RdeVjun
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 19/1/09
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Yeah, no problem Bjorn, and its enlightening for sure. For me, what it points to are two take- home messages:
1) The fuller the pot/kettle the better, if its 1.080 etc (for example) and not full, then dilute it (with sparge or plain) to get better hops utilisation and use less of them.
2) I guess we're all hoping it isn't necessary to do these sorts of adjustments, but with a space shortage or faced with the added cost to go with a traditional 3-V system, or even an urn, that's the equipment we use and have to make them to get the desired result.
Like I say though, I've never been 100% happy with the hops levels with most of my batches, some have been very close, but I've not had anything much to compare it to (no offense to guys whose beers I've sampled either), plus other factors (different chilling methods, yeast strains, fermentation and mash temperatures, ingredients and hops rates etc.- no two batches are the same but I'm sure trying to change only one thing at a time) so I can't say definitively what's at fault.
The other thing I've been meaning to mention is that if you don't sparge/mashout, the spent grain would
I presume make an ideal base for a 'small beer'. That's something I've wanted to do for a while, but I've assumed that after the mashout the enzymes necessary to achieve it would be ruined plus much of the remaining sugars are gone with the sparge anyway, and so haven't bothered. Anyone been there before?
1) The fuller the pot/kettle the better, if its 1.080 etc (for example) and not full, then dilute it (with sparge or plain) to get better hops utilisation and use less of them.
2) I guess we're all hoping it isn't necessary to do these sorts of adjustments, but with a space shortage or faced with the added cost to go with a traditional 3-V system, or even an urn, that's the equipment we use and have to make them to get the desired result.
Like I say though, I've never been 100% happy with the hops levels with most of my batches, some have been very close, but I've not had anything much to compare it to (no offense to guys whose beers I've sampled either), plus other factors (different chilling methods, yeast strains, fermentation and mash temperatures, ingredients and hops rates etc.- no two batches are the same but I'm sure trying to change only one thing at a time) so I can't say definitively what's at fault.
The other thing I've been meaning to mention is that if you don't sparge/mashout, the spent grain would
I presume make an ideal base for a 'small beer'. That's something I've wanted to do for a while, but I've assumed that after the mashout the enzymes necessary to achieve it would be ruined plus much of the remaining sugars are gone with the sparge anyway, and so haven't bothered. Anyone been there before?