What caused this and should I worry?

[AK_Phil]

Brewed a 3 gallon batch yesterday.

10# Pilsner
1# Vienna

2oz Hallertau at 90 minutes
1oz Saaz at 90 minutes
1oz Hallertau at 30 minutes

1 Wirfloc at 15
A Sprinkle of Yeast nutrient at 15 (Is this the culprit?)

90 minute mash
90 minutes boil

Starting water 6.5 gallons
Pitched 1 pack of Wyeast lager into ~3.25 gallons of post boil wort.

OG 1.080

The grain crush was .035 and normally I don't stir the grains much due to my system having a lid on the basket, but this time I removed the lid and stirred vigorously ever 5-10 minutes. I also noticed I couldn't get a consistent refractometer reading throughout my brew.

Will this settle out? It was like this almost immediately after the boil. I did a very slow trickle through my counterflow because the opening on that carboy is small compared to the camlock end on my tube.

 

[kh54s10]

It looks normal to me. Proteins and trub in the bottom that will compact over time. That is a lot of headspace. Don't let this one sit too long. Bottle it as soon as it is ready.

 

[AK_Phil]

It looks normal to me. Proteins and trub in the bottom that will compact over time. That is a lot of headspace. Don't let this one sit too long. Bottle it as soon as it is ready.

I plan to rack it into a 1 to 1 secondary in about 3 weeks as it is a lager. I just don't have a 3.25 gallon carboy, my 3 gallon secondary carboys are exactly 3 gallons to the neck.

Should I attempt to rack it sooner? Or am I just going to have to ride this one out?

 

[RM-MN]

I plan to rack it into a 1 to 1 secondary in about 3 weeks as it is a lager. I just don't have a 3.25 gallon carboy, my 3 gallon secondary carboys are exactly 3 gallons to the neck.

Should I attempt to rack it sooner? Or am I just going to have to ride this one out?

You could keep that beer in primary for quite some time with no problems as long as you maintain an airlock to keep the CO2 inside. I quite often do a 2 1/2 gallon batch of ale in a 6 1/2 gallon bucket and keep it there for 3 to 5 weeks. It's during the secondary that you want to control the headspace.

 

[PADave]

Looks normal to me. I'm just trying to figure out how you started with 6.5 gallon and only ended up with 3.25 gallon?

 

[AK_Phil]

Looks normal to me. I'm just trying to figure out how you started with 6.5 gallon and only ended up with 3.25 gallon?

Grains absorbed about 1.5 gallons of water, the boil off was about 1.5 gallons and then there is some equipment loss/inaccuracy in there. I've found it better to go over on water slightly.

 

[kh54s10]

I would rack to secondary at 2 weeks with not too much headspace in the secondary. Run the secondary for your normal lagering phase. Mine is ramp up the temperature for 2 days rest then ramp down over 2 weeks to a final of 33 degrees then bottle or keg.

 

[PADave]

Grains absorbed about 1.5 gallons of water, the boil off was about 1.5 gallons and then there is some equipment loss/inaccuracy in there. I've found it better to go over on water slightly.

Wow, I'm use to starting with 7.5 gallons and getting 5.5 into the fermenter.

 

[Gavin C]

Grains absorbed about 1.5 gallons of water, the boil off was about 1.5 gallons and then there is some equipment loss/inaccuracy in there. I've found it better to go over on water slightly.

With an 11lb grain bill there is no reason why you should be losing any more than 0.65gallons to absorption and realistically could do less.

Something is wrong with your setup if your losing that much.

Also, 1.5 gallon boil off from a preboil of 5 gallons is far too much. You don't need to boil so vigorously and is arguably detrimental to your beer to do so.

9% boil-off is reasonable target. Reduce your energy input and save some gas.

Also. Lager in your keg not a secondary. It's matched to your desired package volume, impermeable to light/air, pressurizable with CO2, i.e. ideally suited for lagering. Make things simpler for yourself.

WRT your pic, normal/not normal. It entirely depends on when the pic was taken.

cold break will settle out over time and then be kicked up after the onset of fermentation with the fermenting beer taking on a cloudy story appearance.

 

[AK_Phil]

With an 11lb grain bill there is no reason why you should be losing any more than 0.65gallons to absorption and realistically could do less.

Something is wrong with your setup if your losing that much.

Also, 1.5 gallon boil off from a preboil of 5 gallons is far too much. You don't need to boil so vigorously and is arguably detrimental to your beer to do so.

9% boil-off is reasonable target. Reduce your energy input and save some gas.

Also. Lager in your keg not a secondary. It's matched to your desired package volume, impermeable to light/air, pressurizable with CO2, i.e. ideally suited for lagering. Make things simpler for yourself.

WRT your pic, normal/not normal. It entirely depends on when the pic was taken.

cold break will settle out over time and then be kicked up after the onset of fermentation with the fermenting beer taking on a cloudy story appearance.

I use a hop spider, it absorbs a fair amount of wort.

 

[Gavin C]

I use a hop spider, it absorbs a fair amount of wort.

I use a hop spider too. Mine does not.

The hops within the spider will absorb some wort for sure. Nothing approaching the volumes you've mentioned though. An order of magnitude less would be a fair estimate.

I'm not trying to knock your system, merely trying to point to some areas where you might be giving away more wort than needed to waste.

Here is a beer with 13oz of hops used on the hot side. I factored in an extra 0.1 gallons of water in my volume calculations to offset the inevitable losses to hop absorption over what I would normally see on a beer with less hops. 3 oz were also added cold side later on.

Also WRT your initial question in the thread, here is an example of cold break at different times in the process.

Transfer to FV

Immediately prior to racking to keg

Best of luck