An area that has perplexed me a bit in brewing is the term "efficiency". I have heard some people throwing out numbers like 70%, or 80%, even as high as 95%! I built an Electric Brewery system where the designer claimed to be getting very high efficiencies, in the 95% area. I figured as I have the same equipment, any deviation from that would be surrounding my techniques.
One of the other great mysteries to me about efficiency is what my software was telling me. My iPad software iBrewmaster asks you to enter your system's efficiency, then when the brew day is over and actual numbers are in, it calculates the actual efficiency. I was doing great to hit 85%, pretty far off the 95%.
Then I started to use Beersmith2, and wait a minute, what is this "mash efficiency" it is talking about? A picture is starting to form here, that maybe there are multiple measure points of efficiency. By chance a great thread started on the Electric Brewery forums which discussed exactly this topic. Turns out other people were wondering the same, and out of this some clarity surfaced. You'll have to look past some of the frustrated posts made at one point, but after that some of the real figuring out of the calculations take place.
http://www.theelectricbrewery.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26250
Posted within this thread is a great article from Brewer's Friend:
http://www.brewersfriend.com/2012/11/30/making-sense-of-efficiency-definitions/
After reading through these, some things started making more sense. Back around Batch #9 I started making only 5 gallons batches. Making 10 gallons each time was leaving a lot of experimental brew left over at times, so while experimenting doing 5 gallon batches made more sense. If you notice in Batch #9 I started hitting bad gravity numbers. I went through everything thinking I was making mistakes in process, I even found out that the Cargill grains I switched to had a lower diastic power, however with these reads the clarity finally hit.
Going to 5 gallon batches changed my brewhouse efficiency %. It was as easy as that. Since there is trub and wort left in the boil kettle after transfer to carboy, as well as wort in the chiller and hoses, that volume does not change between 5 gallon and 10 gallon batches. However as a percentage, against a 5 gallon batch it is a higher percentage. With that said, that reduces the overall percentage of efficiency the entire brewhouse is getting.
So what is the point of all of this? The goal is if you have a good understanding of these numbers, you can more effectively use these software tools. This will allow for more consistent brews and hitting your target numbers. Well fact is if you brew the same recipe over and over, you would iron out the recipe over time to become consistent. However if you are bouncing around a lot doing different recipes as I have been lately, then understanding efficiency is important because the only constant is the equipment.
I am probably not done learning this dynamic. I'm sure there are many other aspects to fully understand, but I at least feel like I've learned and figured out something pretty big.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Batch #17 - Belgian Tripel
I thought it would be nice to brew a Belgian Ale today. The below recipe is a bit stronger than a traditional Belgian. Today's brew day was nice and warm, however I did not hit the numbers I was hoping to. I have been trying to dial-in and learn Beersmith2, unfortunately this was some of my issue today. Fortunately after the brew day I immediately figured out my issues and am confident things will be tighter next go around.
Here is today's recipe:
Batch Size - 5 gallons
Here is today's recipe:
Batch Size - 5 gallons
Grains
10 lbs 6oz - Belgian Pilsner
14 oz - Cara-Pils
14 oz - Flaked Maize
1 lbs 11.7oz - Sugar
Hops
1.22 oz - Hallertauer
0.41 oz - Saaz
Yeast
Wyeast 1762 - Belgian Abbey II - Target 420 billion
cells
The brew schedule was as follows:
Mash
1.25 q water/lb
60 min at 153 degrees
Mashout to 170 degrees
Sparge for approx 1 hour
Boil
60 min boil
Start - Add Hallertauer Hops
50 min - Add Whirfloc
55 min - Add Saaz Hops
Fermentation
Primary - 14 Days @ 70
Keg Condition - 14 Days
Here are the specs on this brew:
IBU's - 15
Color - 3.7 SRM
Calories - 100 per 12 oz
Estimated OG - 1.072
Actual OG - 1.060
Estimated FG - 1.010
Estimated ABV - 8.1%
New Estimated ABV from OG - 6.6%
As you can see I ended up with too low an OG. I took a gravity reading pre-boil and should have been at 1.050, but was at 1.047. I figured this was not too far off given the high gravity of this beer so I did not adjust. Where my big mistake was made was I (for some reason) had the brew at a 90 minute boil. The software then calculated a higher starting pre-boil volume assuming I would boil it down. However I only did a 60 minute boil, so I ended up with 8.1 gallons in my brew pot. Generally due to trub loss, wort I can't get out of boil kettle, and shrinkage, I normally lose almost 2 gallons. Working backwards I really should end my boils around 7.5 gallons (as I look to put in 5.5 gallons into fermenter).
