First All Grain

[alien13]

Hey,

So last Thursday, with the help of my dad, I did my first AG using a scaled down version of the Nelson Sauvin Summer Ale. The reason for choosing this is that it seemed relatively simple as it used (almost) 1 type of grain and 1 type of hop. I put the info in to BeerSmith (I'm sort of getting the hang of it), and came out with something like this a few days before doing it:

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 11.00 L
Boil Size: 15.63 L
Estimated OG: 1.053 SG
Estimated Color: 9.3 EBC
Estimated IBU: 28.7 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
2.25 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 91.84 %
0.20 kg Wheat, Torrified (3.3 EBC) Grain 8.16 %
5.00 gm Nelson Sauvin [12.60 %] (80 min) Hops 15.6 IBU
5.00 gm Nelson Sauvin [12.60 %] (20 min) Hops 9.0 IBU
7.00 gm Nelson Sauvin [12.60 %] (5 min) Hops 4.1 IBU
11.00 gm Nelson Sauvin [12.60 %] (0 min) Hops -
0 Pkgs SafAle American Ale (DCL Yeast #US-05) Yeast-Ale

Anywho, come brew day, we got everything ready, I filled the pot (19L) with 12L of hot water from the tap (~60C) and put it on the stove. I heated to ~66.5C and put in the grain bag and the grain. Gave it a stir around a few times, getting rid of clumps,etc and took another temp. reading. It was a bit below 64C so I heated it up a bit to 64C, wrapped it in a towel and covered tightly with a sleeping bag for an hour. (Mash in: 10:35 -- Mash Out: 11:35 -- Running out to buy 1g incremental digital scales for hops: 10:50)

Once it had done in the pot, took the bag out and placed it in another pot (19L) to drain/squeeze out more liquid. Did a quick sparge with some water and once we got as much as we could out, placed it all back into the original pot. Took a sample and cooled it down to measure the gravity (put the pot back on the stove during this time to bring it to the boil).

Pre-boil: approx 13L (I know the boil from the recipe is higher, but that was just to get the recipe sorted out and estimates down)

The gravity came out at about 1.054. Not quite what I was expecting from the print out (1.037). But wasn't complaining at this stage so continued on.

The boil got rolling and I started the count down, add the hops as I went along. I'd just like to throw in here, that smelling hops (pellets) for the first time, or any hops for that matter, the aroma that came off them when I weighed them was amazingly strong, it was not what I was expecting.

At the end of the boil, after everything was added and done, we gave the hop bag a bit of a squeeze and I did a quick volume check with my trusty metal ruler.

Post-boil: approx 9L (give or take)

Filled the laundry trough with water and lots of ice. About an hour later it came down to ~20-22C. Good enough for an overly excited me.

Took another gravity check. ~1.074 post-boil. Okay than.

It was into the fermenter, put some details into BeerSmith to dilute down to ~1.054 and pitched the yeast (1/2 packet/~5-6g).

Put it away, wrapped in a towel + sleeping bag with an ice bottle. So far to this day its stayed around 18-20C on the stick-on thermometer, but inside it is usually a bit cooler (after checking via water tests a week before).

It's been bubbling away, and is slowing down a bit now. There is a nice froth/foam head on it at the moment (good or bad?), and hopefully in a day or two it will be good to go. I will take another sample on Thursday (unless anyone recommends otherwise?) and check what it's at.

I hope it all goes good and I can say that it's been a great success, but I guess either way, it's been a fun learning experience, and something I want to do again (and again...).

Sorry for the long post, but just wanted to share the experience with everyone here (new and old).

Also, if someone could show me how to work out efficiency that would be great!

Cheers,
Nathan

[tl;dr] We made beer. It was fun!

 

[big78sam]

Congratulations!

To answer your question, there's no harm taking a sample on Thursday. Make sure you drink it after taking a reading though! Two test with the same reading 2 or 3 days apart and you should be good to go. There's no harm in leaving it on the yeast cake for 2 weeks though.

Just a comment on the temperature. The stick on thermometer will give you a rough indication but as fermentation is exothermic, i.e. it puts out heat, it might be a tad warmer than you expected. A water test will give you an idea but won't be the same as fermentation. Don't worry though as you're not looking at a huge difference, within a degree or 2, I'm sure you'll end up with a great beer. Just something to be aware of for future reference.

 

[Siborg]

Good stuff.

The reason the gravity is going up is because the liquid is evaporating, but the sugar (what gives gravity points) remains. As there is less liquid, there is a greater concentration of sugar. Hence, why you add water to give you a lower concentration of sugars. Also, those hydrometers are calibrated to work at room temperature. There is a tool in beersmith that allows you to enter your reading and the temperature of the reading and it will give you the true SG.

Have a go at Dr. Smurto's golden ale recipe. The mixtures of grains and hops won't make the brew any harder (in most cases). Its the basic process, which you seem to have a decent grasp of, that is most important. You can brew so, go nuts and try some more complex recipes.

