Please Critique my brew day

[timm747]

Guys, please have a look and let me know if you think I'm doing anything wrong. I'm always up for learning new/better ways to brew. Thanks!

Equipment: 3 Stainless kegs, all with thermometers, Mashtun is insulated.

Beer: IPA (5 gallon batch)

Ingredients:
10.25 lbs Pale Malt (2 row)
.75 lbs Crystal 80
1 oz Simcoe leaf
1 oz Amarillo leaf
1 oz warrior pellets (leaf not available)
Yeast - US-05 dry

1) bring 3.5 gallons of water to 160 degrees and stir in 11 lbs grain
2) mash for 1 hour at 152 degrees and then bring temp to 168 degrees
3) vorlauf and drain first runnings at 168 degrees got 2.5 gallons out
4) sparge with 2.5 gallons water was 170, came down to 152 degrees and let sit for 20 minutes after stirring
5) raised temp to 168 vorlaufed and drained got 2.5 gallons out
6) sparge with 3.5 gallons final raise temp to 168 for 20 mins, vorlauf and drain. got enough for 7 gallons in kettle. Had 1 gallon left over after this drain and held onto it until the end of the process but dumped it.
7) Brought kettle to boil. After hot break removed foamy break from kettle and then put in .5 oz warrior hops

remaining hop schedule is as follows:

.5 amarillo - 20 min
.5 simcoe - 20 min
.5 amarillo - 2 min
.5 simcoe - 2 min
.5 warrior - 2 min

I'm not worried about the recipe, just the process. Does this seem like I'm doing it correctly?

...and yea, I forgot to take a reading after the boil so I have no idea if I hit my numbers or not.

Thanks!

Tim

 

[hercher]

Looks like you left a half ounce of hops behind - is that for dry hopping?

Looks to me like you did everything just fine. You don't mention how you cooled your wort, or oxygenated it after cooling, but I'll assume you had some sort of wort chiller.

 

[bullinachinashop]

I never have removed the foam from the break.
Also, get a better handle on the water amounts. That extra gallon may have yielded some additional sugars for you and or may have been able to use for starters.
Gravity numbers are important to determine efficiency any repeatability.
It looks like you'll make a fine beer, but giving any more information about it or reproducing it would be difficult.
Good Luck
Bull

 

[bioguy]

Looks good to me except that in step 4, it looks like you stirred the mash after vorlauf. The point of recirculating is to get the grain bed to filter your wort. Disturbing it after vorlauf will free up any grain husks, and other stuff it was filtering before. If you feel you have to stir, vorlauf again to re-set the grain bed. This will make the difference between a cloudy and a clear beer.

 

[timm747]

Looks good to me except that in step 4, it looks like you stirred the mash after vorlauf. The point of recirculating is to get the grain bed to filter your wort. Disturbing it after vorlauf will free up any grain husks, and other stuff it was filtering before. If you feel you have to stir, vorlauf again to re-set the grain bed. This will make the difference between a cloudy and a clear beer.

So when I batch sparge, I shouldn't stir the grain after I add water the second and third time of rinsing?

Also, to answer the other questions, I used a wort chiller and it cooled the beer in an hour to 80 degrees (it was 93 outside), so I poured from my kettle to the bucket and took the bucket inside to sit for 20 minutes before I pitched the yeast, so it would cool further.

The other .5 oz of warrior hops was listed at the end of step 7.

Thanks again everyone!

Tim

 

[Yooper]

So when I batch sparge, I shouldn't stir the grain after I add water the second and third time of rinsing?

Also, to answer the other questions, I used a wort chiller and it cooled the beer in an hour to 80 degrees (it was 93 outside), so I poured from my kettle to the bucket and took the bucket inside to sit for 20 minutes before I pitched the yeast, so it would cool further.

The other .5 oz of warrior hops was listed at the end of step 7.

Thanks again everyone!

Tim

Yes, when you batch sparge stir very very well, and then vorlauf and drain. Repeat if doing in two rounds. There is no reason to let it sit, though. You let it sit for 20 minutes? It won't really hurt, but there is no advantage to doing that. The idea with batch sparging is to stir well to knock the sugars in the the liquid and then simply vorlauf and drain.

Measure your volumes, because using an extra gallon of water dilutes your runnings and messes with your efficiency and numbers. If you only need 2 gallons to reach your boil volume for the second sparge addition, no reason to use 3!

You don't have to bother removing hot break. First, you'll never get it all anyway, and it's not an issue. Leave the yucky residue on the kettle, though, and don't scrape that back in.

 

[JayMac]

Yup, no need to wait on those sparges. Just stir like crazy for a couple minutes, vorlauf, then drain- valve fully open.

