Questions Before First Extract Brew

[Dazza_devil]

Just thought I'd provide everyone with an update on how my first extract brew went. Given my small apartment and the lack of available space I had to do this I thought I'd type out my process for the benefit of others in the same situation.

Night before brew day
1. boiled 12 litres of water and transfered it into a sanitised container to cool overnight to room temperature. Boiling that quantity of stuff (water, wort or otherwise) on my stove takes forever, so give yourself plenty of time if you are using a crap electric stove.

Brew day
1. Sanitised fermenter and other required equipment, strainer, thermometer, spoon etc...

2. Steeped grain in boil pot in 8 litres of 66 degree celcius water. Used a grain bag for this. Steeping caramalt smells great, gives you a sense of what brewing all grain must be like. Followed Boagsy's instructions for sparging the grain in an additional 2 litres brought up to temperature in a second pot.

3. Transferred the 2 litres of sparged water into the pot with the rest of the wort and added dried malt extract to the amount indicated by IanH's spreadsheet (a brilliant spreadsheet it is). The amount for me was approx 930g. This amount dissolved easily into 10 litres. Chucked a lid on the pot and cranked up the stove to get the boil going.

4. Once the boil was going, added hops according to the schedule - Chinook for 60 mins, half of the Cascae at 10 mins, and half at flame (electric element?) out. About a third of the way into the boil I also added the remaining approx 2kgs of malt extract into another pot with 2 litres of water and brought to the boil. In the future I'll probably do this in slightly more water as it got a little hard to dissolve towards the end.

5. As the small pot was finished first, it was boiled for 15 mins and thrown into a sink full of icy water and brought down to about 27 degrees. Took about 15 mins or so. Once this had cooled sufficiently it was thrown into the fermenter through a strainer to aerate it, and to limit the gunk that got into it, and the same process was undertaken with the larger wort pot. This one took more like half an hour to cool.

6. While cooling the pots I reconstituted the yeast in a separate sanitised jug with warm water. This was left to activate for about 30 minutes while the large pot cooled.

7. Once all the wort was transferred, the fermenter was topped up with sanitised room temperature water to the fermentation volume, and the yeast pitched (temp was around 26 degrees at pitching I think). Measured original gravity of 1064, which I think it quite high for an IPA style, but probably due to the fact that my ferment volume is 20L and could've been diluted some. Something to consider next time anyway.

Seems to be bubbling away nicely now, so that's a relief.

Only issues were:
- I had was with one boilover of the smaller pot due to trying to get the temp up with the lid on. I stepped away to show a mate IanH's spreadsheet and sure enough it went all over the stove. Still cleaning it off today...
- Lid mustn't have been on tight enough to begin with as the airlock had no activity for about 8 hours despite a fairly healthy krausen forming. Tightened the lid and seems to be all good now.

The other thing I wasn't sure about was how much of the residual material to hold back from the fermenter from the boil pot. I was pretty conservative and let very little of the thicker gunkier stuff in (probably lost a little wort in the process too). I'm not sure if this was a mistake or not.

Anyway, thanks to all for the assistance beforehand with my queries. I hoped that by writing up my process someone may benefit from it down the track. I'll be sure to let everyone know how it drinks once its ready. At this stage I'm thinking two weeks in the fermenter and probably the same in the bottle before I crack one open to see how it looks. I'll be putting plenty aside to see how it improves over time however.

Cheers,

Travo

Sounds like you had a good day Travo.
I would stick your preboiled water into the fridge once you have it cool enough. That way it will bring you down to pitching temperature faster, giving less time for the nasties to take hold.
Dissolving the remaining malt can be a PITA, slowly adding to warm water seems to do the trick for me. I told you not to take your eyes off that pot if you put the lid on it. Hate to say I told you so but I can sympathise with you on the mess, been there.
I would usually pitch at a lower temperature than 26 degrees. Just me, I like to pitch at fermentation temp so I don't have to cool anything while the yeasties are taking hold. Other's opinions may vary depending on your apparatus and procedure.
You may want to strain the hop pellet material out of your boil pot if you just toss them in. I use a hop sock and don't leave anything in the bottom of my boil pot, in she goes and everything settles out n the fermenter. Perhaps other tossers can help you on that one(poorly worded).
Cheers

 

[Travo]

Thanks mate, all good suggestions for next time, and yes, you definitely did tell me so . Your point about cooling the boiled water is also well taken. I'm a little concerned about the fermentation temp at the moment as I hadn't really factored in the fact that the fermenting wort would be above the ambient temperature. Its sitting at about 24 degrees (apartment is at 19-20 degrees) so I'm going to try to cool it down some when I get home from work. Hopefully its not too late (although I suspect its definitely not ideal).

Relatively happy with how everything else went, fermentation activity is good, although this might also be due to the elevated temp.

Cheers,

Travo

 

[stm]

There is no desperate need to pre-boil all that top-up water, unless your water supply is particularly foul. My top-up water (for my partials) is taken straight from the tap (Sydney) into a 10L jerrycan, then pre-chilled in the fridge (as Boagsy suggests). Did you pre-boil all of your water in your kit days?