 

[alien13]

Just a comment on the temperature. The stick on thermometer will give you a rough indication but as fermentation is exothermic, i.e. it puts out heat, it might be a tad warmer than you expected. A water test will give you an idea but won't be the same as fermentation. Don't worry though as you're not looking at a huge difference, within a degree or 2, I'm sure you'll end up with a great beer. Just something to be aware of for future reference.

Thanks, I didn't think of that when taking into account the temperature. Hopefully it will be fine since it doesn't seem to get too hot where I have it at the moment, and the ice bottles seem to keep it pretty cool. Looks like I'll take my first sample tomorrow and then in a couple days check it again to see how it goes.

Also, those hydrometers are calibrated to work at room temperature. There is a tool in beersmith that allows you to enter your reading and the temperature of the reading and it will give you the true SG.

Have a go at Dr. Smurto's golden ale recipe. The mixtures of grains and hops won't make the brew any harder (in most cases). Its the basic process, which you seem to have a decent grasp of, that is most important. You can brew so, go nuts and try some more complex recipes.

Yeah, I noticed the tool in BeerSmith and after putting in all the figures they come out at around about what I posted above (I wrote down all the temps, gravitys, etc). Thanks for that little tip!
As for DSGA, that was actually the one I was originally going to try, but after looking around and finding the summer ale, I decided I would leave it to another day, looks like I might give that one a crack once I've got this bottled.


Cheers for the replies guys,
Nathan

 

[alien13]

I took a reading today and it came out at around 1.013 @ 16C (straight out of the fermenter - is this too cold?). This might have been affected by the sediment in the tube as well but I did let it sit a while to get it to sink. Is there a way around this? The bubbling is also slowing down a lot so I'll take another reading in a day or two to see how it is going.

I also tried the sample and have to say it tastes pretty damn good so far, I can't wait til it's bottled and ready to drink. Should be something nice and easy to drink.

Nathan

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I normally use pro-mash to work out efficiency, but you have given enough info for me to rerverse engineer.

You were supposed to get 11L of 1.053 wort with an efficiency of 75% - so if you re-jig that you can translate that 100% efficiency would have given you 11L at 1.071. Now you got less volume, 9L hot, so lets say 8.5 cooled. Therefore 100% efficiency would have given you 8.5L at 1.091. You actually got got 8.5L at 1.074.

74/91 x 100 = 81

So you got about 81% efficiency measured in your kettle. Which is just about what i'd say is expected for a small batch with a little bit of a sparge.

A couple of brews and you'll get the volume thing under control - in the meantime it sounds like you did just about everything else right. Well done.


Easiest way to get to your actual efficiency, is to ignore all the efficiency tools in your software and just go back to your recipe page. You leave all your ingredients as they were, adjust the volume (assuming it is post boil volume as in pro-mash) to the post boil volume you actually got, and then all you need to do is tweak the expected efficiency number till your expected gravity matches your actual gravity. The efficiency figure you stop at is the efficiency you got. Leave it there for your next brew.

Hope that helps

TB

 

[alien13]

A couple of brews and you'll get the volume thing under control - in the meantime it sounds like you did just about everything else right. Well done.

Thanks for that post. It cleared a lot of things up for me, and makes using BeerSmith a bit easier as well. I can actually understand how things work together now (efficiency, boil/batch sizes, etc).

I might download pro-mash as well and give that a whirl to see what one I like better.

Also, regarding the pre/post boil volumes. Is this an okay amount to have boiled off, or could I play around to get a little less evaporation?

Nathan

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Boil off - optimally, its probably a bit high. But it can be really hard to control that sort of thing in small pots. Just tweak your flame down a little if you want to, making sure of course you still maintain a nice rolling boil, but it will always be quite high in a small pot - so i wouldn't stress about it.

More importantly, you just need to know what your boil off rate actually is - yours seems to be around 4L per hour - so all you need to know is that you want to start the boil with 4L more than you want to finish it with.

You work backwards from your desired post boi volume - add what you lose in the boil, add what you lose to absorbtion by the grain, subtract anything that you plan to use as sparge water - and that lets you know how much to put in the pot at the start in order to finish whe you want.

TB

 

[alien13]

You work backwards from your desired post boi volume - add what you lose in the boil, add what you lose to absorbtion by the grain, subtract anything that you plan to use as sparge water - and that lets you know how much to put in the pot at the start in order to finish whe you want.

Thanks again. I think I'll spend a bit of time working everything out so I can calculate recipes according to how big a batch size I'll have and my pre-boil/post-boil volume, etc. as it seems that by doing that I'll be able to scale down recipes a little easier, and not have to worry about fiddling around with diluting and add more of this and that, etc. But I guess that's all part of the learning process, and its not like it's not fun or anything. This is probably one of my favourite hobbies so far!

Hopefully next brew I'll take some more accurate readings so I can work out more precisely the pre/post boil volumes.

I can't thank everyone enough for their input, I'd have to say that this is one of the best forums I've been on where I don't have to dread looking at the replies because someone might start flaming me for this or that

Nathan