Help With First Ag

[brad05]

Hi Everyone,

I have used all the valuable knowledge on this site to do my very first AG brew. I used a 26L esky as a mash tun and a 35l stock pot with a gas burner for the boil. As this is my first I haven't quite got the setup I should have, but I'm trying to give it a go anyway. So I should explain what I have done;

I tried DrSmurtos Golden Ale

Mashed 16L @ 66C for 60min (I placed the grain in swiss voile for easy clean up)
After the mash I rinsed the grain a couple of times in 76C fresh water
Boiled the lot for 60 min with hops as per recipe

The density was 1.040 @ 27C and after 4 days fermentation with BrewCraft American Ale yeast is is now at 1.007 @ 21C

Now the only question I have is, I haven't ever had the density that low before on any of my brews, so obviously I didn't get the efficiency that I was looking for. But it also tastes a little like flour. Err maybe not bad but not but it probably isn't as sweet as it should be.

Can anyone shed some light on and give me some feedback on both the taste and how my bad processes affected it?

and what can I do better with the equipment I currently have?

Thanks from a newbie and still committed AG brewer. (the next will always be better)

Brad

 

[jyo]

Hi Everyone,

I have used all the valuable knowledge on this site to do my very first AG brew. I used a 26L esky as a mash tun and a 35l stock pot with a gas burner for the boil. As this is my first I haven't quite got the setup I should have, but I'm trying to give it a go anyway. So I should explain what I have done;

I tried DrSmurtos Golden Ale

Mashed 16L @ 66C for 60min (I placed the grain in swiss voile for easy clean up)
After the mash I rinsed the grain a couple of times in 76C fresh water
Boiled the lot for 60 min with hops as per recipe

The density was 1.040 @ 27C and after 4 days fermentation with BrewCraft American Ale yeast is is now at 1.007 @ 21C

Now the only question I have is, I haven't ever had the density that low before on any of my brews, so obviously I didn't get the efficiency that I was looking for. But it also tastes a little like flour. Err maybe not bad but not but it probably isn't as sweet as it should be.

Can anyone shed some light on and give me some feedback on both the taste and how my bad processes affected it?

and what can I do better with the equipment I currently have?

Thanks from a newbie and still committed AG brewer. (the next will always be better)

Brad

I can't offer you much advice on your efficiency because I am still trying trying to improve my own. It looks like your water to grain ratio may be a little high. But the 'flour' taste you describe may just be the different taste of an AG brew. If you have ever steeped crystal malts before and tasted the wort before adding to the fermenter, then you will have a fair idea. I'd like to know how may lurkers there are on here tinkering away in their sheds at the moment??? First post and you have an AG in the fermenter!!!
Welcome to the forum.
It will taste great, mate.

 

[brad05]

I can't offer you much advice on your efficiency because I am still trying trying to improve my own. It looks like your water to grain ratio may be a little high. But the 'flour' taste you describe may just be the different taste of an AG brew. If you have ever steeped crystal malts before and tasted the wort before adding to the fermenter, then you will have a fair idea. I'd like to know how may lurkers there are on here tinkering away in their sheds at the moment??? First post and you have an AG in the fermenter!!!
Welcome to the forum.
It will taste great, mate.

Thanks, I was thinking it may be me just getting used to the taste. I think you would be surprised how many lurkers there are. This site has very good information regarding all forms of brewing. Myself and a co worker have spent many hours investigating during work hours :icon_cheers: . I hope all will be well. I am jumping in head first.

 

[Screwtop]

Hi Everyone,

I have used all the valuable knowledge on this site to do my very first AG brew. I used a 26L esky as a mash tun and a 35l stock pot with a gas burner for the boil. As this is my first I haven't quite got the setup I should have, but I'm trying to give it a go anyway. So I should explain what I have done;

I tried DrSmurtos Golden Ale

Mashed 16L @ 66C for 60min (I placed the grain in swiss voile for easy clean up)
After the mash I rinsed the grain a couple of times in 76C fresh water
Boiled the lot for 60 min with hops as per recipe

The density was 1.040 @ 27C and after 4 days fermentation with BrewCraft American Ale yeast is is now at 1.007 @ 21C

Now the only question I have is, I haven't ever had the density that low before on any of my brews, so obviously I didn't get the efficiency that I was looking for. But it also tastes a little like flour. Err maybe not bad but not but it probably isn't as sweet as it should be.

Can anyone shed some light on and give me some feedback on both the taste and how my bad processes affected it?

and what can I do better with the equipment I currently have?

Thanks from a newbie and still committed AG brewer. (the next will always be better)

Brad

Firstly, good on you for absorbing some info before venturing on your first AG Brad. Gotta start somewhere but the Ready, Fire, Aim approach leads to dramas.

