Messages

1

All Grain Brewing / Re: brewing all-grain with less water

« on: June 12, 2013, 04:19:31 am »

I spent a small pile of money buying a big kettle and a burner to make 5-gallon batches all-grain, when I first started.  If I was starting again, I would have stuck with my 5-gallon extract pot and stovetop and simply made 3-gallon batches until I decided that I absolutely needed 5 gallons.  That probably would have been never.  I would have had more variety of beer, fresher beer, and the additional brewing would have improved my skills faster.

2

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Lagering Time

« on: June 05, 2013, 03:47:53 am »

Once you are done fermenting (and you ferment properly) you can lager just couple of days (this would also apply for ales).

I haven't managed to get it down to just a couple days yet, it usually takes me at least a week to drop the beer clear, but otherwise I agree with this and it fits my experience.  I make sure my Lagers are done at the end of fermentation.  At that point they are clean, delicious and nearly ready to drink right from the fermenter. 

My observation has been that Lagering them a long time just tends to dull all the lovely fresh flavor that makes them taste like fresh beer in Germany, making them taste more like a bottle that's had to cross the Atlantic.

3

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Lagering Time

« on: June 03, 2013, 04:36:46 am »

I warm condition my 12 °P lagers for about 2 weeks at 62°F (I naturally carbonate in the keg) and cold condition for 2-3 weeks, so I guess that is close to 2-3 days/°P.  These days my lagers are clean going into the lagering phase, so it's mostly just to drop the yeast clear.

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Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Over Attenuation?

« on: June 03, 2013, 04:28:54 am »

My preference for many beers is an FG down in the 1.008-1.010 range, so that is very common for me.

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Yeast and Fermentation / Re: First Stuck Fermentation

« on: June 03, 2013, 04:23:54 am »

158°F is a high mash temperature, even for a 1.060 beer, unless you want it to finish thick.  I sometimes use mash temperatures that high for beers down in the 1.035-1.040 range.  I'll occasionally use 155-156°F for a 1.048 beer.  They are noticeably full bodied and lower the attenuation by about 10% from a beer mashed down near 149°F.

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Yeast and Fermentation / Re: First Stuck Fermentation

« on: June 02, 2013, 11:17:12 am »

I'd say 158F mash temp is a tad bit on the high side for an American BW. Any Barleywine for that matter...

Yeah, I probably wouldn't waste more yeast on trying to get the gravity lower, since it might just be done.  You can try giving it a little more time and see if it is dropping at all, but more yeast isn't going to do much.

Edit: Sonething more like 149F might have been a beter choice.

7

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: First Stuck Fermentation

« on: June 02, 2013, 05:43:12 am »

Your best chance of resuming fermentation is probably to make a fresh starter with a vial or pack of yeast and pitch the starter while it is highly active.  It is probably going to be tough, though.

It looks like you accidentally gave us a textbook example of the potential effect of underpitching yeast.  Unfortunately, that becomes more significant when making such a high gravity beer.  Not to say that's what happened, since I have no way of knowing the fermentability of the wort, but it is a distinct possibility.

Ideal pitch for an ale:
0.85e9 cells/LxP x 19 L x 23 P  = 371e9 cells

I've found that a vial of yeast pitched into a half-liter will grow about 1.25-fold, so you probably pitched ~225e9-250e9 cells, or about 1/2 - 2/3 of the recommended cell density.

For a high gravity beer like this, brewers often use a higher pitch rate, maybe half-again higher, which could put you down near 1/3 the recommended amount of yeast.

Edit: I didn't notice the third vial of yeast, but seeing the mash temperature you may have found the real culprit.

8

All Grain Brewing / Re: Water to Grist Ratio

« on: May 27, 2013, 05:22:09 am »

I want to say that I've heard thinner mashes (more to the 2qt water-to-grist ratio) run the risk of lighter body in the finished product, and picking up more tannins from dark-roast grains. 

Luckily, mash temperature has a substantially greater effect on fermentability than mash thickness, so you can easily override any possible effect of a thinner mash lightening the body with a slightly higher mash temperature.

Similarly, tannin extraction is primarily influenced by water chemistry and pH.  Thin mashes can be an issue because inappropriate water has a greater effect on pH the more water you use.  Dark mashes should have less of a problem with this since the dark grain will tend to lower the pH and high pH is typically the cause of tannin extraction.

The question about steeping grains is a really good one - if there's no base malt there, why aren't we noticing the "thin mash tannin extraction" problem with that?

I've never noticed this relationship with a thin mash, either.  For me tannin extraction tends to be more an effect of the sparge.  I find that I get less tannin from a beer mashed very thin and not sparged than I do from a beer mashed thicker and sparged, with or without dark malts.

9

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: When did you switch to all grain?

« on: May 15, 2013, 05:20:56 pm »

I think I made 3 extract beers, 2 partial mashes, then went all grain.  About 100 batches ago, roughly.

I've tried making extract beers a few times since then.  I can make a decent extract Weizen, but otherwise I never really learned how to make extract versions of the styles I prefer that I was happy with.

10

All Grain Brewing / Re: Next Step-Water

« on: April 24, 2013, 03:49:09 am »

The flavor ion concentrations are based on the mash and sparge volume, not the post boil-volume, since the assumption is that the concentrations are those in your source water.  If you are adding salts to the kettle, you can calculate them based on the pre-boil volume.

11

All Grain Brewing / Re: how to decrease my efficiency ?

« on: April 24, 2013, 03:44:01 am »

O.........So if i sparge to low per say the finial PH of my beer can be off?

Yes, but you are more concerned with the pH of the mash and sparge.

82% efficiency isn't particularly high, but 1.008 is low for final runnings.  Definitely try sparging with less water, but also review the design of your tun to make sure that you are sparging as evenly as possible.

12

All Grain Brewing / Re: Whirlpooling

« on: April 23, 2013, 03:26:26 am »

The kettle height to diameter is important.  I use a turkey fryer kettle and I cannot get any kind of a cone to form.

Definitely!  A large diameter and modest height is the way to keep the cone confined to the center and allow you to draw the wort from the periphery...  I use a 15 gal stock pot to brew 5 gal batches.

Don't you lose a large percentage to evaporation during the boil?

13

All Grain Brewing / Re: Dead Space

« on: April 19, 2013, 07:14:25 am »

I measure dead space by pouring water into the otherwise empty tun, allowing it to drain naturally, then pouring the volume that remains into a measuring cup.  Of course, that won't work if you have a fixed or heavy vessel.

14

All Grain Brewing / Re: advice for adjusting to different system

« on: April 16, 2013, 04:44:35 pm »

If you're batch sparging, runoff rate is especially important.

Nope.  I think you mean, "If you're fly sparging...".

15

All Grain Brewing / Re: Brewing Today

« on: April 16, 2013, 04:26:41 pm »

I'm going to enjoy my unexpected paid vacation for a week or two before jumping back into the job market, and brew lots of beer.  Probably more productive than sitting behind a desk anyways!

Sorry to hear of it.  Best of luck.