After later running the numbers if I had boiled this down I could have come close to the OG I should have hit. Oh well...
My next mistake was with my yeast starter, this is still a bit new for me. The yeast had settled down in the flask, so I was pouring off the excess starter beer to leave the yeast, but I had stirred a bit of yeast up in the process that I didn't want to lose. I ended up with 2L of starter yeast that I pitched into the wort. I ended up overflowing my fermenter a little.
Who knows though, maybe this brew will surprise me. We'll see though, right now I don't have high hopes.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Batch #16 - Bourbon Imperial Stout
This was the longest, most difficult brew day I have ever had. I knew it was going to be a challenge every step of the way in trying to take on a huge 13% ABV Imperial Stout. There are so many things at play which contribute to this challenge.
First, developing the proper grain profile. The types of sugars (fermentable vs unfermentable) is a big factor. These brews need to finish a bit high in FG. What I've read is ideally somewhere around 1.030 to 1.035. Going much lower loses mouth feel and thins the beer out, being higher results in too sweet a beer.
Second, the mash and boil will be different to get that amount of sugar out. Using standard 1.25qt to lb water to grist ratio requires a lot of water for mash, not to mention added water needed to sparge. This results in more wort volume than needed for the boil, which means a very long boil to get it down to the right amount.
Third, handling the yeast and fermentation. Most ale yeast strains do not hold up past 11% ABV. Any higher and the alcohol will kill the yeast itself. There are some strains that can handle higher, but they are a bit trickier to use because they could take the FG down too low if not careful. Another option is to start with one yeast, which will contribute the most to the flavors, then finish with another as needed to manage the FG.
Fourth, this is a bourbon oak aged stout which requires proper oak aging. Since I am brewing on a smaller scale and don't have full bourbon barrels, I need to soak small amounts of charred oak in bourbon and pitch into secondary to age. Everything I read references a surface area to volume ratio, this is difficult to do with oak spirals. I have experimented a little using oak this way. The first time I let an ale sit on whiskey oak (batch #7) for a month. That batch evolved on a daily basis after kegging until ultimately settling down about 3 weeks later. Initially it was too oaky, then the vanilla started to emerge, then all flavors settled down. I had broken up batch #7 into 2-5gallon batches. The second batch I let sit on oak for 2 months, and I just kegged that yesterday. It tasted too oaky again to me, but this time I am going to let it sit for a few weeks before passing judgement. Based on this outcome I am going to use this to determine how long to age the stout on oak. My secret hope is that 2 months is too long, which means I found the point of going too far and can dial it back. Plus that means beer quicker!
Here is the recipe I ran with:
This was an incredible learning experience, and it was such a long brew day. With clean up, it was a solid 14 hours. Let's talk through the day.
It started find, measured and crushed a lot of grain. This is not too far off the volume of grain for a 10 gallon batch, so I figured the mash would be pretty straight forward. I mashed at a lower temp (150) to pull as many fermentable sugars as I could. After the mash I brought the temps up to 170. It took a bit longer than I expected because of the volume of grain, but it did get there, and I let it sit for 10 min.
Once I started the sparge, I noticed differences. The top of the grain bed was a bit frothy so it was hard to tell where the grain bed actually was. While sparging I also doubted the accuracy of my site gauge, mostly because I couldn't tell where the grain bed line was by looking in, and it simply felt off. I figured with the higher amounts of sugar it was possible it got clogged. Eventually I got the sparging leveled off, and felt it ultimately went well enough. Ultimately I used all the water from my HLT, interestingly enough that proved to be 16 gallons of boil wort (I started with 20 in my HLT). Through evaporation, some loss of liquid in lines, and grain absorption, 4 gallons went away.
With 16 gallons to boil, it was time to take a gravity reading. Initially I was going to take one just to see where I was sitting, then the plan was once I got down to 10 gallons, which would be the amount I'd want to normally start a boiling session with for 5 gallons, to take another reading. Unfortunately the readings I took at the 10 gallon mark made me feel my gravity was too low. First I had to get the sample down from a boiling temp to a measurable temp. After cooling things down I was only getting readings around 1.085 when my pre-boil calcs said I should be around 1.109.
Unfortunately the brew shop had already closed, but fortunately I had some DME on hand for my yeast starters and I had about 8 ox of molasses. In an act of winging it, I threw what I had into the boil pot. I let that dissolve then tried another reading, however I was still getting too low of readings. At this point it was as far as I could take it though as I had nothing else to throw in unless I wanted to start another mash.
