Well, it's been 15 years sonce I last brewed, but I finally got things together and started again. After a decent but nondescript extrtact brew, I dove back into all grain. I started with a simple book recipe for aa 5 gallon batch of an American Amber Ale, using 2-row as base, some home-toasted malt, and a single infusion mash. My water is high in bicarbonate, so I lime-slaked, decanted, and added enough CaSO4 and CaCl2 to bring calcium back up to ~ 50ppm.
The mash was supposed to be at 154F for 60 min, but after strike it leveled at about 148 despite pre-heating the tun (5 gallon Gott cooler). I added boiling water to the limit of the tun and got it to 152F. After an hour, I vorlaufed then fly-sparged. The pH was consistently below 6, and I stopped sparging when SG hit 1.010. My post-boil total gravity points were a bit low should have had 5 gallons of 1.054 (270 points) and got 4.25 gallons of 1.060 (255). I added ½ gallon of distilled water into the fermenter to achieve receipe OSG of 1.054.
Yeast was California Ale a 1L starter at high krausen. I pitched with both wort and starter at 70F (room temp), aerated, then (per recipe directions) placed in my fermentation chamber at 65F. Within 24 hours it was cranking blew through the airlock, etc. This continued for a few days, slowed, and by a week it was barely bubbling and the krausen had disappeared. At this point the recipe called for the fermentation temp to be increased to 68-70F and held for another week.
Here's where I made a mistake. I somehow interpreted this to mean that I should also rack to secondary. I did so through a pre-boiled grain bag to filter, and the beer looked great (and tasted pretty good, too). However the gravity was 1.024, far above the expected FG of 1.014. Of course I should have checked it several days in a row and racked only when it stabilized, so I have no way of knowing if it was stopped or still progressing slowly.
I peeked in on it this morning (12 hrs post secondary and at 69F) and there is a teeny bit of stuff collecting on the surface, and the sanitizer levels in the airlock have changed but no real bubbling in the few minutes I observed.
Guess I am looking for a little hand holding here. Is this just par for the course, and should I just sit tight and monitor gravity this week? Or did I screw up enough to warrant being proactive: try to rouse the yeast (higher temp, shaking, DME)? Try Beano? Yeast nutrient? More yeast?
Thoughts on whether my issues with mashing temp could be causing reduced attenuation because of incomplete conversion? I'm building a 50 QT rectangular cooler mash tun for future batches so that I have more leeway for step infusions, and coupled with experience it should allow me to hit my mash temps more accurately.
Your thoughts and comments are appreciated.
Scott
The mash was supposed to be at 154F for 60 min, but after strike it leveled at about 148 despite pre-heating the tun (5 gallon Gott cooler). I added boiling water to the limit of the tun and got it to 152F. After an hour, I vorlaufed then fly-sparged. The pH was consistently below 6, and I stopped sparging when SG hit 1.010. My post-boil total gravity points were a bit low should have had 5 gallons of 1.054 (270 points) and got 4.25 gallons of 1.060 (255). I added ½ gallon of distilled water into the fermenter to achieve receipe OSG of 1.054.
Yeast was California Ale a 1L starter at high krausen. I pitched with both wort and starter at 70F (room temp), aerated, then (per recipe directions) placed in my fermentation chamber at 65F. Within 24 hours it was cranking blew through the airlock, etc. This continued for a few days, slowed, and by a week it was barely bubbling and the krausen had disappeared. At this point the recipe called for the fermentation temp to be increased to 68-70F and held for another week.
Here's where I made a mistake. I somehow interpreted this to mean that I should also rack to secondary. I did so through a pre-boiled grain bag to filter, and the beer looked great (and tasted pretty good, too). However the gravity was 1.024, far above the expected FG of 1.014. Of course I should have checked it several days in a row and racked only when it stabilized, so I have no way of knowing if it was stopped or still progressing slowly.
I peeked in on it this morning (12 hrs post secondary and at 69F) and there is a teeny bit of stuff collecting on the surface, and the sanitizer levels in the airlock have changed but no real bubbling in the few minutes I observed.
Guess I am looking for a little hand holding here. Is this just par for the course, and should I just sit tight and monitor gravity this week? Or did I screw up enough to warrant being proactive: try to rouse the yeast (higher temp, shaking, DME)? Try Beano? Yeast nutrient? More yeast?
Thoughts on whether my issues with mashing temp could be causing reduced attenuation because of incomplete conversion? I'm building a 50 QT rectangular cooler mash tun for future batches so that I have more leeway for step infusions, and coupled with experience it should allow me to hit my mash temps more accurately.
Your thoughts and comments are appreciated.
Scott
