My First AG

[macca05]

Hey guys,
Just have some questions about my first AG I did a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully someone can answer them for me.

1. I made a mistake and only ended up with 18L when I wanted 24L. Its seems to have finished fermenting now. Could I rack it to a secondary fermenter with 6L boiled cold water to achieve the 24L I wanted or should I just be happy with it as it was my first AG.

2. My OG reading with a Refrac was 1.058. Was aiming for 1.053. Its been fermenting for 2 weeks now and seems to have stopped. I checked with my refrac and it shows as 1.030, but if I use my hydro it says 1.016 (was aiming for 1.012). I did read somewhere that you should only use the refrac until its in the fermenter. After that stick to a hydro. Is that right?

3. As I am going to keg it is it good to cold crash it now so all the yeast etc settles at the bottom before its kegged. My sample if pretty cloudy but I have never cold crashed before. Is it beneficial?

Oh its a SNPA clone that I was trying out by the way. Hopefully will have it gassed in a couple of weeks to test it. I dont know if I carbonate slow but I found personally it takes about 2 weeks before I like the taste.

Cheers
Macca

 

[Bribie G]

Commercial breweries do this all the time to make full use of their fermenter "real estate". It's called over gravity brewing. The beer is often really strong initially and gets watered down.

CUB don't call this "watering down", it's "adjusting to sale strength" :lol:
I'd bet London to a brick that when CUB upped VB back to 4.9% they simply let the water run for a few minutes less.

Best to get it as clear as possible before kegging so you don't lose too much on your first couple of pours.

You can use a refrac for final gravity but must adjust as the alcohol will give a false reading. There's an adjustment table floating around somewhere, and there are good adjustment tools in BrewMate and Beersmith.

Sounds very drinkable, enjoy :beerbang:

 

[roverfj1200]

I top up any short falls when first put in the fermenter.

I would think it is done and would only make 1012 if it was full volume.

CCing will help clear it and condition it a bit too.

Cheers

 

[macca05]

Hey thanks for the responses.
So let me get this right. If I add the extra volume to a second fermenter and then transfer the wort to this one, do I encourage o2 or not. Do I want it to start fermenting again or will it actually start fermenting again?
I will put it back into my ferm fridge so it will be about 16c
Then CC for a day or 2 at about 6c right?

Sorry for the many questions. I am wanting to really get into my brewing properly as I seem to be having a bit of a hit and miss with some of my bottles made about 6-12 months ago. Some have a very off after taste even though they were good about 3 months ago. Hoping to buy more kegs as 3 aint enough

 

[philmud]

You want to CC below 6C if you can mate, around 1-2C is better. I'd leave it at least 2 days but possibly longer. The CC will help yeast to dropout of suspension - awesomely easy way to improve your beer

 

[macca05]

Awesome man thanks for the input. Yeh I use a fermenting fridge so Ill change the temp. Can a fridge go that low, anyway ill give it a go now

 

[philmud]

Drop it gradually so you don't put too much pressure on your fridge, but mine gets down to 2C and it's a shitty old number

 

[macca05]

Drop it gradually so you don't put too much pressure on your fridge, but mine gets down to 2C and it's a shitty old number

Thanks for the tip. I actually hadnt done it yet, so i will drop it start it now

 

[Rocker1986]

I just drop mine straight to CC temp with no problems. You'll find the fridge will just work as it normally would without being controlled by an external controller until it hits the set temp, so I don't see how that's really putting any added pressure on it. At least, that's what mine does.

 

[macca05]

I did think so but i thought id take the safe approach. The fridge hasnt really had to work hard in a very long time. I already dropped it from 14 to 9, tmrw ill drop it to 2 cuz i really wanna keg it. i have no good homebrew. had to resort to buying some montieths black beer yesterday. Going to try and clone that next hopefully

 

[Rocker1986]

Yeah fair call. The fridge itself will always just work as if it was just plugged straight into the wall. The STC doesn't actually technically override the fridge's thermostat, all it does is cut the power to the fridge. Basically what happens when you drop the temp is that the temp inside the fridge drops a lot quicker than the temp of the beer does, so the STC doesn't cut the power to the fridge - it just leaves it run as it normally would until the beer hits the desired temp and then commences the on/off cycle to maintain it. The fridge won't get any colder than what you have set the fridge itself to.

