Dear everyone, please read the thread before asking new questions. He's probably answered them at least twice.
Man what a monster thread. Haven't you fixed the problem yet?!?!?!
Man what a monster thread. Haven't you fixed the problem yet?!?!?!
Man what a monster thread. Haven't you fixed the problem yet?!?!?!
Sorry for the monster thread, definitely not my intention. Before I even started this thread I researched anything and everything that could possibly cause this. Again, I appreciate everyone's input! Even if your suggestions didn't correct my problem, I have no doubt that my beer will eventually be better for it. I've had a couple of people reach out and offer to taste the beer. Having someone accurately describe the off flavor will help me pinpoint the problem.
I may do 1-gallon batch of this recipe with my friends gear/water to rule everything out except my procedures. I may also try this recipe and try adding the specialty grains in the last 10 minutes of the mash. Process of elimination
Do an extract batch.
Already suggested, accepted as a good suggestion, and planned on... RTFT (read the f thread)
Haha, he says in the opening post that he is all-grain, not DME.
You just added to the epic nature of the thread with a totally off topic post.
OP: You have great perseverance - I salute you. And I'm not joking.
You are correct. However, I change a thing or two ever time I brew. I troubleshoot for a living; divide and conquer. I've changed all of my equipment, water and grain. The only thing left is a procedural change.
I'll have my new kettle tomorrow. I bought a 15-gallon Brewtech SS. The reviews seem great and it'll be a lot easier to handle and clean than my keggle. I haven't brewed at my friends yet. I thought I would do one last brew this coming Friday with the new kettle before I tried anything else. If this fails, I may just do an extract batch first with spring water to rule a few more things out.You've changed your keggel? I thought you had plans to change it, but didn't know it occurred.
What did you end up getting?
Did you brew at a friends house, like you said you may?
Thanks
I'll see if I can explain my process in a fairly brief manner: I start off by heating up roughly 4-gallons of mash water in a stainless pot. In the past I've used bottled water, now I use R.O. with salt additions using BruN water. I taste the water after the additions and it tastes as good as any. I heat the water up to 170-ish degrees and dump it into my 10-gallon mash tun with a false bottom. I leave the water in there until it cools to around 165 degrees. Once I get this temperature, I add the grain. I mix it all up for a few minutes and then read the temperature. I'm usually around 152(depending on recipe). Within the hour of mashing, I stir it up every 20 minutes and take a temp reading. I typically lose 2 degrees within the hour. I then vorlauf around 3-4 quarts until the cloudiness is gone. Once the initial volume has drained into my keggle, I then batch sparge by adding in another 5 gallons of 168 degree water, stir and let sit for ten minutes. I again vorlauf until clear. This leaves me with around 7-gallons of wort. I heat the wort up on a natural gas burner until the hot break. I back down the flame until I get a rolling boil. I add hops according to schedule. I typically boil for 60 minutes unless I'm making a really light beer in which I'll do 90 minutes. With 5 minutes left in the boil, I'll add my copper wort chiller into the wort. While I'm boiling/cooling the wort, I clean and sanitize everything. Everything in the post boil process is saturated in StarSan; bucket, lid, air lock, scissors, yeast package, hydrometer, graduated cylinder, and stainless mesh strainer. This is when I usually rehydrate my dry yeast. If I'm using liquid, I make a starter 36-48 hours in advance. I cool the wort to around the intended fermentation temp (66 degrees for the last batch). I drain the wort into a bucket through the stainless mesh strainer. This seems to aerate the wort fairly well. I then add the yeast and close it up and add StarSan to the airlock. I place the bucket in my basement which is currently 62 degrees ambient. I have a thermometer on top of the bucket for ambient temperature and a "stick on" lcd thermometer for approximate wort temperature. I also use an infrared thermometer to check the bucket temperature. The "stick on" thermometer and the infrared are always within 1 degree of each other. Currently this temperature is 4 degrees higher than ambient at 66 degrees. I check it once a day and make sure there are no swings in temperature. My basement is fairly consistent so I never expect any. After the fourth or fifth day, I'll bring the bucket up a level (I live in a quad level house) where the wort temperature raises to around 68 degrees. I then leave it as is for 4-5 weeks, I don't use a secondary. When it's time to keg, I completely disassemble the keg and clean and sanitize. I rack the beer into the keg avoiding any splashing. I take F.G. reading and it usually is spot on. Once the keg is full, I attach Co2 and then purge for 10-15 seconds. I place the keg into my fridge at 10 PSI and let it sit for a week. I've also force carbonated with the same results. With my last batch, the off-flavor was present going into the keg. That's it in a nut shell. I've also replaced buckets, airlocks, hoses, valves and many other things. The one thing I haven't done yet is add O2 to the wort. I've had great beer made by others without it so I don't know if it's completely necessary. See any glaring faults in my technique? Thanks for reading!
