Beef Up My Brew?

[loikar]

Fellas, ladies.

Cut a long story short, I was gonna brew tomorrow but have to do some work in the morning then head out to lunch with the outlaws. So I chucked it down tonight.

1x tin Coopers Canadian
750g LDME
200g Wheat Malt
350g Dex

Boiled dry ingredients in 3L of water with 25g teabag of Cascade for 45min
Added goop at 30min
10g of cascade and 15g Saaz in a teabag at flameout


Chilled wort and dumped in fermenter and made up to 23L
Happily sitting at 20deg

took reading and it was at 1058
made up to 26L and took another reading - 1035 :unsure:
I reckon I must have had some goop in the tap and without thinking added the extra water.
I could blame the Mrs and kids for getting under my feet but really, it was my own lack of thought.

It tasted ok, but definitely a bit too watery.

So, it there a way I can beef it back up to about 1042-1045, or would I be better off chucking a big teabag of saaz in a weeks time when I rack and a week after that when I CC, ultimately hopping some more flavor into it?

I have already pitched my safale US05

Cheers lads.

Fingers

 

[manticle]

Fellas, ladies.

Cut a long story short, I was gonna brew tomorrow but have to do some work in the morning then head out to lunch with the outlaws. So I chucked it down tonight.

1x tin Coopers Canadian
750g LDME
200g Wheat Malt
350g Dex

Boiled dry ingredients in 3L of water with 25g teabag of Cascade for 45min
Added goop at 30min
10g of cascade and 15g Saaz in a teabag at flameout


Chilled wort and dumped in fermenter and made up to 23L
Happily sitting at 20deg

took reading and it was at 1058
made up to 26L and took another reading - 1035 :unsure:
I reckon I must have had some goop in the tap and without thinking added the extra water.
I could blame the Mrs and kids for getting under my feet but really, it was my own lack of thought.

It tasted ok, but definitely a bit too watery.

So, it there a way I can beef it back up to about 1042-1045, or would I be better off chucking a big teabag of saaz in a weeks time when I rack and a week after that when I CC, ultimately hopping some more flavor into it?

I have already pitched my safale US05

Cheers lads.

Fingers

Get a 1 kg tin of Pale LME, boil it up with a litre of water, cool it then add it in.

 

[buttersd70]

or get another 1kg ldme, add 100g to 1 L, add another 10g cascade, give it about 10 min (ish) boil, disolve the rest of the ldme into it, give it a water bath for 10 min to bring the temp down a bit, and dump that in to bring it up to 1045/27L. (or 0.5kg for 1040, or 0.75 kg for 1043. Still with the 100g boil in 1L. Same wotsit, different smell). Brings your calculations into the realms of 'ish', but should save it no probs.

 

[manticle]

My way is simpler but Mr butters man knows what he's talking about so listen to him.

Essentially you need more malt. Hops is like the top flavour and malt the bottom. My opinion (and mine only) is that you could add hops till the cows come home but if it's light on the malt it will suffer.

 

[loikar]

Cheers fellas,

Will head down to HBS tomorrow after lunch and grab another bag of LDME.

that way I can get it to around my intended 1042.
I have the hops already, so doing a quick boil wont be a drama.
Hopefully the brew wont suffer with the late wort addition.


With that amount of fermentables in it, can i expect it to rip my tits off after downing a 6er?

 

[manticle]

With that amount of fermentables in it, can i expect it to rip my tits off after downing a 6er?

My understanding is that the alcohol level is a balance between starting gravity and final gravity. The greater the gap, the higher the abv. If your starting gravity is 1042 and you finish between 1005 and 1000 you'll still be in the 5%-ish range.

Rip your tits off stuff is starting between 1070 and 1090 and finishing 1020 or lower.

Otherwise get some vodka.

 

[buttersd70]

With that amount of fermentables in it, can i expect it to rip my tits off after downing a 6er?

:lol:

No not really. It seems like quite a bit; but don't forget, your volume is higher. 1042 is still 1042; you will just have 4L more than planned.

AAGGGH, wait a tick. I gave you some bad numbers; I was working with liquid, not dry....so let me correct that.... :unsure:

0.5kg extra will give you 1042; 0.75kg will give you 1045. 1kg will give you 1049.

Sorry bout that, chief.

For the hopping, having a bit of a closer look, I think that if adding 7SG points, you'd be better off with 15g for between 10-15 minutes in the 100g/L amount. This should be pretty close to rebalancing it (obviously that depends on how bitter it was in the first place, but it should be close enough).