My system boils off roughly one gallon every 30 minutes. As I was at 16 gallons and I needed to reduce to 10 gallons to start my recipe boil, that was 3 hours of boil time to reduce. My goal initially was to end with 8 gallons of wort so I wouldn't be scraping the bottom of my BK to get every drop of wort. However with the lower gravity readings I was seeing, I decided to push that boil down as low as I could take it and still get 5.5 gallons into a fermentor. With shrinkage from cooling, and some loss, that meant taking things down to about 7.5 gallons.
Where I ended up was pitching the hops in 90 minutes before end of boil, and I took it down to 8.5 gallons. Cooling the wort was also tricky as it was so thick. Though I was pulling out foaming proteins right before the boil started to avoid lots of proteins settling later, the hop blocker still got pretty clogged. It was slow to pull everything out, and I had to regularly scrape the hop blocker to clear the hops and stuff clogging it up to allow liquid through.
The moment of truth was upon me, to take that real reading of what I had left. It came in at 1.138! With a target of 1.139 that was fantastic to see.
Cleanup was a bit longer because this stuff was thick. I had to run lots of hot water through everything, and lots of general scrubbing. The cleaning seemed quick though knowing I hit my target SG.
I pitched the yeast, which I felt for my second starter the yeast looked good, and first thing this morning I checked things and saw the usual signs of a good fermentation.
Next steps will be to see how far this yeast takes the batch. I plan to let it do it's thing over a couple of weeks, then will take a reading. Will watch the activity as well of course and my take a reading sooner if things slow way down.
The funniest thing I learned during the session was that taking a gravity reading with my refractometer for something that is in the 1.138 area is not possible. Their was no blue line through my eyepiece. In fact rather than seeing my usual blue/white view, it seemed angry and was a pinkish white all over. I chuckled to myself and moved onto my hydrometer.
I am very excited about this brew. I have completely fallen in love with this style beer, and when the good ones cost $15-20 per 22oz bottle, having 640 oz on hand for $60 to make is music to my ears! Time will tell if I hit the marks on taste and flavor, but I like the direction so far.
First, developing the proper grain profile. The types of sugars (fermentable vs unfermentable) is a big factor. These brews need to finish a bit high in FG. What I've read is ideally somewhere around 1.030 to 1.035. Going much lower loses mouth feel and thins the beer out, being higher results in too sweet a beer.
Second, the mash and boil will be different to get that amount of sugar out. Using standard 1.25qt to lb water to grist ratio requires a lot of water for mash, not to mention added water needed to sparge. This results in more wort volume than needed for the boil, which means a very long boil to get it down to the right amount.
Third, handling the yeast and fermentation. Most ale yeast strains do not hold up past 11% ABV. Any higher and the alcohol will kill the yeast itself. There are some strains that can handle higher, but they are a bit trickier to use because they could take the FG down too low if not careful. Another option is to start with one yeast, which will contribute the most to the flavors, then finish with another as needed to manage the FG.
Fourth, this is a bourbon oak aged stout which requires proper oak aging. Since I am brewing on a smaller scale and don't have full bourbon barrels, I need to soak small amounts of charred oak in bourbon and pitch into secondary to age. Everything I read references a surface area to volume ratio, this is difficult to do with oak spirals. I have experimented a little using oak this way. The first time I let an ale sit on whiskey oak (batch #7) for a month. That batch evolved on a daily basis after kegging until ultimately settling down about 3 weeks later. Initially it was too oaky, then the vanilla started to emerge, then all flavors settled down. I had broken up batch #7 into 2-5gallon batches. The second batch I let sit on oak for 2 months, and I just kegged that yesterday. It tasted too oaky again to me, but this time I am going to let it sit for a few weeks before passing judgement. Based on this outcome I am going to use this to determine how long to age the stout on oak. My secret hope is that 2 months is too long, which means I found the point of going too far and can dial it back. Plus that means beer quicker!
Here is the recipe I ran with:
Batch
Size - 5 gallons
Grains
15 lbs
- 2-Row
5 lbs - Munich Malt
4 lbs - Chocolate Malt
2 lbs -
Crystal Malt 60L
2 lbs - Roasted Barley
1.5 lbs - De-Bittering Black Malt
28 oz - Light Pilsner DME (will explain this later)
8 oz - Molasses (will explain this later too)
Hops
7.8 oz - Willamette
Yeast
Wyeast
1056 - American Ale - Target 600 billion cells
The brew
schedule was as follows:
Mash
1.25 q
water/lb
120 min at
150 degrees
Mashout
to 170 degrees
Sparge
for approx 1 hour
Boil
4 hour (roughly) boil
Final 90 min -
Add Willamette Hops
10 min -
Add Whirfloc
Fermentation
Primary - 14 Days @ 62
Secondary
- 30 Days @ 70 (will depend on how long to oak)
Keg
Condition - 100 Days (maybe longer)
Here are
the specs on this brew:
IBU's - 60
Color - 87.4 SRM
Calories - 510 per 12 oz
Estimated
OG - 1.139
Actual OG
- 1.138
Estimated
FG - 1.035
Estimated
ABV - 13.9%
This was an incredible learning experience, and it was such a long brew day. With clean up, it was a solid 14 hours. Let's talk through the day.
