New batch, new issues

[DVCNick]

Experience: 8th batch total. 4th all-grain.

Changes from past batches:

-Trying some water treatment for the first time. I learned through input here that my local water supply coming out of the tap is very close to RO water, so, I'm effectively treating it as such. One of the "for newbies" articles I found on water treatment that I believe is referenced here suggested 2 tsp of gypsum and .5tsp baking soda per five gallons. So I added that to my mash and sparge water supply, in addition to my quarter tablet of campden for chlorine.

Issues unique to this batch:

- First off, I missed my mash temp. This has not happened before, so I don't know why. I use a spreadsheet made by a youtube guy that uses similar equipment as I do, I've taken notes as well, and in the past I've had no issues getting very close to mash temp usually between bang-on and 1.5 degrees high. This time I missed it by 4 degrees low. Recipe called for 149, I started at 145. Yes, I preheated the mashtun same as before. After a very quick google I boiled up a gallon of water and started adding it until I got up to 150. This was about 15 minutes after mash in. How screwed am I on the mash?

-Efficiency was not good. With the exception of one stuck sparge that went sideways, my normal sparges with pre-crushed grain have been over 80%. This one is showing just under 68% on the calculators. Could this be due to temp or water additions? I didn't end up adding any extra sugar to the boil. The original target was for 7% ABV; I think I'm on track for 6%, so hopefully I just a have a decent beer that is a little lighter than the recipe intended.

-Fermentation (2 days in now): This was my second batch using liquid yeast with a starter. The first one definitely started quicker than I have seen when direct-pitching dry yeast, but this one was next level. 12 hours in, I had an inch of krausen. 24 hours in, it started blowing off, and I switched to the blowoff tube from my starter kit (glad they included that). I've got 5.3ish gallons in a 6.5gal big mouth bubbler. The most krausen I've got before is 1, maybe 1.5". Not close to a blowoff. The OG of this one was 1.058; not even the biggest beer I've done so far. The krausen bubbles just seem to not want to pop as easily. It is not the most bubbly one I've had either, at least as of this morning, last time I looked at about 36 hours in. Could this be due to water additions, or some other factors? Grain bill doesn't look all that different from others I've brewed, and I've used this same yeast, and never came close to a blowoff before.

Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[Rob2010SS]

Water Treatment
What kind of beer are you making? That is a key part when it comes to water additions. You say 2tsp Gypsum and .5tsp Baking Soda. If you are making an IPA or a lighter beer, the baking soda could screw you up. With pale beers, you usually need acid malt or phosphoric acid/lactic acid to bring the pH into range. If you added baking soda to a pale grain bill, could be a problem. What was your recipe?

Efficiency
Your water additions can affect your efficiency. If your pH is too high/low during the mash, it can affect enzyme activity and cause your efficiency to suffer.

Fermentation
This sounds OK to me. The violent fermentation could be yeast strain, temperature, how you aerated the batch. Water additions wouldn't cause a violent fermentation over a calm one, I don't believe. When I started using liquid starters and aerating with pure O2, I started having pretty active/violent fermentations. Temperature is also a big one. If your temperature is too high, it could be causing the blow off. Remember that temp inside the fermenter can be 7-8*F higher than ambient temp outside the fermenter.

 

[DVCNick]

Thanks... sorry, meant to put the beer style in the OP. It is a hoppy IPA that in this case should finish about 6%, and my calculator says 5.9 SRM.

Efficiency - interesting - will need to read more over time. Is it easier to get high efficiency with straight RO water?

Fermentation - Also forgot to mention the strain, it is WLP001, very common I think. Did a 1.6L starter with one pack of yeast, poured a little off to use for the next starter, and pitched the rest at about 70 degrees.

The temp probe in the thermowell was saying 69.5F before I removed it to put on the blowoff tube.

 

[Rob2010SS]

Yeah, a hoppy IPA should have required a bit more acidity to bring pH down into range. I/other forum members, can help you figure out what your pH actually was if you give/want to give recipe specifics. Would need grain bill, water volumes, water additions, etc.

When I say your efficiency was affected by your water additions, it's because I'm guessing that the baking soda brought your pH way too high for the enzymes to convert the starches to sugars. The typical pH range is like 5.2 to 5.6 or something like that. I'm betting yours was above 5.6. At that pH, I'm guessing you didn't get full conversion in your mash which is why your efficiency suffered. This in combination with the 145*F temp could be the culprit(s).

I could be full of sh** here as I'm still fairly new myself, but this is what I suspect. I do not know the specifics of what pH is detrimental to enzymatic activity in the mash. Someone else may have to comment on that.

As far as fermentation temperature, as long as the probe in the thermowell is reading 69.5, you should be fine. The recommended temp for that strain is 68-73*F on White Labs site.

 

[Rob2010SS]

Food for thought. I've seen this chart on the forum and even though it's a busy chart, I feel like it's very helpful if you stop to take the time to understand it...

 

[DVCNick]

Thank you sir..

