All my AG brews are pants...

[foxbat]

Then I kegged the Wheat beer I've made.. carbed it, and I have just tasted it and to say it's foul is an understatement.

Way too early to be making a taste judgement against that one as the other posts in this thread are pointing out. That said, wheat can be a tricky one due to diastatic power if you used flaked wheat and crush size if you used malted wheat. Did you post the full recipe somewhere already?

 

[jeg3]

Kits are easy to brew and can produce good results.

AG on the other hand has way more variables and is altogether more involved. A reasonable knowledge of the science behind the process of brewing is desirable (in my opinion); the amount and perceived quality of your equipment is irrelevant (also my opinion). Good sanititation is an absolute necessity.

Time and patience is also important. Cutting corners on brewday is a risky business. If doing it right takes 10 hours, it is what it is!

Many people produce good beers with the simplest of equipment.

I tend to carb for anywhere from 3 days to 2 weeks depending on how impatient I am, but I always condition for 2 weeks minimum. The difference can he staggering; a lifeless, headless boring beer can improve dramatically after another 2 weeks, as I have just found out...

 

[_jon_]

Way too early to be making a taste judgement against that one as the other posts in this thread are pointing out. That said, wheat can be a tricky one due to diastatic power if you used flaked wheat and crush size if you used malted wheat. Did you post the full recipe somewhere already?

The Wheat Beer recipe was:

2.27KG Lager Malt
900g Flaked Wheat
900g American White Wheat Malt
500g Flaked Oats

28g Saaz @ 60 min
28g Saaz @ 10 min

I then forgot to add coriander and orange peel on brew day, so 2 weeks into the Fermentation I boiled:

28g Cracked Coriander
28g Bitter Orange Peel
6g Chamomile Tea

I then left it all in the fermenter (with the boiled water, but only a small amount), for another 4-5 days, then kegged.

 

[AdeDunn]

Having read your posts, slow down you're trying to go too fast.

First up, do more research and reading. Do yourself a favour, buy Home Brew Beer by Greg Hughes. Read it, try the recipes. I can recommend his summer ale and his Witbier. My last AG was a BIAB of his Wibier in fact, and even before been bottled and conditioned it's delicious. :thumb: For comparison with your recipe, I used :-

2,300g Dingemans wheat malt
2,300g Dingemans pale ale malt
Mashed for 90 minutes

1/4 protofloc tablet 15 minutes before end of boil
35g Saaz 3.5% AA (so not as bitter as it should be) pellets at 0 start of boil
25g bitter orange peel 10 minutes before end of boil
18g (supposed to be 25g, but I had run low...) lightly ground (pestle and mortar job) coriander seeds 10 minutes before end of boil
60 minute boil

That was it, super simple. Looking at how you added the coriander and bitter orange, you effectively "dry hopped" with it, which would have meant the flavour would have been considerably more intense than you would want, I should think. Probably would have been better to just do without it. :whistle:

Research, read, plan then brew. :thumb: Do make a brew day checklist, and make notes on this as you go. Take your time, don't rush, it doesn't matter if you mash a tiny bit longer. The boil it's slightly less free, as the longer the boil the more bitterness from your hops, but until you add these you still have some leeway I've found. Best way I have found is I put my water on to warm to strike temp for mashing, whilst this warms I weigh out my grain. Once my grain is on mashing, I weigh out my hops and boil additions and put little bits of paper on them saying when they go in. I also use Beersmith 2 on my phone though as a timer to remind me what to add when (I don't use the mash timer as I use BIABacus to work all this out and just use the timer on my ACE).

One of the best things I was ever taught was during my nurse training (ex-nurse. lol) called nursing process. *****, plan, implement, re-assess. It works for everything (with some obvious exceptions... lol).

 

[_jon_]

You're definitely right. I've been rushing, but on brew day I (in recent brews) have been trying to slow things down and brew more relaxed. Definitely better outcomes, but my recipes have been off slightly, and I'm still forgetting the odd thing. So a check list is a must.

I'm in the midst of a brew day now, and may actually do another tomorrow.. to get a couple of (hopefully nice) beers in FV's to sit over xmas and new year. The beer I'm making now is:

4.5KG Maris Otter
1KG Golden Promise
0.5KG Cara Malt

90 min boil

15g Chinook @ 60 min
15g Ahtanum @ 60 min
15g Amarillo @ 60 min


15g Chinook @ 15 min
15g Ahtanum @ 15 min
15g Amarillo @ 15 min


15g Chinook @ Flame Out
15g Ahtanum @ Flame Out
15g Amarillo @ Flame Out

This is for reference really, and I'm making sure that I hit every target as best I can by changing the way I measure the water. My water volumes have been spot on so far, as I've measured everything correctly. My pre boil gravity was reading 1.031, brewersfriend says my OG should be 1.058. So with a 90 min boil I'm hoping I'll get much closer to my target OG of 1.058.

