New AG brewer looking for answers.

[Andyburgs]

So I've gone from doing kits and bits at the start of the year and bottling to AG in a Robobrew (and no chill method) and kegging. I pretty happy with the beer I'm producing, but still have a few things I'm unsure on. Hoping the good people here can teach me more.
- Mashing I think I have done ok, I have pump to re circulate the wort, have had varying results on my expected SG but I have been milling my own grain, and am trying different size gaps in the mill, hopefully I'll work that out soon enough.
- Boiling - Few few brews I forgot to allow for no chill and beers are quite bitter.
Do I need to boil the wort for 60min, or can I do shorter boils without any side effects?
How long after 'flame out' should I leave wort before transferring to cube?
-Fermenting - Last brew I used Nottingham yeasts that smashed through its job in only a few days, is there any advantage in leaving it at fermenting temp for any longer before cold crashing it before kegging?
- Dry hopping - Does the beer need to be at fermenting temp for dry hopping? Or can I start the cold crash while the dry hops are in there?
- Cold crashing - How long is long enough?

I'm sure I'll think of more after I post this. Hope some more experienced Brewers than I can help me out.

 

[mstrelan]

Boil for 60 mins. Dry hop once the beer is 80% fermented; any earlier may lead to off flavours. Cold crash once the SG is the same for 3 days in a row. 48 hours at 1C is long enough.

Other members here will likely have completely different answers, but those work for me.

 

[damoninja]

Welcome to the world of AG - here's my thoughts no doubt you'll get many

- Mashing I think I have done ok, I have pump to re circulate the wort, have had varying results on my expected SG but I have been milling my own grain, and am trying different size gaps in the mill, hopefully I'll work that out soon enough.

Cool

- Boiling - Few few brews I forgot to allow for no chill and beers are quite bitter.
Do I need to boil the wort for 60min, or can I do shorter boils without any side effects?

All grain should be boiled for 60 minutes, there are different thoughts on this but a lot of cases suggest an overall better result. Protein coagulation yada yada
It also reduces the volume of wort and "concentrates it" some.

If you're brewing extracts you don't need to do this as the brewer that made the extract did it for you.

How long after 'flame out' should I leave wort before transferring to cube?

Many people inc me (when I used to) it while it's still seering hot, it's one more "kill" step for bacteria. If you have hops that call for flameout just dump them right in the cube.

Cold break will form in the cube, but it'll settle out nicely on the bottom.

DMS? Don't worry about it.

IBUs? Well, there's debates... but I've brewed the same beers in no chill and chilled and couldn't tell apart. DrSmurto's golden ale recipe says don't adjust it if you're gonna no chill it.

This is me but I haven't done it for years, sure some other guys will have input.

- Dry hopping - Does the beer need to be at fermenting temp for dry hopping? Or can I start the cold crash while the dry hops are in there?

You want to dry when fermentation is winding down or has stopped, you will want the beer to be at fermentation temps to release more oils etc then cold crash. I dry hop 3-5 days depending on the hop, chill, gelatin, keg.

- Cold crashing - How long is long enough?

Depends on the yeast really, some don't really need it at all (S04 for instance). Mostly a day or two, longer if you wish.

If using gelatin you'll want to leave it a day or so after you've added the gelatin.

Poor floccin' yeast = longer
Good floccin' yeast = shorter or none

Given that you're kegging, it's perpetually cold crashed anyway

 

[jyo]

- Boiling - Few few brews I forgot to allow for no chill and beers are quite bitter.
Do I need to boil the wort for 60min, or can I do shorter boils without any side effects?
How long after 'flame out' should I leave wort before transferring to cube?