It started find, measured and crushed a lot of grain. This is not too far off the volume of grain for a 10 gallon batch, so I figured the mash would be pretty straight forward. I mashed at a lower temp (150) to pull as many fermentable sugars as I could. After the mash I brought the temps up to 170. It took a bit longer than I expected because of the volume of grain, but it did get there, and I let it sit for 10 min.
Once I started the sparge, I noticed differences. The top of the grain bed was a bit frothy so it was hard to tell where the grain bed actually was. While sparging I also doubted the accuracy of my site gauge, mostly because I couldn't tell where the grain bed line was by looking in, and it simply felt off. I figured with the higher amounts of sugar it was possible it got clogged. Eventually I got the sparging leveled off, and felt it ultimately went well enough. Ultimately I used all the water from my HLT, interestingly enough that proved to be 16 gallons of boil wort (I started with 20 in my HLT). Through evaporation, some loss of liquid in lines, and grain absorption, 4 gallons went away.
With 16 gallons to boil, it was time to take a gravity reading. Initially I was going to take one just to see where I was sitting, then the plan was once I got down to 10 gallons, which would be the amount I'd want to normally start a boiling session with for 5 gallons, to take another reading. Unfortunately the readings I took at the 10 gallon mark made me feel my gravity was too low. First I had to get the sample down from a boiling temp to a measurable temp. After cooling things down I was only getting readings around 1.085 when my pre-boil calcs said I should be around 1.109.
Unfortunately the brew shop had already closed, but fortunately I had some DME on hand for my yeast starters and I had about 8 ox of molasses. In an act of winging it, I threw what I had into the boil pot. I let that dissolve then tried another reading, however I was still getting too low of readings. At this point it was as far as I could take it though as I had nothing else to throw in unless I wanted to start another mash.
My system boils off roughly one gallon every 30 minutes. As I was at 16 gallons and I needed to reduce to 10 gallons to start my recipe boil, that was 3 hours of boil time to reduce. My goal initially was to end with 8 gallons of wort so I wouldn't be scraping the bottom of my BK to get every drop of wort. However with the lower gravity readings I was seeing, I decided to push that boil down as low as I could take it and still get 5.5 gallons into a fermentor. With shrinkage from cooling, and some loss, that meant taking things down to about 7.5 gallons.
Where I ended up was pitching the hops in 90 minutes before end of boil, and I took it down to 8.5 gallons. Cooling the wort was also tricky as it was so thick. Though I was pulling out foaming proteins right before the boil started to avoid lots of proteins settling later, the hop blocker still got pretty clogged. It was slow to pull everything out, and I had to regularly scrape the hop blocker to clear the hops and stuff clogging it up to allow liquid through.
The moment of truth was upon me, to take that real reading of what I had left. It came in at 1.138! With a target of 1.139 that was fantastic to see.
Cleanup was a bit longer because this stuff was thick. I had to run lots of hot water through everything, and lots of general scrubbing. The cleaning seemed quick though knowing I hit my target SG.
I pitched the yeast, which I felt for my second starter the yeast looked good, and first thing this morning I checked things and saw the usual signs of a good fermentation.
Next steps will be to see how far this yeast takes the batch. I plan to let it do it's thing over a couple of weeks, then will take a reading. Will watch the activity as well of course and my take a reading sooner if things slow way down.
The funniest thing I learned during the session was that taking a gravity reading with my refractometer for something that is in the 1.138 area is not possible. Their was no blue line through my eyepiece. In fact rather than seeing my usual blue/white view, it seemed angry and was a pinkish white all over. I chuckled to myself and moved onto my hydrometer.