Tomorrow I will brew the kit I have from geterbrewed. It's a west coast IPA all grain kit, and actually comes with water additions.. which is something I've not done before. So I plan to spend this evening reading the instructions a few times and prepare everything. Then with my beer above and the kit beer in FV's at the same time, I'll be able to do a taste comparison at around the same time in several weeks. I figure it'll help me to see where I need to improve my recipes etc. I'll be interested to read the instructions on the water additions too.

EDIT: Quick question: When you mash for an hour, do you then drain the wort (I tend to batch sparge) slowly? To trickle the water through the grains? Or open the tap full throttle? On my first couple of brews I just opened the tap full throttle and let the pump rip. This time I did it much slower to try to get more efficiency from the grains. What are your thoughts?

 

[_jon_]

Something is wrong with my efficiency, quite significantly.

I made EXTRA sure to get the water dead on volume wise, by following brewersfriend for water volumes and temps, and I transferred water using a 1L jug, so it's bang on.

The BF efficiency calculator said:

Max: 1.053
at 75%: 1.040
My result: 1.031
My efficiency: 57.98%

That's MEGA poor. But I got the water volumes bang on according to BF, which is what I thought was my biggest mistake. Maybe the mash temp was slightly out (a degree or so, nothing too far and within range). I did test the mash PH this time and it did come in high (5.8).. but I'm not into water correction just yet.

That said, 57.98% efficiency is rubbish.

I don't mill my own grains, I buy them crushed. I understand this could cause a drop in efficiency, but by that much really?

 

[Ajhutch]

Good job monitoring your volumes, that's important and it's good to know you are on target there.

I'll ask the obvious question first, is that gravity reading temperature adjusted?


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[Badseed1974]

Conditioning is not just about having clear beer, sometimes it's nothing to do with having clear beer.

After 2 weeks in the FV most beers will be good for fining, then you can condition in the bottle/keg.

It certainly wouldn't hurt.

 

[foxbat]

I don't mill my own grains, I buy them crushed. I understand this could cause a drop in efficiency, but by that much really?

The crush is one of the gotchas to brewing with malted wheat. Unlike barley the wheat grain has no husk and thus is significantly smaller than a barley grain. If your supplier didn't narrow the gap on their crusher when doing wheat then there's a good chance poorly crushed wheat malt could be part of the reason for poor efficiency.

I did work out the enzymatic power of your recipe and you should have been OK there. Even though the flaked grains have a power of zero there's enough 'spare' power in the malted grains to cover it. Source: here and equation here.

 

[Dexter101]

Something is wrong with my efficiency, quite significantly.

I made EXTRA sure to get the water dead on volume wise, by following brewersfriend for water volumes and temps, and I transferred water using a 1L jug, so it's bang on.

The BF efficiency calculator said:

Max: 1.053
at 75%: 1.040
My result: 1.031
My efficiency: 57.98%

That's MEGA poor. But I got the water volumes bang on according to BF, which is what I thought was my biggest mistake. Maybe the mash temp was slightly out (a degree or so, nothing too far and within range). I did test the mash PH this time and it did come in high (5.8).. but I'm not into water correction just yet.

That said, 57.98% efficiency is rubbish.

I don't mill my own grains, I buy them crushed. I understand this could cause a drop in efficiency, but by that much really?

I would start by aiming at 55% as your efficiency. You can then brew beer that successfully, it will just cost you a bit more in grain. You can then start to try to increase that efficiency but you won't feel so disappointed. You can also water down wort after the boil if the OG is too high (you could add some malt extract now to increase the OG if you wanted...)

I have only done 5 or 6 brews so far, always aim for 60% and usually there or there abouts. I don't sparge properly as it was boing BIAB so just ran the extra water I needed through the grain into the pan.

Are you adding too much water to sparge maybe or not as much wort is boiling off as expected?

I think most grains will be milled suitably for you to make good beer, if you are going to chase perfect efficiency than milling your own would help but wouldn't say its really needed at this stage.

 

[_jon_]

Good job monitoring your volumes, that's important and it's good to know you are on target there.

I'll ask the obvious question first, is that gravity reading temperature adjusted?


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I've ended up with 21 Litres (which is exactly spot on according to the recipe) - So the volumes and boil off etc was spot on calculation wise. But even after the boil, I've thrown 19 litres into the fermenter (wasting a couple of litres as I opted for a different fermenter because I'm lazy). As I mentioned I've ended up with 21 Litres at 1.039. My recipe aimed for 1.058. So again, MILES off. Recipe says it'll end at about 1.015. If it gets to 1.015 it'll be at 3.15%, which is pretty poor for an IPA.

To answer your question, I was measuring with a refractometer, which as I understand (possibly incorrectly) is temperature fine up to around 30 degrees. I've just tested with it at pitching temp of 20c and got 1.039.

I really need to sort this efficiency out. It's not good at all, the worst part of it is.... I created my recipe at 65%!! I thought I'd preempt poor efficiency (because I'm new to this), and account for it in the recipe.

If my water was good, the way I can see it are 2 other things (from what you've said)...

1.) Poor crush on the grains. (This could be discovered tomorrow, as I have a kit from gerritbrewed, and they say on their website that they crush the grains on the day of shipping).

