Noob with questions

[distantdrumming]

I'm just gonna throw a whole slew of questions out there and see what happens. First off I'm a beginner, hence posting here. Starting all grain and have my first batch (Yooper's house pale ale) almost ready for dry hopping. Now I'm thinking of going smash and learn my malts and hops. So here goes:

Water: Mine is very soft. I want to get the ph down in my mash. EZ water calculator is perfect, but I don't have excel...do I need to spring $100 for it or is there an alternative? I just used Palmer's charts and thew gypsum in with my first brew. Feels random, who knows if I hit it.

Grains: is there an easy way to figure out how much I need in me first smash?

Hops: IBUs, is it just bittering, or alll? Some places I've looked at take percentages depending on time, others not. This is something I think I can feel out, but still curious.

Yeast: I'm just going to start fairly neutral and go from there. No questions yet

Please no one suggest brewsmith, I'm a beginner and don't know the weight of my mash tun. Or, for that matter, half the things it's asking me.

Oh, and mash volumes? How much should I put in there?

 

[ElJefeBrews]

Water: this...https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=198460 . Just be sure the chlorines/chloramines are out of the water before brewing with it.

Grains : get a brewing program on your phone or use a website like brewtoad.com. then just type in what you're brewing with and it gives you the stats.

Hops: IBU is only bitterness. Experience will make it easier with flavor and Aroma hops. General rule of thumb is 20-10 minutes for flavor hops and 5-0 minutes/dry hop for aroma hops.

Yeast: neutral yeasts are a good start. I still use us-05 all the time.

Mash volume: experience will tell. I generalize and use 6 cups per pound of grain use. I'm sure other will say differently.

 

[Sadu]

Hi and welcome. Good idea getting into SMaSH beers, you learn a lot and they taste great.

Water: Don't randomly chuck stuff in your water because you can easily make things worse. If your water is soft then you probably don't need to do much / anything to it initially. You can add 1-2% acid malt to a pale beer pretty safely if you think your pH might be a bit high, but I think the best advice is to get experience with everything else then come back to water adjustments.

Grains: Honestly, the easy way is Beersmith. Learning how to use Beersmith is easier than figuring out how do calculate recipe amounts on your own. But, as a beginner I'm sure there are many people here who will gladly build you a SMaSH recipe in Beersmith if you say what malt/hops you are using and what gravity/volume you are targeting.

Hops: For one ounce of hops, if you add it at the start of the boil you get lots of bitterness and minimal flavour. Vice-versa if you add it at the end of the boil. This is very dependent on the recipe. For English beers and Euro lagers it's common to get most of the IBUs from the 60 minute bittering addition. For pale ales and hoppy styles you will be getting a lot of IBUs from the late additions as well. All comes down to the recipe.

Yeast: Good idea. Nothing wrong with s-05 for getting started. Also dry yeasts aren't inferior to liquid at all, you just don't have the same selection available. If you are on a budget look into harvesting your yeast at the end of a brew, will save you a lot.

Beersmith: You can pretty much ignore anything you don't understand with Beersmith. Just enter the volumes and use defaults for everything else. Some people like to follow recipes and have no need for Beersmith, but if you like to make your own recipes or heavily modify recipes you find online then Beersmith is one of the best purchases you will make.

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

Hey welcome. I may get beersmith at some point, but for calculations I use the online calculators at brewersfriend.

For your mash use 1.25 to 2 quarts water per pound of grain.

Your hops have alpha acids in them. During the boil they isomerize and get bitter. The alpha acids are bittered over time in the boil, thus the times and percentages.

Different styles require different amounts of grain. I use the brewersfriend OG FG calculator to figure out how much grain to use.

I don't do water additions yet, I just use Nestle Pure Life water.

 

[brandonlovesbeer]

Water: Mine is very soft. I want to get the ph down in my mash. EZ water calculator is perfect, but I don't have excel...do I need to spring $100 for it or is there an alternative? I just used Palmer's charts and thew gypsum in with my first brew. Feels random, who knows if I hit it.



Grains: is there an easy way to figure out how much I need in me first smash?



Hops: IBUs, is it just bittering, or alll? Some places I've looked at take percentages depending on time, others not. This is something I think I can feel out, but still curious.



Yeast: I'm just going to start fairly neutral and go from there. No questions yet



Please no one suggest brewsmith, I'm a beginner and don't know the weight of my mash tun. Or, for that matter, half the things it's asking me.



Oh, and mash volumes? How much should I put in there?

Water:
Use OpenOffice.org. It's a full featured office suite and opens excel docs.

Grains:
Typically about 10-12lbs of 2-row will yield about 5% ABV depending on some variables.

