Review My Method

[DustyRusty]

Hi All,

Just thought i'd post my method to see if anyone can help me improve things. I'm self-taught when it comes to Homebrew and I want to make the best brews possible. I've been thinking about my method and how it might be improved. Would love thoughts from some of you with a bit of trial and error under your belt.

Step 1: Put grains in large hop bag. Cover with cold water. Bring to just below boiling point. Leave to rest for 10 mins. Remove bag, reserve water.

Step 2: Place grainy water into 15L pressure cooker. Put around 500g of LME into water, dissolve. Fill to 10L or so.

Step 3: tie up hops into muslin pouches and insert into wort at various points. Cook wort with pressure cooker valve completely open the whole time (i.e. no pressure just a good seal).

Step 4: remove hop pouches and place wort in fridge overnight.

Step 5: put wort into fermenter, fill to required volume, sprinkle yeast (nearly always use Safale S-04).

Step 6: if dry hopping, spinkle hops on top of water after a couple of days of fermenting.

Step 7: leave wort to rest for 1-2 after completion of fermentation.

What I'm in doubt about is a couple of things: 1) I'm not sure whether i get the full extraction out of the grains and hops using a hop bag and muslin pouches. Sure saves mess but i'm wondering whether i'm actually wasting hops by doing it. 2) what do you think about the pressure cooker method? I have a slightly bigger pot but a loose lid and inevitably the wort boils over and i have to stand there for and hour removing the lid to control the boil over. Pressure cooker much easier.

Would love your advice on how i can brew better.

Thanks,

DR

 

[Supra-Jim]

1. No need to get your grains up to nearly boiling point. Steeping them at 60-70degs is all that is necessary. If you go too high with temp you could extract tannins and that is undesirable.

2. No need for a good seal when boiling your grain liquor. There are undesirable elements (can affect flavour) that are driven off in a good boil. So just remove the lid.

3. I would try to get your yeast into the wort faster that you are currently doing. This is a recipe for infection at the moment. You don't need to boil your DME, so maybe reduce your boil volume as much as possible (only the grain liquor needs boiling) then you can top up the fermenter immediately with cold water and you are probably able to pitch your yeast straight away.

Cheers SJ

 

[DustyRusty]

Dude. This is so helpful. I'd ready somewhere that you need a tight lid to stop hop aroma escaping and max volume of water too. DIdn't realise that extract was a different story. Looking forward to trying your tips. Thanks again.

DR

 

[J Grimmer]

Hi DR,

I also have look at how to brew by john palmer, its free online and does give some really good insights into the brewing proccess no matter what level your at.

Jan

 

[Supra-Jim]

yeah, www.howtobrew.com have a read, the first few chapters will help you out no end.

Hop aroma is always lost through the boil, unfortunately. Hence the rule of the thumb that the longer you boil the hops for, the more bitterness and less flavour/aroma you extract, and vice versa. Hop aroma oils are quite volatile and boil off easily.

I think the biggest improvement you could make is to drop your boil volume, so you can cool that wort quickly (topping up with cold water) and pitch the yeast. DME only needs to be dissolved not boiled. Plenty of people No-Chill here (I've done it) which is similar to what you are doing, however this becomes more practical when you are doing full volume boils (20 or so litres etc).

Cheers SJ

 

[mkstalen]

You've got a bunch of stuff which just doesn't seem right to me.

As SJ said you don't need a pressure cooker.
You add your hop to the boiling wort at different times to extract either bitterness, flavour, or aroma.
You'll not extract much of anything from your grain with only a 10 minute steep.
For 10L of wort you'll need more than 500g of LME (Liquid Malt Extract), unless you want pissweak beer. This will only give you an OG of about 1.019 which will give you an ABV of about 2%. You'll more likely need about 1.8kg of LME, or 1.3kg of DME (Dry Malt Extract) in your 10L for a beer just uner 5% ABV.

Find here ianh's spreadsheet on here somewhere, it's a great start to creating your own beers.

Here's what I'd do for a 10L batch, if I were using Cascade hops. (different hops means different ammounts at each timing)
Chill 8L of water to as cold as you can get it, maybe even freeze about 1-2L.
Bring 3L of water up to 70deg. Stick in your grain (about 150g, in a big hop sock). Stir. Put the lid on. Cover with a towel and leave for 30 minutes.
Remove grain from liquor
Add 300g of DME to liquor.
Bring to boil.
Into hop sock add 15g of Cascade hops stick into boiling wort, once foam has subsided put on lid.
Once these hops have gone in boil for 45 minutes.
Take off lid, add another 5g of Cascade hops.
Once these hops have gone in boil for another 10 minutes.
Take off lid, add another 5g of Cascade hops.
Once these hops have gone in boil for another 5 minutes.
Take off stove.
Remove hops.
Add 1kg of DME and disolve.
Pour into your fermenting vessle, and top up to 10L with your chilled icy water and ice blocks (don't use store bought ice).
Try to bring the fermenter down to about 20deg (22 is ok)
Pitch your yeast.

Good luck :chug:

 

[DustyRusty]

guys thanks so much for the help. sternberg i realised i didn't put all my info in there. i use far far more than 500g of LME. I should have written that before I chill it i add the rest. I frequently do quite high alcohol beers (7-9%) and Imperial Stout's been my best.

Thanks guys for the howtobrew stuff will get onto it.

thanks again

DR