What are you brewing in 2017 ?

[technobabble66]

Wow. Mash at pH5.1 seems pretty low. Isn't 5.2-5.5 preferred? I normally target 5.3-5.4 myself.
Sparge at pH3?? I could be wrong, but i think i've been targeting the same as the mash: ~5.4. Why are you targeting pH3?

FWIW, i don't think the mash pH should affect the extraction efficiency so long as the sparge pH is roughly in the right range. I *think* the only issue is maintaining a sufficient acidity to minimise the extraction of tannins (and mineral content helps a bit, i believe). I also (previously) thought the temperature made a larger difference in extraction efficiency of the sparge; however, i think i've read about a few (pro?) brewers doing some testing with cold sparking and found no/little drop in efficiency.

 

[Dan Pratt]

Interesting mate , I have a grainfather and always do a double brew day , this would save considerable time aswell as increased efficiency

its makes brew day less than 3hrs, done by 930 at the latest.

 

[Curly79]

Here's what I brewed today. If you can make any sense of that your doing better than me![emoji16]

 

[Dan Pratt]

Here's what I brewed today. If you can make any sense of that your doing better than me![emoji16]

A dark lager, nice.

You had planned for 45lt mash and 45lt sparge but went with 65L boil, why didnt you just sparge with cold water?

 

[droid]

Wow. Mash at pH5.1 seems pretty low. Isn't 5.2-5.5 preferred? I normally target 5.3-5.4 myself.
Sparge at pH3?? I could be wrong, but i think i've been targeting the same as the mash: ~5.4. Why are you targeting pH3?

FWIW, i don't think the mash pH should affect the extraction efficiency so long as the sparge pH is roughly in the right range. I *think* the only issue is maintaining a sufficient acidity to minimise the extraction of tannins (and mineral content helps a bit, i believe). I also (previously) thought the temperature made a larger difference in extraction efficiency of the sparge; however, i think i've read about a few (pro?) brewers doing some testing with cold sparking and found no/little drop in efficiency.

I was going for 3.5. The mash pH reading was taken at mash-out. There was 5%acidulated cold soaked overnight too. Dunno, there's some amazing zingy sess ipa's that seem to be quite acidic and feck

 

[Jack of all biers]

So this is what I put down on Sunday and it is fermenting away nicely at the moment.

Question for those that have used the Hop Burst liquid stuff that Yob sold as Hop Dealz Aust. I'm going to put some Galaxy and Mosaic Hop Burst (shots) in to my kegs instead of dry hopping and want to know what others have experienced with it. I was going to try a 19L keg with the recommended amount and a 5L mini with double of each to see what is best. Recommended dosage is ~2ml per 20L (so was thinking 1ml for 5L mini). Thoughts?

So the brew was an APA based on what I had at hand.

Vienna malt (Weyermann) 7.5 EBC 4.5 Kg 46.2%
Pilsner malt (Gladfields) 3.8 EBC 3 Kg 30.8%
Wheat malt (Gladfields) 4.1 EBC 2 Kg 20.5%
Caramunich III 160 EBC 250 gm 2.6%

Mash at 64C @ 90 mins raised to 70C for 10mins

10 gm FWH 90min Brewers Gold 13.8% AA 4.9 IBU (FWH additional 10% IBU calculated)
25 gm FWH 90min Caliente 12% AA 10.6 IBU (FWH additional 10% IBU calculated)
60 gm 15min Cascade (US) 5.5% AA 11.6 IBU
11 gm 5min Yeast nutrient
1 tab 5min Whirlfloc
100 gm Flame out with 30min hop stand Cascade (US) 5.5% AA 19.4 IBU (Calc. as 10% utilisation)

Recipe IBU: 46.17 IBU

Actual OG: 1051
Estimated FG: 1013
Yeast BRY-97 (1 packet per fermentor)
Fermentor volume: 52L

EDIT - Apprx water chem was;
Ca+2 / Mg+2 / Na+ / Cl- / SO4-2 / HCO3-
109.2 / 9.2 / 39.3 / 71.6 / 251.3 / 54

EDIT - Okay, I have somewhat of an answer here, but any further suggestions based on the recipe and the Hop Burst Shots I have would be welcome.

 

[Curly79]

A dark lager, nice.

You had planned for 45lt mash and 45lt sparge but went with 65L boil, why didnt you just sparge with cold water?

