step by cranking the two straddled electric burners to "Hi" again. In 11 minutes, the mash reaches 158 deg. F., according to the analog probe thermometer on the face of the mash tun, and 164 deg. F. on the digital thermocouple probe thermometer, which I also have in the mash tun. I stir vigorously this time, bringing the digital temperature to 162 deg. F., and the analog probe to 155 deg. F.... ...The mash moves to 154 deg. F. (both thermometers) within 16 minutes of the initial 158/164 deg. F. reading achievement, at which point I turn both applicable burners to "Lo". This effectively retains the necessary amount of heat to keep the mash at 154 deg. F. for the remainder of the 45 minute Alpha Amylase rest, another lesson about how my system/pots function. ...At 45 minutes, the burners go to "Hi" again, in order to do a 170 deg. F. "mash out", whether necessary or not. I also add 2.25 more gallons of 175 deg. F. water to the mash tun in order to raise the overall temperature closer to 170 deg. F., and because I am worried about how much water I will lose from the wort during a 60 minute boil, as the surface area of a B3 15 gallon brewpot is pretty large for the volume of wort that I will be boiling. When the wort reaches 170, I wait for 10 minutes. Then, I drain to the boil pot.
Another discovery! The ball valve on the boil pot is open . I notice when the level of wort filling the boil pot is not rising quickly, and there is a syrupy brown pool growing around my feet. While writing this, I estimate that I lost at least a half gallon of wort. Another phooey!
I close the ball valve and clean up the kitchen floor. The floor is still sticky. It will require mopping later.
I slosh the boil pot out to the back patio, where my propane burner is waiting. I fire up the rocket motor under my brewpot, and in 22 minutes, I am at a rolling boil. 2 oz. of Stirling (7.00% AA) go in at the 60 minute mark. A Whirlfloc tab goes in at the 15 minute mark with the wort chiller. 1 oz. of Stirling (7.00% AA) joins at the 10 minute mark, and I pitch the final 1 oz. of Stirling (7.00% AA) hops at flameout.
I chill for about a half hour until the wort reads 70 deg. F. I pull out my pre-sanitized and positioned carboy, and I start to try and empty the wort out of the ½ ball valve on the brewpot, through a funnel in the carboy. The wort barely trickles out, due to the hop leaves (whole hops were used), and because I know as I type this that I did not try to whirlpool. (Stupid.)
After trying to fiddle in the ball valve with a sterilized bamboo skewer that I borrowed from my wife in order to poke out the hop matter in the valve, but yielding only the slightest trickle, I switchto just muscling the pot in order to pour the wort. Also dumb. I use a strainer before the funnel into the carboy, which I can only pour about 2 liters through before the strainer fills with hop cone leaves and overflows wort all over the place. Additionally, the finer filter in the funnel constantly clogs unless I stir in the funnel while scraping the fine protein and trub matter off of local spots in the filter in a circular motion. The longer it takes to get this cooled wort into the carboy, the more likely I face infection. However, I am spilling wort all over the carboy and the ground in my haste to get this wort containerized. Sheesh.
I lose at least another half gallon of wort to the back patio. This is the process that I need to fix the most (in my estimation) about my brewing technique. I resolve to make the next batch better with regard to boiler to carboy transfer at the least.
I take the carboy inside, and I open and add the powder from a servomyces capsule to the wort. I bung and swirl the wort vigorously, but the aeration from passing through two screens should have been sufficient in aerating my wort. The last thing I do before pitching my yeast is to draw out a sample of raw beer for a hydrometer reading. The OG comes out at 1.044. This is a bit low for an IPA, I discover later when looking at my style guidelines on Beersmith. I realize that I was not paying very close attention to this statistic while brewing, figuring that it would all fall into place. -No big deal (though I will try and come closer in the future). I save the gravity sample, and I then pitch my WLP005 yeast slurry from a 1600 ml starter that I had made (shake method) two days prior and then crashed in my refrigerator. It was warming to room temperature throughout my brew process.
(continued)
