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re: Homebrewing Thread: Volume II
Posted on 10/3/20 at 11:49 am to GeauxPack81
Posted on 10/3/20 at 11:49 am to GeauxPack81
Great color on that.
0
Posted on 10/4/20 at 9:39 pm to BugAC
Ok here's my general process besides the normal clean and sanitize everything. Bring 9-10g of water to ~180 degrees. Drain off strike water into mash tun to preheat and stir vigorously until mash in temp is reached. Dough in grains and stir vigorously. Check mash temp in several places and record. Cover and mash for 1 hr. During the last 30 minutes of mashing I make sure to bring my sparge water up to temp and drain it to an additional cooler that I have, ensuring I am well above my mash out temp. Vorlauf and drain mash tun to kettle. Batch sparge with beersmith's prescribed volume and temp three times. I make sure that I gently pour sparge water over the entire grain bed to not disturb it too much but also make sure I get good sparge water to grain contact. I also make sure I don't drain the mash tun super quickly. I then eyeball my preboil volume, take a hydrometer sample and let it chill in the fridge. I have also been spot checking at this point with my uncalibrated refractometer just to see if I am in the ballpark and can proceed with bringing wort to boil. Normal boil process with fermcap and whirlfloc. Hydrometer sample. Chill asap and pitch.
The reasons my grain to water ratios are varying is because with BS it is giving me arbitrary and hard to measure volumes to mash in and sparge with. For instance It might tell me to mash with 16.38 qts and sparge with 1.82g three times. There's no good way to measure those not so round numbers so I will manually adjust the mash volume that is easy to measure and will often make my sparge volumes a lot easier to measure as well. I try to adjust this as little as possible but sometimes it triggers BS algorithm to switch from 3 batches of 1.8g to 2 batches of 2.5 or so. Again this is just a hypothetical example, but I am not sure how having a high volume to grain ratio would negatively affect my mash efficiency to the degree that I am experiencing.
Again I am not that torn up about it, because its no big deal to turn down the mash efficiency in BS and add in a little more grain to compensate. It's just confusing how I could go from hitting high 70s to 50s. Guess I will just have to brew some more beer and test it out.
The reasons my grain to water ratios are varying is because with BS it is giving me arbitrary and hard to measure volumes to mash in and sparge with. For instance It might tell me to mash with 16.38 qts and sparge with 1.82g three times. There's no good way to measure those not so round numbers so I will manually adjust the mash volume that is easy to measure and will often make my sparge volumes a lot easier to measure as well. I try to adjust this as little as possible but sometimes it triggers BS algorithm to switch from 3 batches of 1.8g to 2 batches of 2.5 or so. Again this is just a hypothetical example, but I am not sure how having a high volume to grain ratio would negatively affect my mash efficiency to the degree that I am experiencing.
Again I am not that torn up about it, because its no big deal to turn down the mash efficiency in BS and add in a little more grain to compensate. It's just confusing how I could go from hitting high 70s to 50s. Guess I will just have to brew some more beer and test it out.
Posted on 10/5/20 at 8:28 am to puffulufogous
Just saw Tasty McDole passed. RIP to an absolute legend in the homebrewing world. Might have to brew a Janet's Brown in his honor.
Posted on 10/5/20 at 8:30 am to puffulufogous
I always stirred the shite out of my sparge when I batch sparged. Let it sit for 10 minutes, vorlauf, then drain wide open.
Posted on 10/5/20 at 8:38 am to puffulufogous
quote:
. I then eyeball my preboil volume, take a hydrometer sample and let it chill in the fridge.
Question: Are you stirring your wort after the sparge, and prior to the hydrometer sample? If not, that will cause your readings to be off. Happened to me a couple times. You need to ensure your wort is well stirred post sparge. Now keep in mind, i fly sparge. So i'm not sure if things are done differently in batch sparging. I essentially vorlauf, begin my draining of my mash tun to boil kettle, then open up the valve on my sparge tank to drain my sparge water into the mash tun. Once i get the desired pre-boil volume, i stir well, take a hydrometer reading and put it in the fridge to cool, then get the boil cranked up.
quote:
I am not sure how having a high volume to grain ratio would negatively affect my mash efficiency to the degree that I am experiencing.
Well, if you have too much water, it will dilute your final extraction. I think i'm at 1.25 qts/lb in my setup.
This post was edited on 10/5/20 at 8:40 am
Posted on 10/5/20 at 9:11 am to BugAC
Next time I will stir with each batch and post sparge/pre gravity measurement.
Right but if my sparge volumes drop as the mash volume goes up and I end up with the same pre boil volume it doesn't seem like my gravity would be that far off. I guess I could be missing a few points but not nine points off. How do you guys measure your mash and sparge volumes? Its hard for me to accurately measure those weird number of hot water.
quote:
Well, if you have too much water, it will dilute your final extraction. I think i'm at 1.25 qts/lb in my setup.