I am very excited about this brew. I have completely fallen in love with this style beer, and when the good ones cost $15-20 per 22oz bottle, having 640 oz on hand for $60 to make is music to my ears! Time will tell if I hit the marks on taste and flavor, but I like the direction so far.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Batch #15 - Scottish Strong Ale
We decided to go with a Scottish Strong Ale this week. Thought it would be a good change. Here are the details:
Batch Size - 5 gallons
Grains
14.5 lbs - 2-Row
1 lbs - Caramunich Malt
1 lbs - Crystal Malt 80L
8 oz - Biscuit Malt
8 oz - White Wheat Malt
1 oz - Roasted Barley
Hops
50 g - US Goldings
Yeast
Wyeast 1728 - Scottish Ale - Target 400 billion cells
The brew schedule was as follows:
Mash
1.5 q water/lb
60 min at 158 degrees
Mashout to 170 degrees
Sparge for approx 1 hour
Boil
90 minute boil
Start - Add US Goldings Hops
80 min - Add Whirfloc
Fermentation
Primary - 7 Days @ 60
Secondary - 7 Days @ 70
Keg Condition - 14 Days
Here are the specs on this brew:
IBU's - 24.4
Color - 16.0 SRM
Calories - 240 per 12 oz
Estimated OG - 1.073
Actual OG - 1.071
Estimated FG - 1.021
Estimated ABV - 6.81%
New Estimated ABV from OG - 6.55%
We only hit an 81% efficiency today. We also mashed a bit different, this is the first time I've mashed at a temp over 154 degrees, so I'm not sure how much this contributed. In general it was a pretty smooth brew day however when we took a pre-boil gravity reading we were coming in at 1.040 when we should have been at 1.050. We did accidentally transfer too much wort over for boil, about .5 gallons too much, so we decided that since our boil rate is approx 1 gallon per 30 minutes, we would boil for 15 minutes to get the wort level down to the level we wanted then take another reading. After that first 15 minutes our new reading came in at 1.050 so we looked like we were back on track.
At that point we pitched our hops and had the timer run for 90 minutes and were back on track. We did forget to measure the pH of the brew pre-boil, however our mash pH was at 5.5 without any lactic acid additives needed (we ended up adding 1 ml to bring it down to 5.4) so I would be surprised if we really needed to tweak the boil pH. It is important to note though because every step is important.
Next weekend we are taking off from brewing. We have several batches processing right now, so it will be a good break. Starting the planning for our next wave though!
Batch Size - 5 gallons
Grains
14.5 lbs - 2-Row
1 lbs - Caramunich Malt
1 lbs - Crystal Malt 80L
8 oz - Biscuit Malt
8 oz - White Wheat Malt
1 oz - Roasted Barley
Hops
50 g - US Goldings
Yeast
Wyeast 1728 - Scottish Ale - Target 400 billion cells
The brew schedule was as follows:
Mash
1.5 q water/lb
60 min at 158 degrees
Mashout to 170 degrees
Sparge for approx 1 hour
Boil
90 minute boil
Start - Add US Goldings Hops
80 min - Add Whirfloc
Fermentation
Primary - 7 Days @ 60
Secondary - 7 Days @ 70
Keg Condition - 14 Days
Here are the specs on this brew:
IBU's - 24.4
Color - 16.0 SRM
Calories - 240 per 12 oz
Estimated OG - 1.073
Actual OG - 1.071
Estimated FG - 1.021
Estimated ABV - 6.81%
New Estimated ABV from OG - 6.55%
We only hit an 81% efficiency today. We also mashed a bit different, this is the first time I've mashed at a temp over 154 degrees, so I'm not sure how much this contributed. In general it was a pretty smooth brew day however when we took a pre-boil gravity reading we were coming in at 1.040 when we should have been at 1.050. We did accidentally transfer too much wort over for boil, about .5 gallons too much, so we decided that since our boil rate is approx 1 gallon per 30 minutes, we would boil for 15 minutes to get the wort level down to the level we wanted then take another reading. After that first 15 minutes our new reading came in at 1.050 so we looked like we were back on track.
At that point we pitched our hops and had the timer run for 90 minutes and were back on track. We did forget to measure the pH of the brew pre-boil, however our mash pH was at 5.5 without any lactic acid additives needed (we ended up adding 1 ml to bring it down to 5.4) so I would be surprised if we really needed to tweak the boil pH. It is important to note though because every step is important.
Next weekend we are taking off from brewing. We have several batches processing right now, so it will be a good break. Starting the planning for our next wave though!
First Yeast Starter!
I finally took the plunge and invested in the gear needed to do a yeast starter. I picked up a stir plate, a 5L Erlenmeyer Flask, large stir magnet, some extra light DME, and some yeast nutrients. I've anticipated learning more about this aspect for some time, but I didn't want to over complicate things initially.