Hops:
IBU's are calculated depending on the length they are boiled. The longer they are boiled the more the Alpha Acids are isomorized. Hence the term Iso-Alpha Acid.
Typically the higher alpha acid hops are the buttering hops, typically boiled for 60 mins (good starting place but can get more involved later).
Then you have the flavor and aroma additions. Typically lower alpha acid hops. But any are acceptable depending on your taste. Add between 15- 10- 5 mins.

Yeast:
Neutral yeast:
Wyeast 1056
White labs WLP001

Mash volume:
1.25 qt of water per LB of grain in the mash is typical.

Regarding you other comment. I won't recommend beersmith but I will recommend a free alternative

"Brewtarget.org."

There is a Windows and Mac version of the software. It's the easiest but is nearly as full featured as beersmith and all the other $$ versions.

Just leave all of the default equipment numbers. It's not that big a deal when starting out.

1. Just preheat the mash tun.
2. get your strike water up to 170°F ish. Dump most of it in but save a little to adjust temps later.
3. Slowly ad your grains to avoid dough balls.
4. Let it sit for around 10 mins to settle the temp.
5. Mash for around an hour.

If you want to test conversion, take a small sample from the mash and put it on a white plate. Add a couple drops of iodine.
If it turns black, the mash conversion is NOT complete.
If it stays red, the mash conversion is complete.

Hope this helps.

 

[dmtaylor]

Water: This is a somewhat advanced topic. If you know you have soft water, you are best off just using the raw water, plus if it is chlorinated then add 1/2 Campden tablet crushed per 5 gallons to get rid of the chlorine. If you do want to add any calcium chloride and gypsum, keep the amounts small around 1 teaspoon per 5 gallons when just starting out. Calcium chloride can accentuate maltiness while gypsum accentuates hop bitterness. The particulars are more advanced though and you don't need to concern yourself with them when just starting out.

Grains: A great rule of thumb is that you need about 10-12 pounds malt per 5 gallons of standard gravity beer 1.050-1.060 (or that's 2-2.5 pounds per gallon). If you add any specialty malts, keep the amounts small when just starting out, especially with any dark roasted malts where you should use only 2-5% typically, and no more than about 10% for medium colored malts when just starting out.

Hops: IBUs measure the bitterness based on alpha acid of the hops used and how much time they spend in the boil. It's actually quite simple to calculate the IBUs for your beer for normal gravity beers around 1.050-1.060. For hops added at the beginning of the boil (recommended for at least 60 minutes), multiply 3.6 times ounces of hops times alpha acid times 5 over the post-boil volume (if making 5 gallons then the 5's cancel out). As an equation it looks like this:

3.6 * oz * AA% * 5 / V = IBUs from bittering hops added @ about 60 minutes left in the boil

It's a similar equation with different constants for hops added late in the boil:

1.6 * oz * AA% * 5 / V = IBUs from flavor additions @ 10-15 minutes
0.6 * oz * AA% * 5 / V = IBUs from aroma @ 2-5 minutes

Add all these up, then add an extra 1.5 for good measure, and this sum will give you a good approximation of your IBUs. Dry hops don't add any IBUs. Another thing worth mentioning is a concept of BU:GU ratio. This is a measure of balance between bitterness and maltiness, and is simply calculated by dividing IBUs by the numbers after the 1.0 in the specific gravity. So for a 1.060 gravity beer with 60 IBUs, the ratio is 60/60 = 1.0, and for a 1.060 beer with 30 IBUs, the ratio is 30/60 = 0.5. A ratio of 0.5 is considered to be balanced, with lower numbers being more towards the malty side, and a ratio of 1.0 or higher considered to be extremely bitter (like an IPA). I hope all this helps more than it confuses you.

Yeast: You can't go wrong with US-05, BRY-97, or other well knowns.

Mash volume: Start with 1.5 to 2 quarts water per pound of grain, with a rinse/sparge to get more sugars out if you can. For 5 gallons, you might want to aim for roughly 7 gallons total out of the mash before the boil, to concentrate down to 5.5 to 6 gallons during the boil, then assume about a quart or two is lost due to settling at the bottom of the fermenter to end up with the 5 gallons that you wanted. The grains will also soak up about a gallon permanently so you will find you might actually need around 8 gallons of chlorine-free water before the water ever touches the grains to end up with 5 gallons to bottle or keg at the end of fermentation.

Those are the big nuggets based on your questions. I might add that you can plan to mash just about any beer at about 150 F for 45-60 minutes and get good results that way. You'll find you need to heat your water to around 170 F and when combined with the grains it will fall to the 150 F desired. But you'll need to gain your own experience on your own system to know exactly what temperature to start at to hit the 150s.

Cheers.

 

[brewstergalVT]

I'm not sure how much info you want but a good place to start with SMaSH beers is 10lb of grain and 10 AAU of hops and then do some late hop additions, say 2-3 in the last 15-20 minutes.