Also, re the LDME. No desperate need to boil this up (except for a couple hundred grams in the hop boil) unless you are very worried about the cleanliness of the LDME. If so, only need to boil right at the end for a couple of minutes. Certainly no need to boil for 40 minutes - this just darkens it. Did you boil all of your brew enhancer/dextrose/LDME in your kit days?

 

[nzefactor]

Good stuff Travo.

Stuff the airlocks! Many don't use them, or the stock fermenter lids, at all and instead use some plastic wrap and rubberbands/airlock rings to hold it down. CO2 escapes and nothing gets in. I used to worry like a mofo about not seeing bubbles in the airlock until someone here kindly told me to get rid of the entire lid and just use the aforementioned method. Works like a charm Anyway you said there's krausen forming so that's you're best indicator you've got activity going.
There are a tonne of posts on AHB damning fermenter lids and airlocks! I agree with them all. Only cause noobs strife.

In regards to the stuff in the bottom of your boil pot: if you throw it into the fermenter it's just going to add to the trub. Not ideal but not a real problem.

 

[Dazza_devil]

Also, re the LDME. No desperate need to boil this up (except for a couple hundred grams in the hop boil) unless you are very worried about the cleanliness of the LDME. If so, only need to boil right at the end for a couple of minutes. Certainly no need to boil for 40 minutes - this just darkens it. Did you boil all of your brew enhancer/dextrose/LDME in your kit days?

I've always boiled my LDME just for peace of mind, not because it's absolutely necessary. If your worried about it darkening in a 15 min boil (I don't think he boiled it for 40 mins)then I would just throw it in after the boil, stirring with a sanitised spoon. The wort will probably still be hot enough to sanitise it anyway. As far as I know it doesn't have to be boiling temp to sanitise, just over 70 odd degrees doesn't it? Most Dried Malt Extract has been repackaged AFAIK, probably with the exception of the Coopers stuff, so there is a definite possibilty of contamination.

 

[Travo]

My boil of the remaining wort was only for about 15 mins give or take. I might try just sanitising in the main wort pot next time to cut down the chance of a boilover, but in general I think the process I went through was ok.

STM - you are right on both accounts, with a basic kit I wouldn't have ever boiled water or enhancer etc. Given this was my first run through with extract and wanting to produce something far superior to a kit brew I thought I'd try to do everything 100% by the book this time. At least that way I can learn where I can cut processes etc. out down the track when I get a bit more efficient at it.

Also, given that the malt extract was a fair bit more cost-wise than a K&K I was pretty keen to make sure there was no chance of spoilage occurring (to the extent possible anyway)...

Cheers,

Travo

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Travo,

Mate, when big w have their 19L pots on special again (I got mine for 11.98), buy one (or two of those).

Given you mashed at 66 degrees and sparged, you already have the basic technique for AG and are going to spend the same amount of time doing a full mash as a partial mash plus extract. 2 pots and split the grain bill, and it is a piece of cake.

Maybe a smash ale to start with, but mate, you're ready. The rest of the stuff you can research and pick up technique as you go along.

Goomba

 

[Travo]

STM - you are right on both accounts, with a basic kit I wouldn't have ever boiled water or enhancer etc. Given this was my first run through with extract and wanting to produce something far superior to a kit brew I thought I'd try to do everything 100% by the book this time.

STM - rather than say a far superior brew to a kit, what I meant to say was a far superior brew to my past kit brews. I'm sure folks on here make killer kit brews compared with some of my attempts :icon_cheers:

 

[stm]

STM - you are right on both accounts, with a basic kit I wouldn't have ever boiled water or enhancer etc. Given this was my first run through with extract and wanting to produce something far superior to a kit brew I thought I'd try to do everything 100% by the book this time. At least that way I can learn where I can cut processes etc. out down the track when I get a bit more efficient at it.

Fair enough Travo. It just seemed to complicate your brewing more than necessary, when there are other things you can be working on (eg, yeast, hop and grain selection, healthy yeast pitch, fermentation temp control) which will have a far greater beneficial effect on your beer.

 

[Dazza_devil]

There are plently of shortcuts in every aspect of brewing.

 

[argon]

Fair enough Travo. It just seemed to complicate your brewing more than necessary, when there are other things you can be working on (eg, yeast, hop and grain selection, healthy yeast pitch, fermentation temp control) which will have a far greater beneficial effect on your beer.

I think it's great that he boiled the top-up water. :icon_cheers: I never let anything that isn't sanitised or sterilised near my beer. My double batch system is set up for an 8L water top-up into fermenter and I ALWAYS boil and cool before pitching. Just removes one more chance of possible infection. I'm not about to spend 4 - 5 hours making 40+ litres of wort for it to be infected by a few litres of untreated tap water.

Yes... tap water is typically clean but it can from time to time harbour the occasional natsy that won't play well with your beer... drinking that water from the tap may not hurt you but it may hurt your beer.

sanitation is a good habit to get into... keep it up Travo

 

[Dazza_devil]

I always boil my brewing water.
Helps to drive off the shitload of chlorine they add to the water here.
If I had one of those you-beaut filters I would run it through that as well.

Makes sense really, there's more water in your beer than anything else so it's got to be worth a bit of attention at least.