Understanding the dynamics of yeast is a challenge for me. There are so many aspects to consider such as how clean/sterile the environment is as there is wild yeast in the air around us, the temperature, the gravity/sugar levels, oxygen needs, etc... In brewing the goal is to raise healthy yeast cells more than anything. If you're environment or sugar levels are off, you may make the yeast work too hard, or too little. These situations can result in yeast that spends more energy building up cell walls, and not necessarily the healthiest of yeast to use.
Brewers also try to measure how much yeast they are pitching. Considering most calculations are done in the billions, how do you count a billion yeast cells! There are several techniques I've read about, but ultimately I decided to use online calculators to help me pull correct amounts together.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/
First I thought I would try to grow yeast from a bottle as I was going to make a Scottish Strong Ale next which called for a Belhaven yeast, so I figured I needed to culture that from a bought bottle. However when trying to buy a beer to culture from, I could not find any that were bottle conditioned, they all looked clean as can be. My assumption was that they have been filtered, and possibly pasteurized. Even if not pasteurized it would be real hard to build up enough yeast. I went onto plan B, which was to use a Scottish Ale yeast and simply build a large starter. This seemed to be a safer way to go anyway.
Starting with the Wyeast smack pack, I knew I was starting with approx 100 billion cells. However based on the age of the yeast, the calculator thought I would only get around 73% of that. The calculator estimated I would need approx 400 billion cells. This meant I needed a starter with approx 10.9 oz of DME starter.
Now to start this thing off. I warmed up the smack pack, and gave it a good smack to get started. Then I measured out 3L of water, and 10.9 oz of DME. I mixed that together directly in the flask, and put it on the stove. I've read/heard conflicting things here about this step. Some people say you can heat these flasks directly on the stove, some say it can crack if it gets uneven heat so you should try to heat it less directly. I thought I would try by putting a large frying pan on my stove and putting the flask on top of that. Unfortunately it never came up to a boil. After a while I figured this wasn't working so I went ahead and placed the flask directly over the flame on my stove. This finally brought it up to a boil.
I have also read different discussions on how long to boil. Some people boil as little as a minute, some up to 15. I went ahead and let boil for only a few minutes. I felt this was enough to sanitize everything inside the flask, and would have dissolved the DME just fine. I should also note I bought a foam cap for the flask which I had on during the boil so it would sanitize as well. After the boil I simply set the new wort to the side and slowly let cool down to room temp while the smack pack was growing.
That night before bed I finally pitched the yeast into the flask, and let it do its thing. By the morning I could see activity, but not ready to pitch into my brew. Watching the yeast during the day it slowly built up a foam top with bubbling, which then slowly died down. Eventually about 24 hours after pitching, there was no foam left and it looked like it completed. I went ahead and left it on the plate over night again before cold crashing.
This morning when I woke up the magnet had spun off the stir plate magnet so it stopped spinning, this allowed some of the yeast to start to settle out. This morning I put the flask into the fridge and will let it settle out further. I later plan to move the flask into the fermentation chamber which is set to 60 degrees, will probably do this around 4pm. Then before bed tonight I will pour off the spent wort on top of the yeast bed, and pitch the remaining yeast into the beer I brewed yesterday.
Gotta start somewhere, and am interested to see how this all goes. I think the biggest risk I have taken here is leaving my wort hanging out overnight without yeast. Fortunately I am able to quickly cool my wort with my counter-flow wort chiller, so I rush past most of the dangerous temperatures. Assuming my sanitizing was good, I should be ok. Not to mention most the time when using a smack-pack, it takes a good 24 hours before the yeast really starts working. However with the starter I made it will be very quick to start, so I am probably on a similar timeline as normal at this point. The lesson here is to start my yeast starter 2-3 days prior.
I'll let everyone know how it goes!
Understanding the dynamics of yeast is a challenge for me. There are so many aspects to consider such as how clean/sterile the environment is as there is wild yeast in the air around us, the temperature, the gravity/sugar levels, oxygen needs, etc... In brewing the goal is to raise healthy yeast cells more than anything. If you're environment or sugar levels are off, you may make the yeast work too hard, or too little. These situations can result in yeast that spends more energy building up cell walls, and not necessarily the healthiest of yeast to use.
Brewers also try to measure how much yeast they are pitching. Considering most calculations are done in the billions, how do you count a billion yeast cells! There are several techniques I've read about, but ultimately I decided to use online calculators to help me pull correct amounts together.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/
First I thought I would try to grow yeast from a bottle as I was going to make a Scottish Strong Ale next which called for a Belhaven yeast, so I figured I needed to culture that from a bought bottle. However when trying to buy a beer to culture from, I could not find any that were bottle conditioned, they all looked clean as can be. My assumption was that they have been filtered, and possibly pasteurized. Even if not pasteurized it would be real hard to build up enough yeast. I went onto plan B, which was to use a Scottish Ale yeast and simply build a large starter. This seemed to be a safer way to go anyway.