Your question begs a thousand more questions! I'd say you've produced a very fermentable wort a little low in OG, and that the result is as it should be. If sparging in the manner described, then you might need to increase your sparge water temp to achieve a sparge temp of 76 deg in your mashbed. After draining and dropping the grist into 76 deg water there would be a decrease in temp, if I am understanding your process correctly. A warmer sparge would most likely extract more sugars and increase eff.

You have now added learnt information to what you have gleaned from this site and now have a reference point for future brewing. As you say "the next will always be better", congrats!

Screwy

 

[bradsbrew]

How have you measured the temp of your mash? To get a FG of 1007 it may have been a lower mash temp say 62/63.

Also I had a couple of early brews had a grainy/flour flavour to them. I have since established that these flavours were due due to a poor boil , meaning my burner was struglling to keep a good rolling boil.

Cheers Brad

 

[brad05]

How have you measured the temp of your mash? To get a FG of 1007 it may have been a lower mash temp say 62/63.

Also I had a couple of early brews had a grainy/flour flavour to them. I have since established that these flavours were due due to a poor boil , meaning my burner was struglling to keep a good rolling boil.

Cheers Brad

Ahhh. I think you may be right. I didn't think it needed to be a full-on boil. My burner is excellent but I only just had it turning over. Should it be bubbling rapidly or turning over gently?

and also I did measure the temp and it was definetly 66C or above for the whole mash. Didn't lose hardly any temp in 60min.

 

[brad05]

Firstly, good on you for absorbing some info before venturing on your first AG Brad. Gotta start somewhere but the Ready, Fire, Aim approach leads to dramas.

Your question begs a thousand more questions! I'd say you've produced a very fermentable wort a little low in OG, and that the result is as it should be. If sparging in the manner described, then you might need to increase your sparge water temp to achieve a sparge temp of 76 deg in your mashbed. After draining and dropping the grist into 76 deg water there would be a decrease in temp, if I am understanding your process correctly. A warmer sparge would most likely extract more sugars and increase eff.

You have now added learnt information to what you have gleaned from this site and now have a reference point for future brewing. As you say "the next will always be better", congrats!

Screwy

Thanks for the reply Screwy. I think you may be right with the lower OG. If I was to do this again should I leave it in the sparge water for 10-15min?

 

[jakub76]

Hey, good on you for jumping in head first - nothing like a baptism of fire.
1.040 at 27C is 1.043 so it's still low but not a complete loss. I also use an esky for a mash tun, some simple bunnings plumbing and you can optimize for batch sparge and get your efficiency up to 75%. Don't worry all that voile will still come in handy for filtering into fermenter and for priming fruit beers.
I also experienced a floury/dusty taste in my 1st BIAB brew. It freaked me out but was gone after about 3 weeks in bottles.

Here's a link to my 1st AG with plenty of pics http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...showtopic=41749

There's heaps of good tutorials online about mash tun manifold fabrication, you can slap something together in an hour that will work just fine.

Keep us posted

 

[bradsbrew]

Ahhh. I think you may be right. I didn't think it needed to be a full-on boil. My burner is excellent but I only just had it turning over. Should it be bubbling rapidly or turning over gently?

and also I did measure the temp and it was definetly 66C or above for the whole mash. Didn't lose hardly any temp in 60min.

I have found that lower sparge temps give lower FG's but also give lower efficiency. When I first started doing full mash brewing I thought the water needed to be ^^ degree so I had this temp for mash, then the mash out water was added at 66 and sparge water was 66. I had shit efficiency but the beers were still good. Actually I found that using lower mash out and sparge temp water helped to dry out some belgian beers.

brad

 

[dbod]

Congrats on getting the first one down. I've got my first AG in the fermementer too. 1050/1010 ended up with 23 litres but I now see I've got enough trub in there that the yeast cake is blocking the tap so I'll be doing my first ever siphon too!
My only aspiration is that it's chuggable and contains alcohol, that has to be a success first time out.

My hydrometer tasters were more subtle than I was expecting. I thought I'd have big Fuggles tastes but seems more subtle. The waiting is the worst now!

I tried a Gale's Festival Mild from the CAMRA book.

My setup for mashing

The goods

Just mashing out into a bucket to measure volume, batch sparged like yourself, water temps were similar to yours, I didn't worry too much about them first time, ballpark is good enough when you're still getting used to the process.

I did a 90 minute boil but it could have been more vigorous, I felt 'shy' of really boiling the shit out of it. :wub:

I'm hooked, can't wait to get the next one on. Good luck..