I started with 10 total gallons of treated water. In the 10 gallons would be a total of 4tsp of gypsum, and 1 tsp of baking soda.

My initial strike water volume was 4.9 gallons.

After immediately discovering my mash temp was 145, I added (I'll guess) about half a gallon of untreated (basically RO) near-boiling water to bring the temp up to 150 about 15 to 18 minutes later.

One hour after mash-in I started draining into the kettle, and did sort of a fly-sparge until I had a pre-boil volume of about 6.7 gallons. This actually took up most of my heated sparge water, but not all. Also the mashtun still had some water in it when I stopped draining into the kettle after hitting my pre-boil volume.

Grain bill:
13lb 2-row
.5lb Briess Caramel 10L
.5lb Briess Carapils dextrin malt

 

[chickypad]

I'm getting about 5.7 on a quick calculation with Brewer's friend and using 5.4 gal mash water total. While a little higher than ideal I don't think that's enough to really affect your conversion that much. That rest at lower temp also shouldn't have been an issue. It sounds like you have done beers this big or bigger before so it doesn't sound like it's that. Did you happen to take a reading on the first runnings? Maybe your crush was not as good this time since it sounds like you're not in control of that with your own mill. What article were you reading that had you adding baking soda to a pale grainbill? Next time I'd just use the water primer from the brew science forum if you don't want to get into water calculations yet. That would have had you adding a little acid malt and no baking soda.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/a-brewing-water-chemistry-primer.198460/

 

[Rob2010SS]

I'm getting about 5.7 on a quick calculation with Brewer's friend and using 5.4 gal mash water total. While a little higher than ideal I don't think that's enough to really affect your conversion that much. That rest at lower temp also shouldn't have been an issue. It sounds like you have done beers this big or bigger before so it doesn't sound like it's that. Did you happen to take a reading on the first runnings? Maybe your crush was not as good this time since it sounds like you're not in control of that with your own mill. What article were you reading that had you adding baking soda to a pale grainbill? Next time I'd just use the water primer from the brew science forum if you don't want to get into water calculations yet. That would have had you adding a little acid malt and no baking soda.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/a-brewing-water-chemistry-primer.198460/

Agreed. I thought pH would have been higher given the baking soda. Maybe the crush was the culprit?

@DVCNick is it possible that you used too much water for the batch? 14lb grain bill would have absorbed approx. 2.1 gallons (14 * .15) of your 4.9 gallon strike water leaving you with 2.8 gallons to pull out of your mash tun, before sparging. To get to your pre-boil volume of 6.7 gallons, you would have needed 3.9 gallons (6.7 - 2.8 = 3.9). You say you used most of the 10 gallons of water, not sure how much was left, but lets assume you used all of the 5.1 gallons left before sparge, that puts you at 7.9 gallons in the mash tun. If you stopped lautering at 6.7 gallons, that leave 1.2 gallons in the mash tun.

If this is really the case, you would have left behind a lot of sugars in that that would make your efficiency drop, I think...

Not sure. Kind of grasping at straws on this one...

 

[DVCNick]

I don't know why, but I can't find the article again right off hand. I'll link it up if I come across it again.

When I stopped draining into the kettle, I definitely had some water left in the mashtun. Based on the info above, probably at least a gallon (likely more) additional that could have been drained out. It was coming out pretty clear by then though.

I have not tried to use the exact amount of water needed; what I've done is just drain slowly and and continually add more water until I have my preboil volume.

 

[DVCNick]

Another thing I've noticed: This batch seems to be taking forever to finish visibly active fermentation. In all my prior batches, by this time (9 days) the krausen has been up, down, and the top of the beer is basically clear.

This one is still bubbling out of the airlock. Slowly, but still. Also there is still a thin layer of what I hope is krausen.

When I took the blowoff tube off and put the normal airlock back on, the temp that initially registered was about 64.5. The temp controller brought it back up to 69.

So the only difference I'm aware of is that there was a cooler period right after the really vigorous part of the fermentation was done, but like I said, it has now been going for several more days and does not seem to be done... is that potentially normal?

So far I've let all my batches go 3 weeks in the primary overall before bottling (two+ weeks of aging after active fermentation appeared done)... should I let this one go an extra week? I know, gravity samples are the only real indicator, but I feel like I've already opened this thing enough and I'm patient and willing to let it go as long as needed for the best product. Typically I've just taken one sample at 2.5 to 3 weeks; it's been pretty near the expected FG, and I've bottled with no issues.

Also I know the more ferementable wort occurs at lower mashing temp, and that is what I did here, so I'm wondering if that is a contributing factor to the long active fermentation period and potentially very dry beer?

 

[DVCNick]

Updates on this batch:

Dry hopped last night, took gravity reading of 1.008 (lower than the recipe estimate by a good bit).
The krausen did eventually clear like normal, it just took significantly longer than all my other batches. The gravity sample tasted fine.
It might actually turn out to be something I like.

I have enough ingredients to make this exact recipe again, so will probably do that with some different water additions next time, and hopefully hit the mash temp better.