Yeah I should have, ended up with just enough for 2x25Ltr cubes so worked out well

 

[Schikitar]

Brewing a BIIPA this weekend with some mates as a sort of collab/bbq thing, I've got some interesting malts for this but thinking it's maybe a bit too much (here are some rough numbers, still refining);

American Ale - 61.1%
Aurora - 15.3%
Munich I - 5.1%
Medium Crystal - 5.1%
Chocolate - 5.1%
Midnight Wheat - 5.1%
Acidulated - 3.2%

I want it black but not murky, I also want it to have some complexity and not be too thin. For hops I'm looking mostly at citra, centennial maybe some columbus, amarillo - waiting to settle on the grain bill first.. thoughts? I'm not sure about using munich AND medium crystal.. Please be gentle, I'm still relatively new to brewing compared to most!

 

[themonkeysback]

Brewing a BIIPA this weekend with some mates as a sort of collab/bbq thing, I've got some interesting malts for this but thinking it's maybe a bit too much (here are some rough numbers, still refining);

American Ale - 61.1%
Aurora - 15.3%
Munich I - 5.1%
Medium Crystal - 5.1%
Chocolate - 5.1%
Midnight Wheat - 5.1%
Acidulated - 3.2%

I want it black but not murky, I also want it to have some complexity and not be too thin. For hops I'm looking mostly at citra, centennial maybe some columbus, amarillo - waiting to settle on the grain bill first.. thoughts? I'm not sure about using munich AND medium crystal.. Please be gentle, I'm still relatively new to brewing compared to most!

I think you could definitely get away with a more simplified grain bill.

It depends a little what flavour profile you are after.
I prefer black (I)IPAs without a lot of roast or chocolate flavours (really just an IPA in flavour which looks darker), and am biased against chocolate malt in general as I don't love the flavour it offers.
What OG are you aiming for? I think at the OG that would give you IIPA you are very unlikely to find it too thin.

I have never used aurora, but reading up about it sounds like it is pretty punchy. It seems to me that adding 5% munich on top of that isn't going to offer a lot. I would drop the munich.
Midnight wheat at 5% will give you a little roast flavour I suspect. I like it as a malt, very smooth.

My suggested grain bill would be something along the lines of (taking my above biases into account):
Ale: 72%
Aurora: 15%
Medium Crystal: 5%
Midnight wheat: 5% + some carafa III to reach the EBC/blackness you are after.
+ Your acid malt.

I think any or all of the hops you are suggesting would be good.

Adam.

 

[seamad]

Brewing a BIIPA this weekend with some mates as a sort of collab/bbq thing, I've got some interesting malts for this but thinking it's maybe a bit too much (here are some rough numbers, still refining);

American Ale - 61.1%
Aurora - 15.3%
Munich I - 5.1%
Medium Crystal - 5.1%
Chocolate - 5.1%
Midnight Wheat - 5.1%
Acidulated - 3.2%

I want it black but not murky, I also want it to have some complexity and not be too thin. For hops I'm looking mostly at citra, centennial maybe some columbus, amarillo - waiting to settle on the grain bill first.. thoughts? I'm not sure about using munich AND medium crystal.. Please be gentle, I'm still relatively new to brewing compared to most!

For my Black IPAs, I cold steep the black grains and add the juice to the boil. Gives good colour and some black flavour, but none of the flavours that I'd enjoy in a stout/porter. For slightly more black flavour you can add your dark grains at mashout instead of cold steeping them.

 

[Schikitar]

Thanks guys, I'll take the late mash addition into account, if I wanted to give any indication to where I'd like it to head then I'm thinking of the Kaiju Behemoth (https://www.ratebeer.com/beer/kaiju-where-strides-the-behemoth/268186/) - I'm not trying to do a clone but just something in that direction as the hop schedule for that thing is something like 30g/l. It was the first legit craft beer I tasted, it blew my head off and it set me on a whole new journey of beer discoveries, so something of that rum’n’raisin direction but not as ridiculous as the Behemoth.

Anyway, recipe as it stands is sitting at 1.084 (~9.1%), pushing 135 EBC with some Carafa III thrown in there (111 without)..

 

[seamad]

Also, adding dark grains later saves pH hassles with your mash. I use Carafa spec II in mine, a good choice for the style imho.

 

[shacked]

I think you could definitely get away with a more simplified grain bill.

My suggested grain bill would be something along the lines of (taking my above biases into account):
Ale: 72%
Aurora: 15%
Medium Crystal: 5%
Midnight wheat: 5% + some carafa III to reach the EBC/blackness you are after.
+ Your acid malt.