I like to use 1.4 quarts per pound for my mash, so 3.5 gallons for the mash (for 10lb). Sparge with about 5 gallons. Specifics may vary with your system.

I agree with not worrying too much about your water at this point. A pH meter is a great investment although I know many all grain brewers who have never used one. You may want to figure out your system and process first and then look more into your water and adjustments.

Good idea to go neutral on the yeast so that you can really let the malt and hops show their stuff.

 

[distantdrumming]

Hey, first off I want to thank everyone for the input. Still have a few questions though.

Water: Seems most suggest I forget about it, just add some campden (which I did)...But that would take my ph way out of range. What will that do in my mash? Eljefebews/Sadu,for some reason adding acid to my mash doesn't seem right. Wouldn't I have to calculate that just as I would my water? brandonlovesbeer, I'll give that a try.. Thanks. dmtyler, yeah tasting my specific gravity checks...maybe my gypsum additions have lended to bitterness. Good to know

Grains: I'm still kind of lost here. What should I be looking at? Og? Am I just looking at fermentables for my yeast? Is there a flavor component to this? I'm talking smash now, I know there's flavor to malt.

Hops: I think dmtaylor, got what I was asking. Although I don't quite understand the calculations. IBUs are dependent on the time the hops are in the boil...Right? So how do figure out 1oz(6.9) 60 min, .75(6.9) 30min, 1oz(6.9) 10 min...etc?

Yeast: still neutral

One other question. My first brew is at 1.031 after two weeks. The OG was 1.057. Now the recipe called for a FG of 1.010. Should I be concerned and throw more yeast in?

 

[dmtaylor]

Hops: I think dmtaylor, got what I was asking. Although I don't quite understand the calculations. IBUs are dependent on the time the hops are in the boil...Right? So how do figure out 1oz(6.9) 60 min, .75(6.9) 30min, 1oz(6.9) 10 min...etc?

I provided equations for the different additions above. Yes, it's all about when you add the hops, and there are different IBUs extracted based on that. As a good swag, multiply ounces and alpha acid by 3.6 for hops added at 60 minutes, about 3.0 at 30 minutes, 1.6 at 10-15 minutes, 0.6 at 5 minutes or less. So in your example, that's (3.6 x 1 x 6.9) + (3.0 x 0.75 x 6.9) + (1.6 x 1 x 6.9) = 51.4 IBUs, and then for good measure add an extra 1.5 = 53 IBUs total. This should be accurate with most commercial calculators and lab results within about 5 IBUs.

One other question. My first brew is at 1.031 after two weeks. The OG was 1.057. Now the recipe called for a FG of 1.010. Should I be concerned and throw more yeast in?

What yeast did you use exactly? This seems an unusual result after two weeks. What is the temperature of the fermentation? What was your mash temperature? How are you measuring final gravity, with a hydrometer or a refractometer? Make sure your hydrometer or refractometer read zero in plain water.

 

[ElJefeBrews]

One other question. My first brew is at 1.031 after two weeks. The OG was 1.057. Now the recipe called for a FG of 1.010. Should I be concerned and throw more yeast in?[/QUOTE]


Sounds like you may have mashed too hot. This happened to me recently when my digital thermometer went out as I was heating the strike water and had to rely on an uncalibrated analog one instead. Finished right at about 1.030 and got dumped. Mashing too hot will denature the enzymes and the sugar won't be fermentable. And what is your fermentation temp?

 

[distantdrumming]

Thanks dmtaylor, no wonder my sample tastes bitter. I had no idea my IBUs were that high. The yeast was safale us-05. Mashed at 154 for one hour. Checked the temp at least 4 times during the mash and stayed at 154 the entire 60 minutes. Fermentation temp is 62. I'm using a refractometer, that I did calibrate. I'll recheck it though.

 

[dmtaylor]

Ah, the refractometer. Refractometer is only accurate for original gravity. It will not work for final gravity because alcohol messes it up. Fortunately, you can at least use the following link to provide a ballpark figure with a refractometer, which is accurate probably within plus or minus 0.005:

http://seanterrill.com/2012/01/06/refractometer-calculator/

Once you enter your initial and final Brix into that calculator, you will see that your final gravity is actually much much lower than you thought. So everything is probably just fine!

Cheers.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Welcome to the forum. The only things I would add is when attempting to adjust water PH take a measurement, some inexpensive test strips will do. And, take advantage of the many free calculators available on line if you don't want to invest in an app just yet. SMaSH with a clean yeast great idea for learning and they are often good drinking too like Maris Otter and Mosaic. Enjoy!

 

[distantdrumming]

Awesome! Yeah, it came out to about 1.015. Thanks!

 

[distantdrumming]

Hoppy2bmerry, do you have any suggestions on calculators or apps for water? Ez water calculator is perfect, but I can't get it to work on my computer. Also, when testing ph with strips how long should I wait during the mash to check it?