First Foray Into Rice

[cdbrown]

I brewed a double batch of premium american lager the other week and NC into 2 cubes. Last night had planned to dump them both into the 60L fermenter and use some saved yeast from Bohpils which I racked. Opened the first, all smelled nice and dumped it, opened the second and initially got a strong smell of plastic/chlorine smell, no smell of wort at all. Just inside the openening of the cube was some white sludge. Last time I had an infection in the cube the thing swelled up pretty quickly while the bacteria did it's job, this time there was just a sludge and no smell. I decided not to risk the whole lot and recapped the cube.

I took a smell of the cube today and there wasn't the strong chemical smell, but I could smell the wort, so maybe the initial hit of the gas in the cube last night stopped me from smelling other things? Any idea what could cause the smell/slugde. I always soak the inside of cubes in napisan unscented and rinse with cold water 3 or 4 times.

I tested the grav in the fermenter and it was 1.074 instead of the target 1.056. When draining to the 2 cubes is it normal for one cube to be higher grav than the other? Is it like draining a mash where the first runnings is higher than second? I do top up 10L after the boil but don't think I would have filled one cube and then just topped up the other. Maybe I got more that 65% efficiency with the rice and better milling of the grains this time. Anyway, added 6L of water to get it down to target OG.

Hope the 40L of weizen I have is ok.

 

[raven19]

This is a little perplexing, if any critters have taken hold surely the gravity would be dropping if infected?

I cant see the difference in a liquid split between two cubes being vastly different in SG's if its drained within a reasonable period of time (i.e. not allowing denser matter to settle lower in the kettle).

I would be treating this second batch with caution mate, pitch yeast now and taste during the ferment.

Double check those readings too imo.

 

[cdbrown]

The first cube seemed fine and it had a grav of 1.074 before adding water to drop it. The 2nd cube which is suspect is sitting on the shed floor - I haven't taken a reading of it and didn't dare chuck it in with the good cube. I'll check the grav tonight. Maybe I actually hit a good effeciency this time. At 65% I was aiming at 1.056.

If the bohpils was actually done and ready to keg then I'd have space to ferment the 2 batches separately, but as such have bohpils taking up the small fridge and the 28L of yank lager in a 60L ferm in the other.