 

[bradsbrew]

Congrats on getting the first one down. I've got my first AG in the fermementer too. 1050/1010 ended up with 23 litres but I now see I've got enough trub in there that the yeast cake is blocking the tap so I'll be doing my first ever siphon too!
My only aspiration is that it's chuggable and contains alcohol, that has to be a success first time out.

My hydrometer tasters were more subtle than I was expecting. I thought I'd have big Fuggles tastes but seems more subtle. The waiting is the worst now!

I tried a Gale's Festival Mild from the CAMRA book.

Mate if you put the fermenter on a slight tilt, put a small wedge under the tap side of the fermenter, and cold crash it for a few days the trub will settle out and you won't have to siphon.

Chhers Brad

 

[dbod]

Thanks, good tip, wedged and cold crashing now, raced straight out to give it a whirl!

 

[brad05]

Congrats on getting the first one down. I've got my first AG in the fermementer too. 1050/1010 ended up with 23 litres but I now see I've got enough trub in there that the yeast cake is blocking the tap so I'll be doing my first ever siphon too!
My only aspiration is that it's chuggable and contains alcohol, that has to be a success first time out.

My hydrometer tasters were more subtle than I was expecting. I thought I'd have big Fuggles tastes but seems more subtle. The waiting is the worst now!

I tried a Gale's Festival Mild from the CAMRA book.

My setup for mashing

The goods

Just mashing out into a bucket to measure volume, batch sparged like yourself, water temps were similar to yours, I didn't worry too much about them first time, ballpark is good enough when you're still getting used to the process.

I did a 90 minute boil but it could have been more vigorous, I felt 'shy' of really boiling the shit out of it. :wub:

I'm hooked, can't wait to get the next one on. Good luck..

I was actually surprised that I hit all the temps almost spot on straight away. Due to the lack of a third vessel I might sparge into a bucket like you do for the next one. The aim is to keep it as simple as possible for the time being, churn out some good beers and then work out what equipment I want to get.

On a side note I just picked up a 25kg bag of joe white traditional ale for $20 so I've got some cheap base ingredient to start off with.

Thanks everyone for the tips. I will probably look at hooking a tap to the mash tun when I work out whether I want to keep doing 20l batches. I have a 60l fermenter so I might go bigger. One step at a time though.


Brad

 

[Screwtop]

Thanks for the reply Screwy. I think you may be right with the lower OG. If I was to do this again should I leave it in the sparge water for 10-15min?

Not knowing what yeast you used...........remember the attenuation capacity of yeast..... lower OG = lower FG. Example OG 1.054 wort fermented using a yeast which provides an average Apparent Attenuation of 75% should result in an FG of around 1.013. Had the wort OG been 1.045 then the FG would be around 1.011. If you used 05 in good fermentable wort at a lowish gravity (where yeast is not deterred by high levels of alcohol during fermentation) then the 80AA% which you achieved to reach 1.007 is not unusual.

Many forget about where they are starting from, gravity-wise, variations in mash temp make very little difference to FG given a particular mash. Try repeating a recipe using the same mash times but vary the temp , ferment the wort at the same temp using the same (fresh) yeast. The diff in gravity points between mash temps of say 68 and 63 degrees will only be around 3 points of FG. Naturally this depends a lot upon the OG of the wort and is more extrapolated at lower gravities. Mash temp is more about mouthfeel, a yeast's capacity to ferment to say an AA% of 75 means only that is will leave some sugars behind (this can be a combination of simple and complex/detrinous sugars), the breakdown of these ramaining sugars effects mouthfeel.

Sparge temp (temp of mash and water combined) needs to be around 77deg. So heat your sparge water to whatever is required to achieve this temp once the two are combined (test and experience using your kit will provide this) When draining and batch sparging I needed to heat my sparge water to 90+deg to achieve sparge temp of 77 in the tun using my kit and process. Stir and leave for 10 min before recirculating to clear then drain.

I have found that lower sparge temps give lower FG's but also give lower efficiency. When I first started doing full mash brewing I thought the water needed to be ^^ degree so I had this temp for mash, then the mash out water was added at 66 and sparge water was 66. I had shit efficiency but the beers were still good. Actually I found that using lower mash out and sparge temp water helped to dry out some belgian beers.

brad

Naturally the beers were drier, you simply mashed for a longer time at 66 deg. Not sparging hot enough will effect efficiency and not using a mash out temp step is a little haphazard if looking to produce repeatable results. Not entirely necessary in the tun but still necessary to seal your mash profile by ceasing enzymic activity by raising temp at the end of your mash schedule. If batch sparging this can be done without raising the temp using a mash out step in the tun by draining first runnings to the kettle and begin heating immediately to raise the temp of the first runnings above 77deg in the kettle while sparging in the tun.

Cheers,

Screwy

 

[bradsbrew]

Thanks Screwy, Explains a few things.