First attempt at simple AG brewing - had a few issues...

[timcunnell]

Hey guys

So - after being inspired by Clibit's thread on simple AG brewing I decided to get some ingredients in and give it a go. I've done 3 or 4 extract kits before, so I thought this didn't seem like it would be too bad! From the extract brewing I'd done before I already had a large (15l) stock pot, and also a jam-making thermometer. I also bought a brew bag. This was really the only equipment I had, but I thought I'd probably be okay as not brewing all that much liquid, but I ended up having a few problems, and as things stand right now I don't honestly know if I have a wasted batch yet or not!

Initially my problem was heating the water up enough, because I have an electric halogen hob. I knew this was going to be an issue so I tried boiling a few kettle-loads of water first to get up to the required quantity. I guess this didn't go too bad, but still needed some heating on the hob to get to 70 degrees, and I found that the electric hob didn't give me much control over the temperature. However, I pretty much got to the 70-degree mark, at which point I turned off the heat, added my bag of grains and wrapped the pot (with lid on) in a towel and left for an hour. When I returned an hour later I was pleased to see the temperature hadn't dropped too much, and I drained off the wort into a sterile FV while I prepared more hot water to re-add the grains. This I found took ages but I eventually got the water heated to around 80, at which point I re-added the grains for a further 10 minutes. I removed the bag once again, and then re-added the original wort in order to start the boil. This took an age to boil (around an hour!!) so it was a long time before I added the first lot of hops. I got there eventually though and managed to complete the 1 hour boil, adding some more hops for the last 5 minutes.

Cooling the wort however was my biggest problem. I didn't really have a plan for how I was going to achieve this from the outset! My only thought was to sit my stick pot full of wort in the sink and keep re-filling the sink with cold water. However, I discovered after 30 minutes that this was not very effective at all. At this point I decided to pour the wort into my FV (via a sieve to remove the hops). I then put the lid on my FV and sat that in the sink, hoping it would start to cool. However, by this point it was well after midnight and I was starting to get some serious grief from my missus! I think the wort was still at at least 40-c and I was pretty annoyed, but decided to cut my losses and pitch my yeast anyway (dried yeast) despite the high temp, and then retired to bed. I did manage to take a SG reading before pitching, and it was 1038.

I was fairly surprised to discover in the morning that there was a little activity coming from the airlock, and later that day this increased to a pretty decent gurgle over 6 seconds or so. So at this point I was fairly pleased as things seemed to be going okay. There wasn't much of a krausen on the top of the wort, but definitely a good 10mm or so, and already some slurry at the bottom. However, from this point the rate of gurgling from my airlock really started to drop off, and now I am barely getting bubbles once a minute. It has been fermenting for around 4 days now. I took a reading on Saturday and the SG had only reduced to 1028, so apparently not nearly fermented out fully, but activity has all but ground to a halt. I did add some more yeast in, hoping that might stimulate some activity but unfortunately not. I am just aware that the ambient temp in the room is 24-25, and the yeast says to ferment at 18-20. So I wonder if its just too warm at present? Also I am fermenting just 10-litres in a 30 litre FV - is it possible to have too much headroom??

Looking about on-line it is evident that there are some expensive (though no-doubt very good) solutions for better heating and especially cooling of the wort. But for now I am really keen to keep the costs down. So I wondered if anyone has some good suggestions on this front? And if anyone has any thoughts/advice regarding my apparent stuck fermentation I'd really appreciate any advice.

Thanks :)

 

[Covrich]

My first advise is to use paragraphs

Pitching at 40ºc isn't a great idea to be honest but hopefully nothing happened and the wort chilled down quick

What yeast are you actually using?

 

[timcunnell]

My first advise is to use paragraphs

Haha fair shout!

Actually, for some reason the site wasn't loading properly when I typed all that (it went all lo-res on me!? When I typed it I'd used paragraphs, but when I hit submit it just went in as a horrible block of text!

Got to say I can't stand loads of text without breaks - I will edit!!

 

[timcunnell]

Pitching at 40ºc isn't a great idea to be honest but hopefully nothing happened and the wort chilled down quick

What yeast are you actually using?

The yeast I used was Mangrove Jack's Craft Series - British Ale. To be honest it was a fairly random choice from the Brew UK website. I didn't have much to go on, and that one looked okay (and quite cheap!).

I am just conscious that the yeast says to ferment at 18-20, and I don't think my wort have ever got down below 24!

 

[Tony1951]

+ 1 on Covritch's remark. You could just have left it covered until the morning and pitched then when it would be cool.

Anyway - if it is fermenting you should see a good krausen and the specific gravity will drop down to about 1010 maybe as low as 1008. That said, my first brew was mashed too hot and I made a lot of unfermentable sugars so it only went down to 1016. It was great beer nonetheless - one of my best.

It's normal for the fermentation to slow down a lot after a few days. Leave it for a two week fermentation period and then get out the hydrometer again and see what it reads. If it is around what I said, all is good.

By the way - a great trick for getting a good fermentation going is to take a sterilised whisk and beat the beggar for five minutes in the FV. Does wonders that in helping the yeast to breathe and multiply. You only do this whisking BEFORE fermentation and never after. Air is good for new wort, but very bad for actual beer. :)

 

[timcunnell]

Thanks very much Tony - I will definitely give the whisk method a try next time then.

I didn't really think about not pitching the yeast until the following morning! I wish I'd done that now really. To be honest I think at the time (it was really late!) I thought I had to pitch the yeast then as I thought there is too high a risk of infection if left for too long not fermenting. But to be fair I don't know where I got that idea from!