Starting with the Wyeast smack pack, I knew I was starting with approx 100 billion cells. However based on the age of the yeast, the calculator thought I would only get around 73% of that. The calculator estimated I would need approx 400 billion cells. This meant I needed a starter with approx 10.9 oz of DME starter.
Now to start this thing off. I warmed up the smack pack, and gave it a good smack to get started. Then I measured out 3L of water, and 10.9 oz of DME. I mixed that together directly in the flask, and put it on the stove. I've read/heard conflicting things here about this step. Some people say you can heat these flasks directly on the stove, some say it can crack if it gets uneven heat so you should try to heat it less directly. I thought I would try by putting a large frying pan on my stove and putting the flask on top of that. Unfortunately it never came up to a boil. After a while I figured this wasn't working so I went ahead and placed the flask directly over the flame on my stove. This finally brought it up to a boil.
I have also read different discussions on how long to boil. Some people boil as little as a minute, some up to 15. I went ahead and let boil for only a few minutes. I felt this was enough to sanitize everything inside the flask, and would have dissolved the DME just fine. I should also note I bought a foam cap for the flask which I had on during the boil so it would sanitize as well. After the boil I simply set the new wort to the side and slowly let cool down to room temp while the smack pack was growing.
That night before bed I finally pitched the yeast into the flask, and let it do its thing. By the morning I could see activity, but not ready to pitch into my brew. Watching the yeast during the day it slowly built up a foam top with bubbling, which then slowly died down. Eventually about 24 hours after pitching, there was no foam left and it looked like it completed. I went ahead and left it on the plate over night again before cold crashing.
This morning when I woke up the magnet had spun off the stir plate magnet so it stopped spinning, this allowed some of the yeast to start to settle out. This morning I put the flask into the fridge and will let it settle out further. I later plan to move the flask into the fermentation chamber which is set to 60 degrees, will probably do this around 4pm. Then before bed tonight I will pour off the spent wort on top of the yeast bed, and pitch the remaining yeast into the beer I brewed yesterday.
Gotta start somewhere, and am interested to see how this all goes. I think the biggest risk I have taken here is leaving my wort hanging out overnight without yeast. Fortunately I am able to quickly cool my wort with my counter-flow wort chiller, so I rush past most of the dangerous temperatures. Assuming my sanitizing was good, I should be ok. Not to mention most the time when using a smack-pack, it takes a good 24 hours before the yeast really starts working. However with the starter I made it will be very quick to start, so I am probably on a similar timeline as normal at this point. The lesson here is to start my yeast starter 2-3 days prior.
I'll let everyone know how it goes!
Batch #14 - American Cream Ale
Decided to go a bit of a lighter direction with an American Cream Ale, brewed on 2/10/13. Here are the details:
Batch Size - 5 Gallons
Grains
9 lbs - 2-Row
.5 lbs - Flaked Barley
1 lbs - Flaked Maize
1 lbs - Crystal Malt 20L
.5 oz - Chocolate Malt
Hops
10.5 g - Willamette (60 min)
10.5 g - Cascade (60 min)
3.5 g - Willamette (30 min)
3.5 g - Cascade (30 min)
3.5 g - Willamette (flameout)
3.5 g - Cascade (flameout)
Yeast
Wyeast 1056 - American Ale
The brew schedule was as follows:
Mash
1.5 q water/lb
60 min at 154 degrees
Mashout to 170 degrees
Sparge for approx 1 hour
Boil
60 minute boil
Start - Add 10.5 g Willamette Hops and 10.5 g Cascade Hops
30 min - Add 3.5 g Willamette Hops and 3.5 g Cascade Hops
50 min - Add Whirfloc
Flameout - Add 3.5 g Willamette Hops and 3.5 g Cascade Hops
Fermentation
Primary - 7 Days @ 62
Secondary - 7 Days @ 70
Keg Condition - 14 Days
Here are the specs on this brew:
IBU's - 16.72
Color - 6.2 SRM
Calories - 157 per 12 oz
Estimated OG - 1.048
Actual OG - 1.046
Estimated FG - 1.012
Estimated ABV - 4.72%
New Estimated ABV from OG - 4.45%
I got a little lower efficiency today at 80%, but I can live with the variance today. I've also been considering adding vanilla to the secondary as I enjoy a good vanilla cream ale. I'll see how the fermentation goes and give it a taste on transfer, make a decision from there.
