Recent content by KaiTroester

malt_shovel, thanks for pointing out the volume differences. I don't think that there is much that can be gained in the mashing step. If the pre-boil was 35.1 L and the post boil was 31.2 @ 1.050 sg then the pre-boil sg was about 1.044. In BIAB brewing this is the mash gravity. The mash...

you can also try this calculator. It still predicts a bit higher than what you measured, but is closer. dent made a good point about the dependency on the actual base malt DI water pH, which doesn't correlate all that well with the malt color. I loaded your two recipes...

What I'm hearing is that you are getting the vegemite taste during primary fermentation? Was old yeast pitched or was the starter made from old slurry? Kai

I remember Fred talking about this experiment on BBR and I was also surprised about the high initial DO levels. I helped him troubleshoot the issue by boiling water and immediately sealing it in a canning jar w/o any air. That allowed it to cool w/o any O2 pickup. In the end it turned out that...

One less step for you: No need to sanitized the stir bar, simply boil it with the starter. That also helps your boil to be less "pulsating" since it provides more nucleation sites for the boil. On a related note, NEVER add a stir bar to boiling or still hot wort. Since a flask is very smooth...

treat rye malt like wheat malt in these calculators. Based on my experience it has a similar distilled water pH to wheat, which is around 6. If rye is only a small portion of the grist it will matter little, though. Kai

Here is a table from a paper titled "Practical Use Of Dried Yeast in the Brewing Industry". I used to have a on-line link for this paper but that link went 404. This table shows the viable cell counts per gram from different dried yeasts. Just another data point to make the topic even more...

I think there is some debate on how many viable cells one can expect from dry yeast. Some claim 20 Billion per gram while others say its only 15 Billion. Some of the manufacturers guarantee only ~6 Billion per gram. I haven't done enough testing to enter this debate with my own data. Starters...

Thanks. I feel if I stay too much in one place I get only exposed to a more limited set about brewing practices. Vans, your points about ATC and temperature dependent pH shift are correct, but symphony did take the pH measurements close enough to standard temperature that I don't think this...

symphony, The EZ water pH prediction is likely based on my work. For comparison you can also enter your data here: http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/ This is a calculator I wrote for Brewer's Friend and which we released just recently. For the most part...

If you want to know how to do the iodine test correctly, check out this article: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Iodine_Test I definitely recommend this test if you want to play around with low mash temperatures. Kai

You may want to give this calculator a try: http://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/ We are still working on scrubbing the target water profiles. This calculator, like any other water calcuator, is more geared towards all grain brewers. The problem with extract...

I want to 2nd Thirsty's comment. Don't take boil-off advice from commercial (especially large commercial) brewers. They want to minimize that boil-off since boiling off water costs energy. They can get away with only 4% or less boil-off since their kettle designs and post boil wort stripping is...

Nick, What efficiency are you getting with the highest rest temp being 63 C? Kai

yes, you don't want to mash only at 63 C. In order to access the starches that need a bit higher temp to gelatenize I recommend stepping the temp up to 65 and then 68, similar to what micblair suggests. Another thing you need to watch out for is incomplete fermentation. I recommend doing the...