Thank you for pointing me out so i can reinforce my question.
I was asking about starter wort, which OP prepares with DME as he stated on post #290.
Also i began following this thread about 20 pages ago so I might not remember every little detail discussed, but i sure do know he is all-grain. Peace.
Sorry to go off track, but I just do not understand the logic here. We are talking about an inch of space in a full keg. Turn on the CO2 and the O2 is pushed to the top given CO2 is heavier. With the pressure of the incoming CO2, it seems the O2 would be wisked out. In fact everything would be pushed out only to be replaced with the rush of the new CO2. How could anything remain?
Now if you are counting the O2 in solution it would take more time for it to come out of solution given the right pressure conditions. But I do not think that is the focus of tipping the relief valve.
One note on this
I have a corney filled with Star San and just daisy chain them. Then I purge full of SS corney by a Pushout into corney #2. Then I fill by CO2 pressure transfer from Fermenter (Glass with a SS racking cane and orange bung)
Has solved most of my longer term issues of "Cardboard tastes"
I've thought about doing this; a closed transfer. I have Speidel fermenters so I'll have to adapt it somehow. The only issue I have is that I know many people who don't even purge their kegs before they add beer and they never have an issue.
I received my kettle a couple of days ago. I'm going to clean and passivate before I brew on Friday. Hopefully this helps.
Dear everyone, please read the thread before asking new questions. He's probably answered them at least twice.
Man what a monster thread. Haven't you fixed the problem yet?!?!?!
Having the fermenter under CO2 Pressure when you cold crash is more critical than 2" of head space in the corney keg
Interesting. I can agree that limiting overall exposure is a worthwhile goal...but I'm wondering why you say one is more critical than the other.
Two factors here.
If you had a CO2 blanket to start, chilling reduces the temperature and therefore pressure in the headspace creating a partial vacuum that draws air into the headspace unless you are completely sealed. Without a complete seal, it only gets worse since the soluability of gas increases in cold beer. As the beer draws gases into itself, the partial vacuum perpetuates, drawing more air in. You get alot of O2 exposure if your not sealed during crash, sort of a continuous supply of O2 over the crash, making it much worse then a bit in the corny
If you do happen to have a complete seal during the crash, when you break the seal during transfer, Air rushes into the headspace. If your quick and get it into the keg, then purge with CO2 your probably reasonably okay though I'm sure some with oxy-phobia would disagree.
I've taken to putting a very low pressure supply to my fermentor during crash, something like 1/2 psi. Over the course of a week it starts to carbonate slightly owing to the soluability of CO2 due to beer temperature but nothing to be concerned about and it probably helps scrub any incidental O2 during transfer.
Thanks...I do get that. The other posted mentioned that the oxidation drawn in from cold crashing would be worse than the oxidation from 2" headspace in a corney keg on transfer. Not sure I agree with his police work there, I think they'd both be of importance to minimize as best you can.
Anyone know the volume of air drawn in when in cold crashing?
perhaps this discussion would be best off in it's own thread
OP, it's really important to take part and clean the ball valve from your new SS Brew Tech kettle, It is likely to have grease in it. I've found such in almost every ball valve I've purchase. I'm told it's perceptable as an off flavor for the first brew or two if you fail to clean. I don't know for sure because I always clean mine.
Actually I do, I use it very liberally and saturate EVERYTHING with it. I use roughly 1/4 teaspoon per quart of water. I usually use the entire bottle on a brew day. I'll definitely try filling up a bucket next time.
ok...this caught my eye...1/4 tsp per qt??....isent starsan suppose to be 1oz to 5 gallons?.....wouldent the op be using waaaaayyyy too much starsan per water??
mprowland, with the off flavor, would you characterize it as overly hoppy? Or more of an astringent flavor? or both? I have a few more thoughts but wanted to see if you can characterize it a bit further before I make any further suggestions
Did you brew that beer with the new kettle yet?
I think you have more than a few people pulling for you do beat the problem. I still think the keggle, with residue, sounds like the culprit. If not...perhaps a fitting or so.
During a batch my buddy decided to put a carbonating stone on the pressure side inside his corney keg. The fitting wasn't completely SS and we tasted the problem before locating the problem. It just takes one small "thing"
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