Hey Andy. I'm a no-chiller and one way to avoid overly bitter or hop derived astringency in hoppier beers such as APAs and IPAs is to try the following-

Obtain roughly half of your bitterness from an addition at around 40 minutes from flameout.
Obtain the rest of your desired bitterness from a large flameout, whirlpool or even a cube addition. I personally don't really like cube additions and prefer whirlpool additions. But that's just me.
After flameout, I let the kettle sit for 15 minutes to allow convection currents to settle out. Then gently whirlpool with a large spoon and add my whirlpool addition. Let the kettle sit for a further 15 minutes. Drain to cube. So 30 minutes after flameout before I cube. The wort is still well above 85' at this stage, and I've never had a swollen cube. Lay the cube on its side for 5 minutes to sanitise the lid and I then put my cubes into the swimming pool (a large drum of water is also good). This stops isomerisation and further reduces the chance of hop astringency.

A few folks on here have experimented with shorter boils, some even going as low at 10 minutes :unsure: . Have a search on the results. 60- 90 minutes is standard.

Also, after you have a stable final gravity, leave the beer sitting at fermentation temps for a few more days to allow the yeast to clean up after itself a little.

 

[Rocker1986]

- Boiling - Few few brews I forgot to allow for no chill and beers are quite bitter.
Do I need to boil the wort for 60min, or can I do shorter boils without any side effects?

It's often recommended to boil for 60 minutes for AG. If your beers are ending up too bitter just move all the late additions to flameout or something. The 60 minute boil additions aren't affected by no-chilling.

How long after 'flame out' should I leave wort before transferring to cube?

I leave mine sit for about 20 minutes for the hot break to settle in the bottom of the kettle. If you transfer the wort straight away at flameout you get all the hot break in the cube as well, which you don't want.

-Fermenting - Last brew I used Nottingham yeasts that smashed through its job in only a few days, is there any advantage in leaving it at fermenting temp for any longer before cold crashing it before kegging?

Normally I leave my beers for a few days after it hits FG to let the yeast clean up a bit. Then they get cold crashed - 1 week for ales, 2 weeks for lagers.

- Dry hopping - Does the beer need to be at fermenting temp for dry hopping? Or can I start the cold crash while the dry hops are in there?
- Cold crashing - How long is long enough?

Normally I wait until the beer hits FG and dry hop then, while it's sitting around ferment temps for that few days before being cold crashed. Times of cold crashing noted above.

Once the brew is in the fermenter it's really no different to how you'd treat a kit or extract based batch - the difference is how the wort is produced.

 

[Coldspace]

I'm similar to rocker1986,
Dry hop, gelatine 24 hrs before cold crash, gives plenty of time for hop oils to disperse, warmer temp for the finnings to disperse plus only annoying the finished beer once before kegging , then wack 0 or -1 for 10 days ales 2 weeks lagers.
Plenty of diff ways to skin a cat.....

 

[Andyburgs]

Cheers everyone so far, sounds like I'm not too far off the mark.
What's the advantage to gelatin? I haven't heard of using it?

For those that cube hop, do you end up with heaps of hop matter floating around in your fermenter? If so, does it setting out OK after ferment and cold crash? I use a hop spider in my kettle so end up with very little.

Also, if I didn't use the hop spider, does that hop matter all end up at the bottom of the kettle after boil, and whirlfloc? Or do you end up with it all in your cube?

Thought of another question, with using rye and wheat malts, no husks, do you mill these the same? How crushed up do they need to be?

Sorry for so many questions that might seem quite basic, my only education for AG brewing and kegging is from what I've read over many hours/days/months on this forum.

Cheers
Andy

 

[Rocker1986]

Gelatine drops yeast out, but it also makes the sediment fluffy and easily disturbed. I use isinglass because it doesn't do that to the sediment, and Polyclar for chill haze. I wouldn't worry about these things just yet though, probably better off getting the more basic stuff down pat before mucking around with "optional extras" like that.

Hop matter will settle out in the fermenter during the cold crash yes.

Whirlfloc coagulates the proteins in the boil and drops them out during the standing period after flameout - this is why the wort is left to sit in the kettle for 15-20 minutes before transferring to the cube rather than being transferred straight away. The hop matter settles out into this kettle trub too.

Not sure about rye or wheat malts as I don't use them.

 

[damoninja]

Gelatine drops yeast out, but it also makes the sediment fluffy and easily disturbed. I use isinglass because it doesn't do that to the sediment, and Polyclar for chill haze. I wouldn't worry about these things just yet though, probably better off getting the more basic stuff down pat before mucking around with "optional extras" like that.

