Sunday's Brew

[rtyler8140]

So one of my fermenting buckets will be freed up Saturday when I do some bottling. I decided that I would stop by my LHBS and get another kit to brew. I have been drinking Milk Stout by Left Hand recently and really like it. I talked to the owner of the LHBS and he whipped an extract kit up for me. Recipe as follows:

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name
10 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)
8.0 oz Black Barley (Stout) (500.0 SRM)
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM)
6 lbs Dark Dry Extract (17.5 SRM)
1.00 oz Challenger [7.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min
1.00 oz Kent Golding [5.80 %] - Boil 20.0 min
1 lbs Milk Sugar (Lactose) [Boil for10 min]
1.0 pkg Windsor Yeast (Lallemand #-) [23.66 ml]

Up to this point I have not been using a secondary. My LHBS owner said that I should definitely use a secondary. I'm still up in the air about this. I have heard good arguments from those for and those against secondaries. Based on what I've read there isn't a huge advantage to doing a secondary if I'm not adding anything to the brew during the fermenting process. Anywho, I'm pretty excited to brew this up on Sunday!

 

[Demus]

Your LHBSS owner wants to sell you another vessel, more hoses, siphons and sanitizer. That's the ONLY reason to secondary a normal strength stout. Ironically I think that type of advice from shop owners ultimately hurts business as it only serves to complicate the process and the occasional ruined batch from a new brewer botching the transfer. It's my firm opinion that successful beginning brewers will be much better long term customers...

 

[sloanfamilydsm]

I will use a secondary to bulk age a brew to keep the pipeline flowing, or if I am needing to harvest n wash specific yeast from a brew with high grub amounts.

I personally hate transferring beer or wine but I do own multiple carboys as there can be a legitimate use for them in our hobby.

 

[rtyler8140]

Sounds like I will just be leaving this one in the primary for 3 weeks as well. Thanks for the input!

 

[rtyler8140]

So I ended up brewing this up today. My wife was working and I finished bottling my Irish Red a little quicker than anticipated. I called one of my buddies and he came over to help drink my beer and brew with me. Everything seemed to go pretty smooth today. I got the wort down to 72 degrees and got a hydrometer reading of 1.070. After accounting for temperature the SG would be 1.071. Beersmith is calling for a 1.061 SG. Will this cause any problems, and what could cause the reading to be high like that?

 

[Clonefan94]

So I ended up brewing this up today. My wife was working and I finished bottling my Irish Red a little quicker than anticipated. I called one of my buddies and he came over to help drink my beer and brew with me. Everything seemed to go pretty smooth today. I got the wort down to 72 degrees and got a hydrometer reading of 1.070. After accounting for temperature the SG would be 1.071. Beersmith is calling for a 1.061 SG. Will this cause any problems, and what could cause the reading to be high like that?

Off the top of my head, the first thing I would check if I were you, would be volumes. It's pretty tough to not hit gravity when you are talking about extract beers. So, for one, are you sure you hit the volume you put into beer smith Are you sure it's 5 gallons and not 4.5 gallons? The other thing, did you use top off water to get to that final volume? If so, it's really difficult to get a really good mix of water and wort. So, there is a chance you took your sample from worth that hadn't mixed well with the full volume of water added.

Outside of that on an extract beer, if everything else checks out, then you added to much extract, that would be the only other reason that I can think of.

 

[rtyler8140]

Off the top of my head, the first thing I would check if I were you, would be volumes. It's pretty tough to not hit gravity when you are talking about extract beers. So, for one, are you sure you hit the volume you put into beer smith Are you sure it's 5 gallons and not 4.5 gallons? The other thing, did you use top off water to get to that final volume? If so, it's really difficult to get a really good mix of water and wort. So, there is a chance you took your sample from worth that hadn't mixed well with the full volume of water added.

Outside of that on an extract beer, if everything else checks out, then you added to much extract, that would be the only other reason that I can think of.

I think I only had to add about 1/4 of a gallon of water to top off to 5 gallons. I took the reading before I added any top off water. Beersmith puts it up to 1.65 so that is a little closer.

 

[zacster]

For 5 gallons, I came up to 1.069 in Beersmith. For 5.5 gallons it showed 1.061. If you took the reading before top off, you had 4.75 gallons, and with that BS comes up to 1.072, so actually your perfect.

 

[betzbrew]

And even if you end up being a little high, though as others said its hard to do with extract, it won't change the flavor really, just a little more alcohol, which is never a bad thing!

 

[rtyler8140]

Thanks for all the info. This beer is fermenting like mad. It was bubbling pretty good when I woke up. I just checked it again and it is putting the blow off tube to use.

 

[rtyler8140]

I checked the gravity yesterday with a hydrometer. It's been in the primary 2 weeks now and is sitting at 1.020. Any reason to be concerned, or just check it a few more times to make sure it stays the same? It tasted great with a nice chocolatey flavor and a coffee aftertaste.