Batch Size - 5 Gallons
Grains
9 lbs - 2-Row
.5 lbs - Flaked Barley
1 lbs - Flaked Maize
1 lbs - Crystal Malt 20L
.5 oz - Chocolate Malt
Hops
10.5 g - Willamette (60 min)
10.5 g - Cascade (60 min)
3.5 g - Willamette (30 min)
3.5 g - Cascade (30 min)
3.5 g - Willamette (flameout)
3.5 g - Cascade (flameout)
Yeast
Wyeast 1056 - American Ale
The brew schedule was as follows:
Mash
1.5 q water/lb
60 min at 154 degrees
Mashout to 170 degrees
Sparge for approx 1 hour
Boil
60 minute boil
Start - Add 10.5 g Willamette Hops and 10.5 g Cascade Hops
30 min - Add 3.5 g Willamette Hops and 3.5 g Cascade Hops
50 min - Add Whirfloc
Flameout - Add 3.5 g Willamette Hops and 3.5 g Cascade Hops
Fermentation
Primary - 7 Days @ 62
Secondary - 7 Days @ 70
Keg Condition - 14 Days
Here are the specs on this brew:
IBU's - 16.72
Color - 6.2 SRM
Calories - 157 per 12 oz
Estimated OG - 1.048
Actual OG - 1.046
Estimated FG - 1.012
Estimated ABV - 4.72%
New Estimated ABV from OG - 4.45%
I got a little lower efficiency today at 80%, but I can live with the variance today. I've also been considering adding vanilla to the secondary as I enjoy a good vanilla cream ale. I'll see how the fermentation goes and give it a taste on transfer, make a decision from there.
Friday, February 8, 2013
Batch #(Lucky)13 - Irish Cream Stout
Getting ready for St. Patrick's Day, we decided to brew an Irish Cream Stout. I found a recipe that was an extract recipe that I converted to an all-grain, and we did a 5-gallon batch. Here are the details:
Grains
11 lbs - 2-Row
.75 lbs - Crystal Malt 120L
.75 lbs - Chocolate Malt
.5 lbs - Black (Patent) Malt
.5 lbs - Roasted Barley
Hops
1 oz - Willamette
Yeast
Wyeast 1084 - Irish Ale
The brew schedule was as follows:
Mash
1.5 q water/lb
60 min at 154 degrees
Mashout to 170 degrees
Sparge for approx 1 hour
Boil
60 minute boil
Start - Add Willamette Hops
50 min - Add Whirfloc
Fermentation
Primary - 7 Days @ 63
Secondary - 7 Days @ 70
Keg Condition - 14 Days
Here are the specs on this brew:
IBU's - 14.48
Color - 41.7 SRM
Calories - 177 per 12 oz
Estimated OG - 1.054
Actual OG - 1.056
Estimated FG - 1.015
Estimated ABV - 5.11%
New Estimated ABV from OG - 5.37%
As you can see we hit a slightly better efficiency at 86%. Am happy to see things moving in this direction. I've also started tracking pH at several key points, as well as Preboil OG. I feel we are really getting the process even more smoothed out and I look forward to trying this out! I am also interested to see how this evolves, we may end up conditioning a bit longer, maybe right up to St. Patrick's day.
Grains
11 lbs - 2-Row
.75 lbs - Crystal Malt 120L
.75 lbs - Chocolate Malt
.5 lbs - Black (Patent) Malt
.5 lbs - Roasted Barley
Hops
1 oz - Willamette
Yeast
Wyeast 1084 - Irish Ale
The brew schedule was as follows:
Mash
1.5 q water/lb
60 min at 154 degrees
Mashout to 170 degrees
Sparge for approx 1 hour
Boil
60 minute boil
Start - Add Willamette Hops
50 min - Add Whirfloc
Fermentation
Primary - 7 Days @ 63
Secondary - 7 Days @ 70
Keg Condition - 14 Days
Here are the specs on this brew:
IBU's - 14.48
Color - 41.7 SRM
Calories - 177 per 12 oz
Estimated OG - 1.054
Actual OG - 1.056
Estimated FG - 1.015
Estimated ABV - 5.11%
New Estimated ABV from OG - 5.37%
As you can see we hit a slightly better efficiency at 86%. Am happy to see things moving in this direction. I've also started tracking pH at several key points, as well as Preboil OG. I feel we are really getting the process even more smoothed out and I look forward to trying this out! I am also interested to see how this evolves, we may end up conditioning a bit longer, maybe right up to St. Patrick's day.
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