Hmm, haven't noticed this yet... Just kegged a jellied batch last night, gave a test pour tonight (not carbed yet, sanity check) and the punk was the clearest beer I've ever kegged. This one I left 2 days after gel and siphoned from the top though... did pull some from bottom when bottling the last 10L or so will see how they look.

 

[mtb]

Gelatin is magical.

 

[Rocker1986]

Every time I've used it has been with bottles, which I later decided was pointless because the yeast drop out quickly on their own and Polyclar works far better on chill haze anyway, which was what I was trying to remove.

But yeah, I did notice the yeast sediment moved quite easily even just taking the bottles out of the fridge to pour one. With isinglass, by contrast the sediment is very compacted and at times I can pour the entire bottle into a glass without disturbing it. I'll be sticking with it.

With kegs it probably doesn't matter so much especially once they're in and not being moved around, but given I do get surplus bottles from some batches I won't be using gelatine again.

 

[Roosterboy]

Can I just add in regard to bitterness. Bitterness comes from the alpha acids in hops but alpha acids don't dissolve very well in water until they are isomerised (ie molecule is rearranged ) which takes around
an hour of boiling the wort .

 

[Killer Brew]

Col. Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I think I'm entitled to.
Col. Jessep: *You want answers?*
Kaffee: *I want the truth!*
Col. Jessep: *You can't handle the truth!*

 

[damoninja]

Gelatine drops yeast out, but it also makes the sediment fluffy and easily disturbed. I use isinglass because it doesn't do that to the sediment, and Polyclar for chill haze. I wouldn't worry about these things just yet though, probably better off getting the more basic stuff down pat before mucking around with "optional extras" like that.

Thus far the keg is the clearest beer I've ever had come out of a keg so early on... The bottles are clear after a week and have a very thin layer of sediment a lot less than I'm used to seeing.

There are additional variables here namely a much larger kettle so larger area for hot break cone and a 60L fermenter vs 30L so trub and so on is more distributed across the bottom.

No chill haze either (for this beer, anyway)

 

[Rocker1986]

Yeah I used to get varying levels of chill haze in my beers. Some of them had hardly any and some were quite cloudy. Don't really know why this was, since the ingredients didn't really change and the process didn't change either. I always do my best to leave out the kettle trub. In the end I thought stuff it, I'll get some Polyclar and just get rid of it altogether. Been real happy with the results.

I probably got less sediment in the bottles with gelatine but it moved too easily during pouring. I get the same results with isinglass without the loose sediment, so I'm happy to stick with it. I dunno what it was about the gelatine that did that, maybe I didn't use it properly, maybe it just does that, but either way I'm happy with the isinglass now.

 

[Meddo]

Hey Rocker, were you letting the gelatin settle out before bottling?

I've been adding gelatin to my kegs up until the last one where the gelatin went into the FV 24 hours after starting cold-crash then kegged a few days later. So far it seems to have given a much better result, previously it would take two or three days in the keg to clear up, and then any disturbance would fluff it up again. This last one was crystal going into the keg, and after force-carbing / rock-n-rolling it poured like crystal straight away. Great success in my book

 

[BKBrews]

I cold crashed my beer for the first time last brew and was actually pretty amazed at what it did to the dry hop that I chucked in loose to the fermenter. When I had completely drained the fermenter after kegging, it was like the yeast cake had absorbed the hop matter. The hops were well and truly embedded within the yeast cake and there was no concern over any of it making its way into the keg during transfer.

 

[Rocker1986]

Yeah mate, used to let it sit there for 2-3 days before moving it into bottles. It was also added after the beer was chilled down for a cold crash. I may try it again if I run out of isinglass and can't get any more in time, but otherwise it will be kept away from my beers.

Yeah BK, cold crashing is great for dropping out hop matter into the trub. Normally I use tea strainer balls for dry hops, but sometimes I'm feeling lazy and just throw them in loose. Never get any hop matter in the keg/bottles/glass, it's great.