New AG brewing follies

[Talonracer67]

Did alot of extract last year, results were great. Decided to try all grain after getting all the gear gradually. First batch was Caribou Slobber and it went great I just had too much boil off (I thought). Second batch was an IPA, decided to not use hop bags for my additions.....huge mistake #1. Already looks like I'll be losing 2 gallons due to massive trub layer. Also had way too much boil off again, and overshot my OG. Finally checked things again and I had a "DOH" moment. Had the measurements all wrong on my brew kettle. When i thought I was mashing 7 gallons out of my Rubbermaid cooler mash tun, I was actually doing less that 6.5 gallons. So my IPA batch will be about 4 gallons instead of 5. Still learning and having fun tho. Gonna try a Bourbon Barrel porter next week. :rockin:

 

[andy6026]

If you haven't discovered something like this already, I suggest you try inputting your brew recipe into the table on this website and it'll tell you how much water you need, and the temperature of your strike water, etc. It'll factor in how much you're likely to lose to grain absorption, equipment loss, etc. Your equipment may be different in which case you can adjust once you're more familiar with how your set-up compares:

http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php

My fermenting buckets have a measuring gradient along the side, so I use them to roughly calculate how much water to heat up for striking and sparging.

 

[Talonracer67]

Thanks, all my lurking on this site i never found that chart. Playing around with the calculator was very informative, it showed the exact amount i was missing from my mashing session. Should have sparged with 4.5 gallons I sparged with 4.0 gallons. I was guessing the grain absorption. Onlt thing I don't like about that calculator is it won't let you zero out the "trub loss" variable. Since i basically dump my brew kettle into my fermenter i don't have trub loss there. i think its assumed you have a conical fermenter.

Since have a 9 gallon brew kettle and a 5 gallon "water heating" kettle I have to play around with the mash thickness setting. I'm not really comfortable heating more than 4.5 gallons in that pot, especially when I have to lift it off the stove and pour it. Of course i do have another pot to use, no law saying I can't heat my sparge water in two pots.

Also forgot to mention I had a stuck sparge, I honestly think its because my LHBS really does a aggresive grind on my malt. I had to stir it a bit, but I should have closed the valve to do that and vorlouf again, got some grain bits in my brew pot from that,another reason for my large amount of trub. Live and learn

 

[andy6026]

You can set the trub loss to an extremely negligible number on that calculator, say 0.0001. I did that when I first started using it, but found that i was always overestimating how much was going into the bottling bucket and then slightly over-priming. I find the amount of trub greatly depends on how much pellet hops I add. It can even block the screen in my kettle which is a pain.

There are other calculators out there - although I find that one to have the most detail of the ones I seen. If you google 'strike water calculator' or something along those lines then a bunch of them should come up.

As for stuck sparges - can you ask them to grind your grain less fine? If not then I recommend either getting a mill yourself or finding a different provider. Stuck sparges can really disrupt a brew day. I've only ever had it happen once, and it took a lot of the fun out of it.

 

[RM-MN]

Thanks, all my lurking on this site i never found that chart. Playing around with the calculator was very informative, it showed the exact amount i was missing from my mashing session. Should have sparged with 4.5 gallons I sparged with 4.0 gallons. I was guessing the grain absorption. Onlt thing I don't like about that calculator is it won't let you zero out the "trub loss" variable. Since i basically dump my brew kettle into my fermenter i don't have trub loss there. i think its assumed you have a conical fermenter.

Since have a 9 gallon brew kettle and a 5 gallon "water heating" kettle I have to play around with the mash thickness setting. I'm not really comfortable heating more than 4.5 gallons in that pot, especially when I have to lift it off the stove and pour it. Of course i do have another pot to use, no law saying I can't heat my sparge water in two pots.

Also forgot to mention I had a stuck sparge, I honestly think its because my LHBS really does a aggresive grind on my malt. I had to stir it a bit, but I should have closed the valve to do that and vorlouf again, got some grain bits in my brew pot from that,another reason for my large amount of trub. Live and learn

I haven't seen anything in the brewing laws that says you can't use a pot with a handle to dip some of the hot water out first before you pick up the big one to pour. :cross:

 

[Talonracer67]

Ah thanks RM-MN, those darn brewing laws..lol

 

[MindenMan]

T-67, After I cool my wort as close to pitching temp, I use a "U" shaped screen and put it on top of my fermenter bucket. On to the screen, I put 5 gallon bucket paint strainers stacked on top of each other. Because my back isn't good, I don't try to lift a 14 pound pot plus grain and wort in it, I use a bowl and scoop it on to the strainers, eventually the strainers have a thin layer of trub acting as a pre filter, the process slows down, but I don't leave gallons of wort in my BK anymore, usually just 1/2 of 1 gallon.
So far the best idea I have come up with.