Brewing is simple. Is that why it makes me feel like a simpleton?
Tonight, I brewed Biermuncher's Centennial Blonde. Basically, I tried to downsize his original recipe to 2.5 gallons, with a single change. I used Gigayeast Vermont (Conan). The idea, stolen from Braufessor, is to harvest the resulting yeast for future IPAs. Yeast harvesting is brand new to me, but that's a question for another day.
So, 60 minutes at 152F, then ten minutes at 170F, when it finally occurred to me to take a pre-boil gravity reading.
Initially, I got a refractometer brix reading of 9.9, which translates to 1.0396 SG. This was with very warm wort, so I took a little more wort in a syringe and ran it under cold water for awhile. This time, the refractometer read 9.6 brix, or 1.0384. Given that Beersmith estimated my post-boil OG at 1.042, this seemed like a surprisingly high pre-boil number. I figured that since my efficiency numbers have been up and down, then tonight was on the efficiency side.
So, I did a 60 minute boil, then used the chill plate to get down to the upper 60s, and then dropped a pump in a bucket of ice water to get the wort down to about 60F. I moved the wort to the fermenter, oxygenated for 60 seconds, and then pitched a full package of Vermont Yeast in my 2.5 gallon fermenter.
It was right after I pitched the yeast that it dawned on me that I had not checked my post-boil gravity. I did not agitate the fermenter after pitching, so I figured that simply putting my syringe below the surface would get me wort and not yeast.
With the wort temp at about 60F, I got a post-boil gravity reading of 8 brix, or 1.0318. This seemed impossibly low, so I syringed again, and this time I got 7 brix.
I am sure there is a simple explanation for all of this.
What is it?
Tonight, I brewed Biermuncher's Centennial Blonde. Basically, I tried to downsize his original recipe to 2.5 gallons, with a single change. I used Gigayeast Vermont (Conan). The idea, stolen from Braufessor, is to harvest the resulting yeast for future IPAs. Yeast harvesting is brand new to me, but that's a question for another day.
So, 60 minutes at 152F, then ten minutes at 170F, when it finally occurred to me to take a pre-boil gravity reading.
Initially, I got a refractometer brix reading of 9.9, which translates to 1.0396 SG. This was with very warm wort, so I took a little more wort in a syringe and ran it under cold water for awhile. This time, the refractometer read 9.6 brix, or 1.0384. Given that Beersmith estimated my post-boil OG at 1.042, this seemed like a surprisingly high pre-boil number. I figured that since my efficiency numbers have been up and down, then tonight was on the efficiency side.
So, I did a 60 minute boil, then used the chill plate to get down to the upper 60s, and then dropped a pump in a bucket of ice water to get the wort down to about 60F. I moved the wort to the fermenter, oxygenated for 60 seconds, and then pitched a full package of Vermont Yeast in my 2.5 gallon fermenter.
It was right after I pitched the yeast that it dawned on me that I had not checked my post-boil gravity. I did not agitate the fermenter after pitching, so I figured that simply putting my syringe below the surface would get me wort and not yeast.
With the wort temp at about 60F, I got a post-boil gravity reading of 8 brix, or 1.0318. This seemed impossibly low, so I syringed again, and this time I got 7 brix.
I am sure there is a simple explanation for all of this.
What is it?