Pre Boil Volume

[Crusty]

Hi all,
My first AG will be just after lunch today & have just a couple of questions & I'm right to go.
In Beersmith it states after batch sparging for my recipe I need to collect 25.25 litres of wort for the boil. If I fall short of this volume it states to add water to achieve my boil volume, my questions are,

If I need to add water do I add more water to the mash tun ( heated or not? ) & collect desired amount or just add tap water ( cold )

It states in Beersmith to sparge 13.16 litres water at 75.6 deg & hold for a few minutes then drain off. I was told this may affect my effieciency & should aim my sparge water at 90 deg or so, ( batch sparging ) & aim for a mash out temp of around 76-78 deg.

Thanks,
Crusty

 

[arogers]

First of all, congratulations on making your move over to the dark side ;-) You won't regret it!

Now, I'm by no means an expert but what I currently do if I'm short on boil volume is add the necessary extra water to the mash tun and let it drain through the grain and into the kettle.

The only reasoning behind it is that if I have to add water, I may as well run it through the grain bed first to extract any lingering sugars (no point wasting em!) instead of simply adding it to the kettle to acheive the desired boil volume.

Of course you will find what works for you, as you may find your OG/efficiency is OK without doing this and is completely unnecessary. I do it because my mash tun is just an esky and some braid and it is probably not that efficient in extracting all the good stuff from the grain in the normal sparging process.

Hope this helps, I'm sure somebody more knowledgeable will chip in here.

 

[Screwtop]

Water to the kettle is fine Crusty. Check your gravity first though, don't want to be adding water if your are low on efficiency (gravity) to the kettle.

Are you boiling for 90 min, this gets a bit more water through your grain in the sparge and provides a little lattitude in shortening up your boil time if you come in above your target gravity. If over gravity use the boiloff utility in beersmith to calc your boil time for your target OG. Just boil then until 60 min of your boil time is left then add your 60 min bittering hop addition and so on. IE: 90min boil after 30 min add 60 min hops. 80 min boil after 20 min add 60 min hops etc.

Hope you get some other opinions on this, it all helps.

Congrats on your first today!


Screwy

 

[Crusty]

Thanks regulator,
Your advice is appreciated mate.

Screwy,
I am intending to do a 60 minute boil but will see how much wort I have collected & measure the OG & go from there. I tweaked the Beersmith calculations slightly & didn't bother with part litre measurements. I took it up to the nearest litre & will adjust boil time if necessary.
I heated up 12 litres of water at strike temp of 75 deg & tipped it into the mash tun. Added the grain & gave her a really good stir, looks & smells great. Mash tun temp stabilised at 65.7, aiming for 66 but I think it's close enough. Lid is now on & the 60 minute rest is happening. I have put 7 litres of mash out water in the boil kettle & will heat this up to basically boiling or just under & mash out for 10 minutes. Aiming for a mashout temp of 76-78 deg.
Will keep updating.
Cheers,
Crusty

 

[Crusty]

Hoorah!
Got my firt AG done & into the fermenter.
I think I went ok.
Mash out temp fell a little short. I was aiming for 76 deg & came in at 73 deg, even after upping my mash temp water to practically boiling. I checked the mash temp after the hour & it was 65.4 deg, originally at 65.7 deg, hardly any loss of temp there. Went through the processes & done a OG reading whilst transferring to the fermenter. Estimate was 1.046 & I came in at 1.048, pretty close. I added 1 litre of water to the fermenter to achieve my volume of just over 20 litres. I got distracted at one point & siphoned a little gunk into the fermenter, hope this doesnt affect things too much. All in all it was a pretty good experience from kit & time will tell how I went.
Cheers,
Crusty

 

[mika]

You've done real well for your first brew. Mine was all over the place, stuffed up my HLT calibration so ended up with too much volume into the kettle, then didn't get anywhere near my predicted boil off rate and it was still good beer. You'll have a real good beer there.

 

[Crusty]

Thanks mika,
Sounds silly but I was nevous as hell. I think I will pick up on some little issues next brew & get better each time. I am pretty happy with how it all went & typed some figures into Beersmith & hammered home a brewhouse effieciency based on target volume of 78.45%. I sure hope that's right cause I'm happy with that.
I was worried about everything today from possible stuck sparge, grain too finely crushed, missing target temps, blah, blah, blah. Next brew I think will be a bit more enjoyable.
Cheers,
Crusty

 

[Crusty]

I managed a few pics whilst praying to the beer gods for a good efficiency.

Barley Crusher:

Milled Grain:

Mash Tun:

First runnings:

Chiller:

Burner on slow mo:

A bit more grunt:

Had to make do with bricks for a stand as my steel stand isn't finished yet. The burner worked well & will boil 40 litres of water in 20 minutes. I did a test on her on Friday afternoon. You can bring the wort back up to boiling temp after you add the chiller almost instantly.
I really enjoyed the day & looking forward to the end of fermentation & tasting the JSGA clone. Thanks Dr Smurto for the recipe.
Cheers,
Crusty

 

[Ross]

Nice work Crusty. Looks like all went well - look forward to hearing how she turns out :icon_chickcheers:

cheers Ross

 

[Crusty]

Thanks Ross,

A big thank you too for three orders I made from you & the team at Craftbrewer. Your service & prices are second to none. I'm not used to receiving orders so fast & it's great dealing with true professionals.

A couple more pisc of the day,

Hot break about to happen:

First hop addition:

Cheers,
Crusty

 

[Screwtop]

So how did it all go Crusty? Hope you enjoyed the day.

Screwy

 

[Crusty]

Hey Screwy,
Pretty happy at this stage with all going pretty well. Temps were close & no dramas with stuck sparges or anything. I ended up draining a fair bit of hops & crud into the primary after the boil whilst i was distracted for a bit but will endevour to strain it out once racking to the secondary in 7 days time. Dry hopping 15gms amariilo pellets into secondary for another 7 days. Fermentation has begun with a steady bloop of the bubbler on top of the fermenter. One thing I noticed was when making kit beer, if you smell the bubbler it actually smells a little like beer. Mine smells very much like Amarillo hops at the moment. Not sure if that's a concern. I have a fair bit of gunk in the bottom of the fermenter which I will try to control next time round.
Cheers,
Crusty

 

[Screwtop]

Hey great! Crud in the bottom, no worries.

 

[trevc]

Hey Crusty,

Big congrats.. sounds like everything went really well. 78% is great too. We ended up with a similar mashout temp of 72C on that recipe... I guess the water needs to be boiling.

Ours is already finished fermenting, as as expected, it tastes fantastic. It wouldn't surprise me if this ends up better than the original JSGA. I don't think this batch will last long at all! I'll have to mail you a tallie of ours for comparison when it's done.

I'll be installing gear in the 90L pot, and doing our first double-batch soon.

 

[Crusty]

Thanks for the comments guys.
Fermentation is doin it's thing & all seems to be going as expected. The smell of the Amarillo has subsided quite a bit & it smells a little beery & kinda sweet. I hope thats normal. I will transfer to secondary next weekend & add the Amarillo pellets in a steralised muslin bag with a marble or two in there to sink em. I will leave that for a further 7 days, transfer to the keg, chill overnight & transfer from keg to keg & I will filter this one. I am going to carb this one at 89kpa, 4 deg, & leave it alone for 7-10 days. This, according to Beersmith, should give me 2.6 volumes Co2.

Trev,
It will be good to compare notes. I have noted everything down & will tweak the next one to try & get closer to mash temp especially.
Gotta get myself a Fridgemate to control my fermentation temps. Mine is fairly low temp fermenting ATM with temps from 17-22 deg. I would like to wrap a brewbelt or something around it plugged into the Fridgemate & hold it at 22 deg or so.
Cheers,
Crusty

 

[trevc]

Mine was fermented at exactly 17C, I raised the temp to 19C a couple of days ago. It's now showing 1.010, which would make it just over 4.7%... sounds good.
I'll rack in to secondary tomorrow.

You can use those tea leave strainers for dry hopping. They're really cheap and stainless steel, easy to sterilise, and they sink. Tea shops have them, along with lots of other places.

 

[trevc]

Have you tasted yours lately Crusty? Ended up drinking my whole hydrometer sample yesterday... great stuff.

 

[Crusty]

buttersd70,
Thanks for the tip mate. I had thought about just tossing them in but I think a stainless tea strainer would be the go as Trev mentioned.

Trev,
I took a sample this afternoon & I can taste a whole heap of flavours. Kinda like beerish, slightly wineish, a little sweetish, hoppish & a little grainish if that makes any sense
I used the opportunity to test the sample with the hydrometer & she's reading 1.020, definately heading in the right direction. Your's must of tasted a bit better than mine, I did't drink mine, a bit early for me. It definately has potential. It is going to be a great beer I think.
Cheers,
Crusty

 

[trevc]

Mine tastes very close to a flat JSGA... I wish I had kegs, just to get this stuff in to a glass quicker.
I bet yours will end up the same, once it gets down to 1.010 ish. My the taste so far, I doubt this beer will need any ageing.

Make sure you buy the biggest tea strainer they have. There's usually three sizes, with the medium one just packing in 15 to 20g's of pellets. It's probably better to have them less packed.

I've just transferred to secondary. 22g's of hops (2 extra) for good measure
Set the temperature to 5C. I'll leave it like that for a week, but take the hops out after 4 days.

 

[Crusty]

Pretty similar here Trev,
It's definately gunna be a cracker once it's cold & carbed.
Is it standard procedure to take the hops out of secondary after the 4 days?
I was going to leave mine in there for the whole 7 days.
Hop additions were a little different for my recipe compared to yours.
No Pride of Ringwood for mine, all Amarillo,
20gm at 60min,
15gm at 10min
2gm Copperfloc at 10min
15gm at 5 min
15gm at 0min or into secondary.
I might even have a go at your recipe next time.
Cheers,
Crusty