I would also suggest getting the sparge water a litttttle hotter. I normally sparge at 175-180F, but some are known to sparge as high as 200F. The higher temperature will dissolve more sugars, and will increase your efficiency and reduce chances of stuck sparges (reduce viscosity). Extracting tannins isn't a huge concern (at least in the 175-185F area) because once mixed with the grains, the temp should drop significantly and out of that dangerous temperature range.

I agree with watching your volumes. Learn your system. But if you don't want to measure stuff like deadspace etc.., I find it very easy to drain the first runnings, the measure the volume. Say it turns out to be 2.5 gallons. The grain has absorbed *pretty much* all that it can, and the deadspace is already full of wort, this means that *essentially* all water you add, will come out when you drain. So if you want 7 gallons... 7-2.5 collected=4.5 gallons sparge water. Sparge twice with 2.25 gallons and you should drain pretty much all of the sugars you possibly could and should end up with 7 gallons pre boil. There isn't a huge concern with undersparging (measure then sparge again!), but oversparging will cause you to lose valuable sugars. Sure, you could boil for longer, but that makes hop additions a little more complicating and lengthens the brew day.

Otherwise, looks good! Cheers!

 

[bioguy]

I agree with JayMac and Yooper about vorlaufing after stirring. If you're going to stir, you need to reset the grain bed or you'll have cloudy beer. I'm skeptical about the idea that stirring the mash helps release the sugars from the grain though. I'd suggest an experiment--do a mash with stirring, do one without (maybe 3 with and 3 without and take the average) and see what your efficiency is. In any case, if those guys say to stir, I'd do it. I fly sparge, so I'll bow to the experience of those who batch sparge.

 

[timm747]

One last thing, do I need to bring the mashtun to 168 each time I drain it when sparging or is the idea to hit it with "hot enough" water that it is 168 when I sparge? If I have the water at 177 but I measure it after pouring it on the grain and it isn't 160, should I then raise the temp before draining?

This is all good stuff and noted for next brew day! Exactly what I was looking for, thank you everyone!!!


Tim

 

[JayMac]

It isn't necessary to mash out (raise the grain temp to 168F) when batch sparging. The reason being is that the sparge time is so short (5-10mins max), that the malt profile won't change when the sparge water is added. BUTTT!!! if you are letting your grains settle for 20 minutes at a time while batch sparging (don't do this next time, it's unecessary), not mashing out could become a problem as the grains are soaking for much longer than the desired 60mins. My recommendation: Next time you brew, add your sparge after draining first runnings, stir for 1-2minutes furiously, vorlauf 1-2quarts, drain all immediately... repeat if double sparging or triple sparging.

However, since fly sparging can take anywhere from 45 mins- 1hour+, you'll have your grains essentially soaking for twice the time it would for a normal mash, increasing the amount of fermentable sugars (not always a good thing!). This makes it extremely difficult to replicate a recipe, and gives the beer itself a lighter body once fermented. In your previous brews, you let the grains settle for 20 mins a couple times... if your wort did not reach the 168-170F needed to stop the enzymatic activity, then your beer would have suffered slightly. No worries though, brewing is a process where each day we improve... brew and learn! After all, changing this will only shorten your brew day!

in lamens terms:
if you batch sparge, there is no need to 'mash out' per se. However, sparging with warm water will make the wort less viscous, allowing it to drain faster and prevent stuck sparges. It can also slightly increase efficiency (this is debatable, but I believe it to be so from the known characteristics of the solubility of solvents).

If you fly sparge, you MUST mash out. To do this, keep your sparge water at atleast 175F, maybe even 180F. If the temperature of your wort/grain isn't at 170F within the first ten minutes of the sparge, then you know that next time to use hotter sparge water. The idea is to keep the grain bed above 168 so the malt profile of the beer is preserved from the mash.

 

[hercher]

I'm slightly concerned about your pitching temperatures. You cooled the wort to 80 with the wort chiller, then let it sit for 20 minutes. I'd rather you take a temperature prior to pitching your yeast. You don't have anything to worry about, because the wort will have chilled further before your yeast got going, but it is better to pitch your yeast at the temperature you want to ferment at.

 

[timm747]

I'm slightly concerned about your pitching temperatures. You cooled the wort to 80 with the wort chiller, then let it sit for 20 minutes. I'd rather you take a temperature prior to pitching your yeast. You don't have anything to worry about, because the wort will have chilled further before your yeast got going, but it is better to pitch your yeast at the temperature you want to ferment at.

Yeah, I think at that point I was in a panic because it wasn't lowering past 80 outside. I didn't want to infect it so that's why I just pitched. Usually I do take a reading before the pitch though.

Tim