 

[manticle]

For the hopping, having a bit of a closer look, I think that if adding 7SG points, you'd be better off with 15g for between 10-15 minutes in the 100g/L amount. This should be pretty close to rebalancing it (obviously that depends on how bitter it was in the first place, but it should be close enough).

If you start with the amount of hops you think you want in a brew but fall short in the OG why add more hops when adding fermentables to increase gravity?

 

[bum]

Novice guess (because I'm pissed and can't help myself): is it because he's increasing his volume?

 

[manticle]

Novice guess (because I'm pissed and can't help myself): is it because he's increasing his volume?

Good point. Intended volume = (for example) 20L.

Hops designed for a 20 L brew at 1042.

Brew comes in at 1035

Malt and liquid added to make total of 23 L

Therefore extra hops needed. You may be right.

My understanding is that hops is generally designed to balance the malt sweetness (particularly in the bittering stage) so bringing in extra malt when you think you already have the hops balanced should require little to no extra.

As I said in the first post - listen to butters. I'm learning a lot but I'm learning (not knowing).

Wisdom is for someone else.

 

[buttersd70]

If you start with the amount of hops you think you want in a brew but fall short in the OG why add more hops when adding fermentables to increase gravity?

To maintain the balance. When the brew was diluted, not only was the OG reduced; but the IBU would have reduced as well (due to the increase in volume). What would have occured with the dilution is that the BU:GU would have been maintained, due to both the malt and the hop being diluted down; so when adding malt back in, you need to add a corresponding amount of bitterness.

As an example (edit, using numbers crunched in beersmith), say that the original plan was for 30IBU in 23L with an OG of 1042. The BU:GU for this would be 0.71. If you then add 4L of water, it changes to OG of 1036, with 25.6 IBU (which still has a BUGU of 0.71).

If you add 0.45kg of ldme, this will increase the OG back to 1042; however, the IBU remains at 25.6. So that changes the BUGU to 0.61. So you need to add some hops, to bring it back to the original 30IBU to balance the 1042 OG to maintain 0.71 BUGU. So you need 4.4 IBU (calculated for the full volume of 27L). If you look at it from a different angle, you need 0.71 x SG points added; you are adding 6 points, so 6x0.71 = 4.26 IBU (slight difference is due to rounding off that BUGU to only 2 places . But you get the idea.)

So, for a boil gravity of 1040 (which is roughly 100g ldme to a litre of water), using a mid alpha hop (like cascade, last lot I got was 6.3%AA), you would calculate based on adding 4.4 IBU into 27L.....which works out to 15g for 15minutes. So this will give you;

1042 OG, 30IBU, and 27L volume, instead of the original 23.

Hope that makes sense.

Note: the precise hopping amount and time is based on the 30IBU example; which is why I said 10-15 minutes. I haven't worked out the hopping for the actual recipe itself (no alphas were given, and I don't really need to know), I assumed 25-30 IBU.

EDIT; just saw Bum's post.....give that man a cigar. Spot on.

 

[loikar]

OK, cooked up 12g teabag of cascade with 100g of LDME in 1L of water for 10min and then added another 400g of LDME and boiled for a further 5min.

Chilled in an Ice bath and dumped it in to fermenter and gave it a mild stir.

Happy again now with 1043

Did notice large amount of grey floating shit at the bottom of the fermenter though when i stirred it up.
Now I would have thought this was yeast, but since it had been 24hours and there was pretty much no krausen on top, I dont think it would have got this thick so quick.

Could it be hot break from my 45min boil?
I didn't think you got hot break from K&K?

Could that be inhibiting the US-05?
usually this yeast would take off in this type of brew....

almost ready to write this one off if she doesn't kick off by tomorrow night...

Cheers lads,

Fingers

 

[buttersd70]

Hot break is thrown during the boil in manufacturing extract, and it's whirlpooled off. What you are seing is actually the cold break from when it was manufactured, because it can't throw the cold break initially because the extract is too concentrated.

Chill, Winston. :icon_cheers:

US05 is a funny bugger imo, sometimes it goes off insanely, other times it lags a lot. At least thats my experience using it.

 

[loikar]

As I said in the first post - listen to butters. I'm learning a lot but I'm learning (not knowing).

Wisdom is for someone else.

+1

Same boat my friend

 

[loikar]

Hot break is thrown during the boil in manufacturing extract, and it's whirlpooled off. What you are seing is actually the cold break from when it was manufactured, because it can't throw the cold break initially because the extract is too concentrated.

ahhh, I see.
Is it better to strain this then, or leave it in?
My last few brews have got a bit of that HB twang as an after taste, I wanted to try and get rid of this as much as I could, hence the boil of the goop.

Chill, Winston. :icon_cheers:

All over it kemosabi B)

US05 is a funny bugger imo, sometimes it goes off insanely, other times it lags a lot. At least thats my experience using it.

yeah looks like the swirl kicked it in the guts, she's starting to foam up now. :beer:

Cheers Great Man,

Fingers.

 

[buttersd70]

ahhh, I see.
Is it better to strain this then, or leave it in?
My last few brews have got a bit of that HB twang as an after taste, I wanted to try and get rid of this as much as I could, hence the boil of the goop.

from the coopers website, in their faq section:

Should I boil the kit to remove break?
We brew beer, malt extract and home brew worts in the same way. All worts are boiled and produce hot break which is then removed in the whirlpool. Rather than being cooled down for fermentation, the malt extract and home brew worts are centrifuged and transferred to evaporators where all but around 20% of the water is removed. At this stage the malt extract and home brew is packaged then cools down but does not throw cold break material because the extract is too dense for it to precipitate.

Once you add water, the wort becomes thin enough for the break material to precipitate. This break material is completely harmless to the brew and will settle out during fermentation.

If boiled the break material may clump together giving the impression, incorrectly, that it is hot break. Boiling home brew (hopped malt extract) will only darken the brew and drive of hop aroma.

However, if you are following a specific recipe and using additional hops, you may like to boil some of the malt extract to achieve the expected hop utilisation for correct aroma, flavour and bitterness in the finished beer.

edit: 'twang' is something that gets discussed a fair amount. Long story short, there are several reasons....one of the most common is crap yeast (or poor yeast health), either from using kit yeasts, or even from using 'better' yeast that is a bit long in the tooth, such as what you find at some lhbs that have really low turnover (or bad storage practices). Part of it is also from poor temperature control during fermentation, and sometimes it is improper pitching rates (particularly with some novices tendency to make rocket fuel ).

The other most common cause is stale ingredients, again usually from lhbs that has low turnover. Fresh is best. Easy to check that for the tins, the best before date is on the bottom of the tin. A bit harder with dry product, though....but if your lhbs has a fair turnover, it shouldn't really be too much of an issue.

The other consideration is nutrition, which effects yeast health. Free amino nitrogen is essential for healthy fermentation. Extract is particularly low in FAN, and also, as the extract ages, it oxidises, and diminishes the FAN even further. Not to mention that simple sugars don't have these nutrients, so use of large amount of non malt adjunct is weakening an already weak position even further.

Main point, ensure your yeast is fresh and has been correctly stored. Ensure your malt is fresh. Maintain your temperature as much as possible (particularly in relation to stability...continual fluctuation of temperature is as stressfull to yeast as being too hot or too cold constantly). Reduce rates of non malt adjuncts as much as practicable. Advance that one extra step, and start using some specialty grains that have been steeped (which not only contribute flavour and mouthfeel, but also nutrients).

You might notice that pretty much all of the above relates to yeast....(even the bits that are about the malt, at the end, come back to the yeast.....). It just shows how very very important yeast is to succesfull brewing.

 

[chappo1970]

...US05 is a funny bugger imo, sometimes it goes off insanely, other times it lags a lot. At least thats my experience using it.

+1 MrB man

Two identical brews from the same batch, one stuck, the other fermented like the devil both in the same ferment fridge both S05 ppitched at the same time-ish maybe 5 mins apart. She be a fickle yeastie?

 

[loikar]

You might notice that pretty much all of the above relates to yeast....(even the bits that are about the malt, at the end, come back to the yeast.....). It just shows how very very important yeast is to succesfull brewing.

Yeah, It must be my temps then, Every brew I have made has left small amount of cidery twang on the pallet as an after taste.
My temp can vary inbetween 16-22deg, 22 being the extreme and usually from a warm day and neglect from keepin an eye on it. Usually it sits between 16-20deg.

My last brew was over-carbed, and I used dry enzyme so its a little like a gutless beer with the carb of champagne....not ideal....but I can send you a couple of stubbies if you want to show you what i mean.

Onya butters!