Right but if my sparge volumes drop as the mash volume goes up and I end up with the same pre boil volume it doesn't seem like my gravity would be that far off. I guess I could be missing a few points but not nine points off. How do you guys measure your mash and sparge volumes? Its hard for me to accurately measure those weird number of hot water.
Posted on 10/5/20 at 9:24 am to puffulufogous
quote:
Next time I will stir with each batch and post sparge/pre gravity measurement.
If you haven't been doing this, then this will likely be the cause for your issue. Maybe your water/grain ratio could be off, but if it is, beersmith should adjust for this.
quote:
Right but if my sparge volumes drop as the mash volume goes up and I end up with the same pre boil volume it doesn't seem like my gravity would be that far off.
Well, the volume of water in the mash is converting the starches to sugars. I would think that the volume of mash has a higher concentration of your sugars, as opposed to your sparge water. The sparge is intended to "wash out" the remaining sugars as you drain to your kettle, along with some conversion. But remember, most of your conversion is happening in the mash, as opposed to the sparge phase.
quote:
How do you guys measure your mash and sparge volumes? Its hard for me to accurately measure those weird number of hot water.
Beersmith does it for me. Do yourself a favor, and in your settings, change your mash/sparge water readout to gallons instead of quarts (unless you are comfortable with quarts).
Posted on 10/5/20 at 9:30 am to BugAC
I believe i'm going to enter my sours into 2021 National Homebrew Competition (NHC). The only issue, is that i don't know if i have the correct bottles for the competition. I need 5 bottles 10-14 oz. Majority of my bottled sour beer is 500 mL and 750 mL bombers. The last 2 batches bottled should be ok, i had a bunch of Lindeman's Cuvee' Renee bottles i reused and they are about 12 oz. each.
From now on, i'm going to bottle at least 5-10 of my beers in these smaller formats to enter into competitions.
ETA: I just looked at last year's winner for Specialty Wild Ale and they won on a fruited kettle sour. I think i could beat him.
From now on, i'm going to bottle at least 5-10 of my beers in these smaller formats to enter into competitions.
ETA: I just looked at last year's winner for Specialty Wild Ale and they won on a fruited kettle sour. I think i could beat him.
This post was edited on 10/5/20 at 9:37 am
Posted on 10/5/20 at 9:41 am to BugAC
quote:
Well, the volume of water in the mash is converting the starches to sugars. I would think that the volume of mash has a higher concentration of your sugars, as opposed to your sparge water. The sparge is intended to "wash out" the remaining sugars as you drain to your kettle, along with some conversion. But remember, most of your conversion is happening in the mash, as opposed to the sparge phase.
Well as long as I am increasing the mash volume instead of reducing it I should get the same conversion. My sparging volume might be lower but I shouldn't miss that much gravity. Like I said I will try to change my process to include stirring.
quote:
Beersmith does it for me. Do yourself a favor, and in your settings, change your mash/sparge water readout to gallons instead of quarts (unless you are comfortable with quarts
Will change to gallons, but the issue still remains that it's telling me to mash with 4.42 gallons. How can I reliably measure 4.42 g of hot water? That's why I increased the mash volume to a nice round number of 4.25 or 4.5g.
Eta good luck on your competition entries. You in any clubs? Listening to the brulosophy pod episode on clubs and I had no idea they have virtual clubs, which is basically what we are doing here.
This post was edited on 10/5/20 at 9:45 am
Posted on 10/5/20 at 10:02 am to puffulufogous
quote:
Will change to gallons, but the issue still remains that it's telling me to mash with 4.42 gallons. How can I reliably measure 4.42 g of hot water?
I gotcha. Well my mash tun has volume markings, so it's easy there. I just add the grains to the water. However, you do what i used to do. I have a clear 1 gallon pitcher, and i took a measuring cup and added water until i hit 1/2 gallon, then took a sharpie and marked the outside. Then marked again at 1 gallon.
quote:
Eta good luck on your competition entries. You in any clubs? Listening to the brulosophy pod episode on clubs and I had no idea they have virtual clubs, which is basically what we are doing here.
I'm in Brasseurs la Maison. I've never been to a meeting and really got into the club so i could submit beer into competitions. Too busy with kids, work, and other things to attend, really. I'll have to look into the online clubs. Maybe we could setup an official Tigerdroppings Homebrew Club.
This post was edited on 10/5/20 at 10:03 am
Posted on 10/5/20 at 12:11 pm to BugAC
quote:
Too busy with kids, work, and other things to attend, really. I'll have to look into the online clubs. Maybe we could setup an official Tigerdroppings Homebrew Club.
I'm the same way. One kid with another on the way and a house to make improvements on. If my local club works out with my schedule I may join up. A TD homebrew club would be pretty cool. It might just be an excuse to make a t shirt or glassware like the FBD crew, but we could do some zoom meetings if y'all want. Anyone have any interest of ideas?
Posted on 10/5/20 at 12:19 pm to BugAC
quote:
ETA: I just looked at last year's winner for Specialty Wild Ale and they won on a fruited kettle sour. I think i could beat him
Do they post the scores? Or how many entries there were?
Posted on 10/5/20 at 12:41 pm to GeauxPack81
quote:
Do they post the scores? Or how many entries there were?
I looked in a zymurgy magazine of the winners. Have no idea of the scores. It also wasn't sub categorized. Category 28 has 3 sub categories, so not sure how each are judged.
Posted on 10/5/20 at 6:41 pm to puffulufogous
quote:
Anyone have any interest of ideas?
Got no good ideas, but I'd be down for whatever. I like the idea.
Here is my galaxy dry hopped American IPA. I love this beer. One of the best I've ever made. Get plenty of hop aroma, and good bitterness/sweetness balance.
Made for my buddy's kid's 1st birthday. He made the labels for me.
Posted on 10/6/20 at 7:34 am to puffulufogous
quote:
A TD homebrew club would be pretty cool. It might just be an excuse to make a t shirt or glassware like the FBD crew, but we could do some zoom meetings if y'all want. Anyone have any interest of ideas?
Sure i'm game.
Posted on 10/6/20 at 8:48 am to BugAC
Well so far that's three of us. Let's see if we can get a couple more. Maybe we can do a zoom meeting about what's in the pipeline and what we are planning to brew. We could do tasting comparisons on a commercially available craft beer. Bug if you felt like it you could do a little talk about basics of sours. I would definitely be interested in that. I know that info is available on milk the funk, but it might be nice to get an introductory view on sour styles and how they're produced. I don't have a lot to contribute from the expertise side because y'all have all brewed a lot more than I have. Any other ideas that would work well for a virtual meeting format?
Posted on 10/6/20 at 9:17 am to puffulufogous
quote:
Well so far that's three of us. Let's see if we can get a couple more. Maybe we can do a zoom meeting about what's in the pipeline and what we are planning to brew. We could do tasting comparisons on a commercially available craft beer. Bug if you felt like it you could do a little talk about basics of sours. I would definitely be interested in that. I know that info is available on milk the funk, but it might be nice to get an introductory view on sour styles and how they're produced. I don't have a lot to contribute from the expertise side because y'all have all brewed a lot more than I have. Any other ideas that would work well for a virtual meeting format?
It would work better if i could get some sours out to y'all to try while talking about them.
And Geauxpack, your labels are awesome!
This post was edited on 10/6/20 at 9:18 am
Posted on 10/6/20 at 9:35 am to BugAC
Just an FYI, beersmith mobile and beersmith computer updates are out.
quote:
BeerSmith 3.1 Mobile Released and Price Lowered
I'm happy to announce the BeerSmith Mobile 3.1.8 update has been released for Android, iPhone/IOS and the Amazon app store.
The new BeerSmith Mobile release is a significant improvement over the 3.0 release, with an SQLite storage system, improved editing and menu navigation, improved reliability, new 3.1 brewing features and significant bug fixes.
I've also lowered the price. I've reduced the price from $7.99 US to $4.99 US for the month of October, 2020 to support brewers who may be spending more time brewing at home, but feeling the economic impacts of COVID.
quote:
BeerSmith 3.1 Desktop Update Reminder
As a reminder, the BeerSmith 3.1.08 update is available for all BeerSmith 3 owners. Due to some issues we had with automatic updating on early 3.x versions, this is a manual update so you do need to download and install the new version yourself.
BeerSmith 3.1 adds Tilt data import, improved dry hop options, alternate mash pH models, an improved storage system, and a large number of bug fixes. It is a recommended update for all BeerSmith 3 owners. You can find details and the release notes here or directly download the update to install here.
Posted on 10/6/20 at 9:42 am to BugAC
yay!
I think im finally reqady to brew in my system this weekend! All i have to do is calibrate it so i can get the correct recipes.
Gonna be a trial by fire doing the first brew in it. ill try to document it.
I think im finally reqady to brew in my system this weekend! All i have to do is calibrate it so i can get the correct recipes.
Gonna be a trial by fire doing the first brew in it. ill try to document it.
Posted on 10/6/20 at 9:45 am to CarRamrod
quote:
yay!
I think im finally reqady to brew in my system this weekend! All i have to do is calibrate it so i can get the correct recipes.
Gonna be a trial by fire doing the first brew in it. ill try to document it.
Share some pics of the completed project. You've been working on this thing for awhile.
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