kombat
Well-Known Member
I brewed a Porter tonight that I plan on portioning out into 5 one-gallon fermenters after fermentation completes and flavouring 5 different ways (gingerbread, pumpkin spice, vanilla, coffee, and chocolate or possibly peppermint). I tried a couple new techniques for the first time tonight with this batch.
Firstly, I abstained from using my hop screen (cylindrical stainless mesh container that hangs on the inside of my kettle and contains pellet hops) and instead added the hops directly to the kettle.
Secondly, I used my newly-installed whirlpool port and whirlpooled the wort after the boil. I ran the pump for 10minutes, then let it settle for 15 more minutes.
I rehydrated my yeast on a stir plate instead of just stirring it a couple of times. The spec sheet for US-05 says to sprinkle it into the water, leave it for 15 minutes, then stir it for another 30. So this time, I actually dropped in a stir bar and let it ride while I whirlpooled and chilled the wort.
Finally, I did my first fly sparge tonight. Instead of the usual batch sparging, I trickled 200° F hot liquor into the mash tun as I collected runnings continuously until I reached my desired boil volume of 6.9 gallons.
I think everything went fairly smoothly, although I ended up with less post-boil volume than I expected. I lost more wort than I'd planned to trub and hop matter. I usually just dump the whole deal into the fermenter, but this time I wanted the clearest wort possible, so after whirlpooling, I drained with my new side pickup tube to make sure I only got clear wort. The downside is I left a good 2 quarts in the boil kettle. But the resulting wort was extremely clear and devoid of trub/hop matter.
I'll be interested to see if this makes any difference in the final beer. The one thing I'm hoping to get out of this is cleaner yeast for re-use, owing to the paucity of break material and hop trub.
I also intend to eventually figure out my efficiency and see if fly sparging made a difference.
Firstly, I abstained from using my hop screen (cylindrical stainless mesh container that hangs on the inside of my kettle and contains pellet hops) and instead added the hops directly to the kettle.
Secondly, I used my newly-installed whirlpool port and whirlpooled the wort after the boil. I ran the pump for 10minutes, then let it settle for 15 more minutes.
I rehydrated my yeast on a stir plate instead of just stirring it a couple of times. The spec sheet for US-05 says to sprinkle it into the water, leave it for 15 minutes, then stir it for another 30. So this time, I actually dropped in a stir bar and let it ride while I whirlpooled and chilled the wort.
Finally, I did my first fly sparge tonight. Instead of the usual batch sparging, I trickled 200° F hot liquor into the mash tun as I collected runnings continuously until I reached my desired boil volume of 6.9 gallons.
I think everything went fairly smoothly, although I ended up with less post-boil volume than I expected. I lost more wort than I'd planned to trub and hop matter. I usually just dump the whole deal into the fermenter, but this time I wanted the clearest wort possible, so after whirlpooling, I drained with my new side pickup tube to make sure I only got clear wort. The downside is I left a good 2 quarts in the boil kettle. But the resulting wort was extremely clear and devoid of trub/hop matter.
I'll be interested to see if this makes any difference in the final beer. The one thing I'm hoping to get out of this is cleaner yeast for re-use, owing to the paucity of break material and hop trub.
I also intend to eventually figure out my efficiency and see if fly sparging made a difference.