I've got the bug for this AG stuff now, and I really want to make more beer this way - mainly because of the sense of satisfaction from doing it, but also because of the greater variety of recipes. I just wonder if there is some equipment that I really need to consider. I know there are some very good (but very epxsive!) options, but are there any good cheap ones? My main issues are heating the wort well (and to an accurate temperature), and cooling it quickly I think.

Also I have to say that although warm summer weather is lovely, I won't miss it being ridiculously hot it my house all the time which is making it a complete nightmare to ferment anything under 24c!!

 

[clibit]

What the others have said. :thumb:

Congrats on taking the plunge. First go is a big effort and commitment! You've not done much wrong, pitched at too high a temperature mainly. Whisking is a good tip.

I'm in two minds about suggesting you add more yeast. It might help. Or to be patient and check again in a few days time.

Equipment wise, cooling is not crucial. I can get 10 litres down to 40 pretty quickly in the sink, I then put it in the FV and wait for it to drop to 20. It sounds like your hob is not ideal, so a gas burner or camping stove might be a good idea.

 

[Sandimas]

I use the method you described for my AG brews. I usually do as you do, cool it in the sink - struggled with this last time as the water coming out of the cold tap is warmish this time of year. It usually works fine, 4 or 5 changes of water over an hour or so and the temp drops OK, I do find that a stir helps as does taking the lid off, just need to be careful of the flies this time of year.

First one is always a bit nerve-racking, do it again and it won't be half as bad.

 

[Tony1951]

On your heating problems.

I did my my first boil on the cooker hob and it took a long while to get to the boil... Maybe about forty minutes - it seemed to confirm that old saying about watched pots never boiling. When I went for a bigger brew solution I bought a boiler. There are some great solutions from The Home Brew Company and maybe Geterbrewed - not sure, but they pack ina lot for the money if you don't mind a plastic boiler. I think they even give you a cooler.

On the point about the cooling down problems. I have two sinks, one running over into the other, so when I was stove top brewing, I could just stand the pot in one sink and running the tap around the full sink which over ran into the other sink. My recollection is that 10 litres cooled in about twenty minutes to half an hour as low as about 26C. If you don't have a sink that allows you to run water over into another drain like mine, you can add ice that you have prepared earlier in the freezer. Maybe in plastic bags of water deep frozen and then peeled open and put in the sink water.

I'm just waiting for a cooler to arrive for my boiler.

I think you will find that you get beer at the end of this. It is pretty hard not too if you put grain, water, and yeast into the mix..... It just wants to happen whatever we do, though sometimes the beer will be better than others if we don't arrange the ideal arrangements. Your fermentation temps are a bit high, this can change the flavours, though if you are like I was on my first AG, you won't mind a bit. Mine came out quite sweet because of the over hot mashing, but it was actually really good to drink on a summer evening. It didn't last long I can tell you.

 

[timcunnell]

What the others have said. :thumb:

Congrats on taking the plunge. First go is a big effort and commitment! You've not done much wrong, pitched at too high a temperature mainly. Whisking is a good tip.

I'm in two minds about suggesting you add more yeast. It might help. Or to be patient and check again in a few days time.

Thanks Clibit! :) I am definitely pleased that I've given it a go - and absolutely determined not to be disheartened if this one is a failure. Even if I don't get any drinkable beer I guess it won't be a failure as I will have learned a few things to do different next time.

I ended up with 10 litres of wort at 1038, so I pitched about half the 10g pack of yeast. I folded up the packet and put it in the fridge. After a few days when there wasn't much happening I decided to get the yeast out of the fridge and added the rest.

So I guess my first question is: did I add enough yeast to start with? And secondly did I do the right thing by keeping it in the fridge and just chucking the rest in later?

Also - do you think its not doing much because its too warm? Might it start going properly if I cool it down to 20c somehow? Or is the suggested ferment temp more for flavour?

 

[clibit]

You did the right thing, half a packet is perfect, and adding more was a good move I think. You may have killed yeast pitching so high. Did the yeadt go straight from fridge temperature into the beer? The fridge is the right place to store yeadt, but take it out maybe an hour before pitching

The 24/25 fermentation temp won't slow down things, it will speed things up, but may distort flavour. That temp isn't crazy though, I wouldn't worry. Your main issue now is getting the beer to ferment sufficiently.

And yes, whatever happens, you are learning. You may well get a nice beer, you probably will, but your first go is all about learning. :thumb:

 

[timcunnell]

You did the right thing, half a packet is perfect, and adding more was a good move I think. You may have killed yeast pitching so high. Did the yeadt go straight from fridge temperature into the beer? The fridge is the right place to store yeadt, but take it out maybe an hour before pitching

The 24/25 fermentation temp won't slow down things, it will speed things up, but may distort flavour. That temp isn't crazy though, I wouldn't worry. Your main issue now is getting the beer to ferment sufficiently.

And yes, whatever happens, you are learning. You may well get a nice beer, you probably will, but your first go is all about learning. :thumb:

Ah I did add the yeast direct from the fridge. Definitely a learning process this one!!

The next brew is gonna be awesome!! :)

 

[stevey]

Hi Tim, I too have one of those crappy halogen hobs. I got round it by using a camping stove (the ones that use the little aerosol cans). They're really cheap at around £8 in halfords and the gas is about £1.50 a can. I use 2 cans to heat 19 litres.
I don't chill either, I pour my wort into a plastic 25 litre water can and pitch a couple of days later.

I'm sure your beer will turn out drinkable, I've drank all my brews; and I made some glaring errors when I started making kits. I even used to heat my wort above 25degs thinking it would be ready earlier

 

[Leon103]

To get the right temp to start the partial mash and soak the grain you can use half boiling water with cool water.

An immersion cooler is what you need. You can find them on this site for 17£ plus postage