I like the grain bill suggested by Adam and think it'd be great for a BIIPA. I'd suggest considering adding up to 10% of simple sugar. I like my high gravity beers to be "digestible" (as the Belgians would say) and I think getting them to fully attenuate is part of the play here. [For example, my last RIS went from 1.094 to 1.014 and had 1kg of cane sugar on top of of 29kg of grain - I did a 4 hour mash at 63C. It drinks like a dark ale]. So I would mash low (64C or so) and long and add some simple sugar.

On yeast, I'd be using something angry and 'attenuative' like 001/1056/US05/notto from a yeast cake of a smaller beer. I've found best results from yeast that is harvested before cold crashing. That RIS for example was 3rd generation nottingham and fermented to terminal in 3 days.

Personally, I don't buy into the whole cold steeping dark grains thing but only because it sounds like an extra step that I'm too lazy to do.

 

[technobabble66]

I'd go with similar advice to those above for the BIIPA, @Schikitar.
The only IIPA i've done was 100% malt grain, and while i thought it was great, i'd be tempted to "thin" it out a little. Worth noting the Pliny the Elder clone also does this (google search the recipe if you haven't seen it) - actually I've done this one also, so i've done 2 IIPAs . I'd go 5% dex or raw/white sugar.
FWIW, The Pliny is also ~4% pale crystal & 4% carapils, the rest is base Ale malt.
The other IIPA i did was 20% Munich & 7.5% Victory. So going off that, i'd guess the 15% Aurora is going to be massive. 5% Munich will be lost compared to that. I personally would be tempted to drop the Aurora right down, to 5-10%. If 5% maybe keep the Munich, otherwise simplify it as others suggested & just go with the Aurora.
Not sure how to go with the dark stuff. If you want roasty, go as is. If you want more colour and a light roastiness, i'd just use the Midnight wheat.
I'd also check your pH and how much acidulated you need. It looks very high to me, considering all the dark stuff you're adding. However, it obviously depends on your water, so maybe that's what's needed.

2c

 

[Schikitar]

I'd suggest considering adding up to 10% of simple sugar.

Actually I do have sugar in there already (I didn't list it above), sitting at about 6% of the bill.

On yeast, I'd be using something angry and 'attenuative' like 001/1056/US05/notto from a yeast cake of a smaller beer.

I harvested some WL051 from a smaller beer a couple weeks ago (although I harvested after cold crash, does that matter?) - I've got a fair bit there..

Cheers!

 

[Schikitar]

I'd also check your pH and how much acidulated you need. It looks very high to me, considering all the dark stuff you're adding. However, it obviously depends on your water, so maybe that's what's needed.

Thanks for the other suggestions, read and taken onboard, in regards to pH my water is very soft and a bit of a clean slate. I'm using EZwater to calc some additions to drop the mash pH down to about 5.3 - 5.4 and bump my calcium levels up, so hopefully that will be okay. I will mash in low around 63-64 degrees, will probably be doing a reiterated mash (BIAB) so my urn doesn't explode!

Cheers

 

[Schikitar]

Okay, so how about this;

• 67.5% - American Ale
• 10% - Aurora
• 6.3% - Sugar
• 5% - Light/Medium Crystal
• 5% - Midnight Wheat
• 3.8% - Carafa III
• 2.5% - Acidulated

I also have it hitting around 90 IBUs with Centennial, Citra and Cascade, colour is 111 EBC and OG at 1.079 (~8.5%)..

 

[themonkeysback]

Okay, so how about this;

• 67.5% - American Ale
• 10% - Aurora
• 6.3% - Sugar
• 5% - Light/Medium Crystal
• 5% - Midnight Wheat
• 3.8% - Carafa III
• 2.5% - Acidulated

I also have it hitting around 90 IBUs with Centennial, Citra and Cascade, colour is 111 EBC and OG at 1.079 (~8.5%)..

Sounds good mate. Give it a crack and see what happens!

 

[Schikitar]

Thanks for the help lads, I'll post back with results, just gotta stay reasonably upright whilst I brew with a crowd!!

 

[shacked]

I harvested some WL051 from a smaller beer a couple weeks ago (although I harvested after cold crash, does that matter?) - I've got a fair bit there..

Cheers!

WLP051 is an epic yeast. Maybe put together a starter; get it going; and pitch!