2.) Dodgy mash PH. I did test this morning and it was a little high at about 5.8.

3.) Low mash temp. I did check this morning and it was a touch low, but was within range I'd say. I think it was about 65.9c and I was aiming for 68c.

4.) A nasty combination of all 3.

Thanks to the advice on here, I am noting every detail at every step... So I WILL improve and I WILL see where the improvements are and what is causing them. So I'm not disheartened by this, it's a learning curve and if this was a walk in the park everyone would be doing it.

 

[johnnyboy1965]

Occums razor or K.I.S.S

My suggestion is to simplify absolutely everthing not just the recipe

Just use a cheap FV and 2+2+2 to brew the beer along with a simple reciepe. Then bottle the beer. The simpler everything is, the less variables there are and the easier it is to track down any mistakes/ where the problems are/off flavours. Once you've got all the basics nailed go back to kegging and start adding complexity and variables to your brewing (if you want to. But you dont have to because brewing can be as simple or as complicated as you like.)

Totally agree with MyQul`s reply. KISS
Brew a SMASH and bottle it. Then you can start "messing" doing things differntly.

 

[MickDundee]

I would start by aiming at 55% as your efficiency. You can then brew beer that successfully, it will just cost you a bit more in grain. You can then start to try to increase that efficiency but you won't feel so disappointed.

This.

When I first started, I was consistently getting 60% efficiency, so tweaked every recipe in the Brewers Friend app to match that. Since switching grain brands (GEB stopped stocking the Irish malts so I started buying Crisp and my efficiency shot up) and refining my technique (longer mash, sparging technique and bag-squeezing between 2 colanders have all helped) I’ve found my efficiency is around the 70% mark so that’s now what I aim for.

 

[Clint]

My efficiency ranges from around 68 to 72..I'm going to try different malt next and see if the maltmiller crush is better.

 

[_jon_]

How does it work in my instance? I got 58% efficiency from a recipe that was already tuned for 65% efficiency. Does that mean had I dropped the efficiency of the recipe down to 55% I'd be on the money, or does it mean that from 65% I actually obtained 58%... which would be 32%.

 

[Ajhutch]

How does it work in my instance? I got 58% efficiency from a recipe that was already tuned for 65% efficiency. Does that mean had I dropped the efficiency of the recipe down to 55% I'd be on the money, or does it mean that from 65% I actually obtained 58%... which would be 32%.

You got 58 out of 100 instead of 65 out of 100.




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[Sadfield]

@_jon_ How long did the sparge take you to do? Your low efficiency could possibly down to leaving sugars in the grain, rather than poor conversion in the mash. I can't imagine that the Geterbrewed crush is that bad, your mash ph is high, but not problematic, and your mash temp was fine.

 

[_jon_]

@_jon_ How long did the sparge take you to do? Your low efficiency could possibly down to leaving sugars in the grain, rather than poor conversion in the mash. I can't imagine that the Geterbrewed crush is that bad, your mash ph is high, but not problematic, and your mash temp was fine.

I asked that question earlier, but I think it may have been missed as there's been a lot of action on the thread.

I batch sparge, and in the past after the hour mash I recirculate with the pump for about 5 mins, and then I pump into the boil kettle at full thrust! Then I batch sparge, and run the pump again at full thrust (after recirculating). This time, I actually ran the pump at half speed on the sparge, but still I sparged about 18 litres of water in about 3 minutes.

I did ask earlier, should I sparge at a trickle to make sure I rinse the grains better?

 

[_jon_]

You got 58 out of 100 instead of 65 out of 100.




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That doesn't sound quite so bad now.. if I only missed my mark by 7%... but it doesn't make sense.

If the recipe says I should achieve 1.058 with 65% efficiency. It's adjusted the grains accordingly. So of course, if my efficiency of the recipe was higher, fewer grains would be required.

So, what I mean is... the 65% part, then becomes 100% if I'm aiming for 1.058. Because the adjustment is already made when calculating the recipe, the OG of 1.058 (the target) is also calculated. So.. if I hit 1.058 out of my 65% recipe, I've hit 100% of my 65% target.

As I hit 1.039 instead, that makes me think I've not achieved a drop of 7% in my efficiency, it tells me I've hit 58% of my 65% target.

Am I making sense? Or am I talking nonsense?

 

[AdeDunn]

You basically hit the same efficiency as I did for my 2nd AG Jon, a stove top SMSH with IREKS pale ale malt and Mosaic hops. Luckily for me, I used so much malt, and boiled down so much from 14 litres to about 6/7 litres, that I came in waaay over target OG at 1.070.... This hit an FG of 1.010, giving me a very nice ABV of 7.9% before priming... I actually had the fun poked from a couple of members on here about how I turned 14 litres into 4.5 litres. :lol:

Efficiency is calculated from the malt bills potential sugars vs the sugars you actually get out of them, so brewing for a low efficiency doesn't alter the efficiency calculation for that brew.

Personally, I'd be tempted to come over to the BIAB side. I'm hitting 80% without too much sweat with it now. :thumb: