First Ag Brew Day

[pscarazza79]

Great day mate , try not to get paranoid about the gas you have the bottle far enough away from the burner that is why they put a long pipe on it . I hope you had fun next time just stack the bricks into 2 columns either side of the kettle and that will give you more air flow . I am doing another brew on thursday if you would like to come over and bring your kettle and stand so it can be modified to fit your kettle. Just recirculate a little slower next time ( don't have the tap open as much) you will find over the next few brews you will tweak it a little and find that you will reduce your time in brewing . Stick with it and you will keep on making great beers . Necessity is the mother of invention .


Cheers
Beerebelly

Your not wrong there having fun and sticking with it like i posted i was getting a bit down on why my efficiancy was low but then last night my 4th brew came out awesome everything seemed to work out. I think when you first start out you freak out about everything but now im starting to chill a little and have fun experimenting. So in essence keep it it going Siborg and have fun.

 

[DanRayner]

Nice one. The first brew day with new AG equipment (whether you've been AG-brewing for years or are completely new to it) will invariably be long, messy with annoyances like stuck-sparges. Keep at it, it gets easier and you learn to adapt to your system and you also start to recognise critical moments/events/times and times when you can relax and wander off...

Also, I would be quite happy to brew with US-05 for the rest of my life - a top yeast!

D

 

[boybrewer]

Your not wrong there having fun and sticking with it like i posted i was getting a bit down on why my efficiancy was low but then last night my 4th brew came out awesome everything seemed to work out. I think when you first start out you freak out about everything but now im starting to chill a little and have fun experimenting. So in essence keep it it going Siborg and have fun.

I was lucky my first AG brew went well,since then they have gone downhill not , its a roller coaster ride you have your good brew days and not so good a brew day. Still I think we all enjoy it and even more when we taste the spoils of war .As they say RHAHB.

 

[Siborg]

Great day mate , try not to get paranoid about the gas you have the bottle far enough away from the burner that is why they put a long pipe on it . I hope you had fun next time just stack the bricks into 2 columns either side of the kettle and that will give you more air flow . I am doing another brew on thursday if you would like to come over and bring your kettle and stand so it can be modified to fit your kettle. Just recirculate a little slower next time ( don't have the tap open as much) you will find over the next few brews you will tweak it a little and find that you will reduce your time in brewing . Stick with it and you will keep on making great beers . Necessity is the mother of invention .


Cheers
Beerebelly

Just being overly careful, even if not needed. I'll definitely be considering something different with the bricks next time to allow a bit more air in. And I was conscious about recirculating too fast, but I was getting sick of it. Next time, I'll just do it slower. Does doing it slower get a clearer result in less recirculations? Ie. 2-3 slow recirculates vs 4-5 fast ones?
I might come down on thursday. I'll bring my kettle, but just as long as it won't slow you down with your brew. I'll see you on Wed night at the brewers den anyway.

 

[boybrewer]

Cheers Siborg I'll see you wednesday night and we will talk about it.

Cheers
Beerbelly

 

[mxd]

well done, I'll have to get the gory details on Wednesday night, I have done 1 2V + bucket and I only "recirculated" the first ltr, and my draining of the MLT only took around 5 to 10 minutes so I am not too sure if I left a lot of liquor in the tun or I drained too quickly which may have assisted my my crap efficiency ?

I use a SS braid, it's a 3 mtr 16mm braid so maybe it drains too quick and I need to slow the flow down ?

 

[jiesu]

What u did it solo? Damn Nice job! now you just have to wait the three weeks for the verdict, BTW what did you brew?

 

[Siborg]

What u did it solo? Damn Nice job! now you just have to wait the three weeks for the verdict, BTW what did you brew?

Yeah, did it solo, with advice and loaned gear from beer belly.

I brewed a similar brew to Dr Smurto's Golden Ale, which can be found in the RecipeDB section of this site.

Damn waiting... It has a nice, fluffy krausen and is bubbling away nicely. Should be pretty good. I might add some late hops by using a french press as per brendo's post in another thread.

 

[Siborg]

I'm just going through the numbers again, and something doesn't add up... I got a pre-boil OG of 1025 @ 52 degrees, which through http://leebrewery.com/beermath.htm equals an adjusted OG of 1037. This is 32L of wort at 1037... I boiled off around 8L, and left approximately 2L of wort in the bottom of the kettle. According to beersmith, I should have an OG of around 1049. Instead, I measured 1041.

Now something is a miss here. Is it possible that my new, brigalow hydrometer is out compared to my old coopers one? When I transferred the wort from the cube to the fermenter, there was a fair bit of trub on the bottom. I chose not to pour that in. Could that have contained a fair amount of sugar, that would result in the reading from my fermenter being lower?

 

[mxd]

not too sure, but in beer smith they have ( I think it's on my work notebook) a mash efficiency and a kettle efficiency that will give you a brew house efficiency. So if you set up your equipment evaporation rate etc..

In beersmith you click on efficiency and you can fill that in for the readings you got (og, volumes etc..) and it will calculate your efficiencies.

well something like the above jumble, but hopefully 4*, thirsty etc.. jump in and set us straight.

 

[manticle]

I'm pretty sure no. Most people leave behind some trub when they transfer from one vessel to another - whether kettle to cube, cube to fermenter or fermenter to secondary.

I had a similar thing happen over the weekend - SG was around 1040 -1042 temp corrected. Boil-off maths gave me 1063 but I measured something around 1054. My hydrometer seems to read ok in tap water.

Not quite sure what the issue is. I ran the formula on your numbers and also got 1049 for 24 litres.

 

[Siborg]

I'm pretty sure no. Most people leave behind some trub when they transfer from one vessel to another - whether kettle to cube, cube to fermenter or fermenter to secondary.

I had a similar thing happen over the weekend - SG was around 1040 -1042 temp corrected. Boil-off maths gave me 1063 but I measured something around 1054. My hydrometer seems to read ok in tap water.

Not quite sure what the issue is. I ran the formula on your numbers and also got 1049 for 24 litres.

Yeah, its weird as. I took the first reading with my coopers hydrometer, then after cleaning it, it fell out of the bottom of the tube as I dropped it back in (f**k!)

All I did after that was boil, add irish moss tablet for 10mins, transfer to cube, leave overnight and a bit, transfer to fermenter. I took a reading with the new brigalow hydrometer and got 1041. It just means that I may end up with a beer of only 3.8-4.2%

 

[Screwtop]

I'm just going through the numbers again, and something doesn't add up... I got a pre-boil OG of 1025 @ 52 degrees, which through http://leebrewery.com/beermath.htm equals an adjusted OG of 1037. This is 32L of wort at 1037... I boiled off around 8L, and left approximately 2L of wort in the bottom of the kettle. According to beersmith, I should have an OG of around 1049. Instead, I measured 1041.

Now something is a miss here. Is it possible that my new, brigalow hydrometer is out compared to my old coopers one? When I transferred the wort from the cube to the fermenter, there was a fair bit of trub on the bottom. I chose not to pour that in. Could that have contained a fair amount of sugar, that would result in the reading from my fermenter being lower?

Yes there is something wrong, you didn't provide volumes but if you had wort of 1.037 and boiled off 8L (massive boiloff rate) then you would have to have something around 1.052

Have you tested your Hydro in water. Think you have buggered up on volumes, readings etc. Be sure to stir wort prior to taking pre and post boil readings.

Screwy

 

[Siborg]

Yes there is something wrong, you didn't provide volumes but if you had wort of 1.037 and boiled off 8L (massive boiloff rate) then you would have to have something around 1.052

Have you tested your Hydro in water. Think you have buggered up on volumes, readings etc. Be sure to stir wort prior to taking pre and post boil readings.

Screwy

Water reading is 1.000 at 20 degrees. 32L went in to the boil for 75mins. No markings on the cube, but at a guess I'd say around 22-23L. 22L went into the fermenter.

I didn't stir the wort prior to taking readings... I will be sure to do that next time.