I found this out when I had my fridge set to about 4C and the STC set to 2C - the STC just kept the fridge on and wouldn't go below 4C. Once I realised, I changed the fridge setting to its coldest and it got down with no problems at all.

 

[macca05]

Yeah fair call. The fridge itself will always just work as if it was just plugged straight into the wall. The STC doesn't actually technically override the fridge's thermostat, all it does is cut the power to the fridge. Basically what happens when you drop the temp is that the temp inside the fridge drops a lot quicker than the temp of the beer does, so the STC doesn't cut the power to the fridge - it just leaves it run as it normally would until the beer hits the desired temp and then commences the on/off cycle to maintain it. The fridge won't get any colder than what you have set the fridge itself to.

I found this out when I had my fridge set to about 4C and the STC set to 2C - the STC just kept the fridge on and wouldn't go below 4C. Once I realised, I changed the fridge setting to its coldest and it got down with no problems at all.

I dropped the temp of the stc today to 2c and also checked the fridge thermostat setting. It was already at its coldest. Its moving pretty slowly. After an hour I think its only dropped from 9 to 7 so hopefully itll work. Its just a small bar fridge
Will check its progress throughout the evening and see how it goes. My probe for the stc is mounted against the ferm under some black foam that is taped to the ferm. I used to have it in the fridge along time ago but noticed the cylcle was really quick. This way the cycle has slowed right down as it hopefully is the temp of the wort and not the fridge inside that it is reading.
Thanks again for the info.

Macca

 

[Rocker1986]

Yeah it will take a while to come down, that's pretty normal. It's because it's measuring the temperature of the wort (as you hoped); it takes a lot longer to change the temperature of that volume of liquid compared to just the air in the fridge. That's also why the fridge itself is already at its coldest, and why the cycle is slower. I can get my fridge/wort down to 0.6C, it often takes 24 hours or more to bring the wort down to that from the 18-20 I ferment at, but the fridge itself is probably at its coldest within a few hours. I also use that same method of taping the probe to the side of the FV underneath some foam. I've checked the temp with a thermometer whenever I take a gravity reading and it's pretty much bang on, so I'm happy with that.

If you find that the temperature refuses to go below a certain amount before it hits 2C then you've probably found the coldest you can get it, in which case just change the setting on the STC to that temperature - this will make it go back to the normal on/off cycle that it normally does.

 

[macca05]

Nice one man, Ill leave it till I get home from work tmrw and check the temp to see if its reached 2c. I actually reckon it will hit 2c in a couple of hours. Just checked it then and its already 4.4c so it took about 4 hours to drop 2.5c. Good to know my fridge is actually working. Best fridge I ever bought. Paid $50 bucks for it about 2 years ago and I had to strip the inside of the door down so I could fit a ferm in it properly. And she is still going strong.
I love this hobby. Learning so much every day.
Now I just have to build myself a control box. Got most of the parts just waiting on a bit more

 

[Rocker1986]

Excellent. Yeah you'll probably find it'll be sitting at 2C now (assuming the fridge goes to that temp). Not a bad deal on the fridge either by the sounds of it. I was lucky and got mine for free as it was just sitting in the laundry area masquerading as a wine storage cupboard. It's an old Frigidaire from the 40s or 50s and still going strong. It has a freezer chest built into the main fridge area so I don't know if that allows it to drop to near zero but I'm sure not complaining haha! Been loving the clarity I've been getting from beers that have just simply been crash chilled for a week or so, and of course the controlled fermenting temps as well.