I buggered it up a bit....

[TomB88]

Hi all,

Still new to this but for my 4th brew I decided to give The Malt Millers Doom Bar clone a go. Put it all in to Brewfather to get amounts of water etc and all was going well.... until I hadn't realised my peco boiler had cut out about 20 mins towards the end of the boil and the temp had dropped to 85. Because there is a hop stand for this recipe I decided to heat it back up to a boil and then drop the hops in.

Dropped the hops in, waited an hour but then when I turned the tap on to get the wort to the fermenter there was a blockage in the tap. Tried poking a few things in there but ended up having to take the tap apart, got beer all over my suit (don't usually wear a suit to brew but was trying to get this done before I went out) didn't lose much thankfully it just splashed everywhere.

Then I was, as I usually do, using a mesh screen that fits in a 33l fermenter (I think its so you can do BIAB in the peco?) which flipped over and dumped a load of hops in to the FV.

Then I noticed my 23l batch was only 17l.

OG, according to the ispindel came out at 1.039 instead of 1.038.

So I am wondering 2 things...

1. What do you guys use to filter hop pellets?

2. How is the OG only 0.001 higher than it should be if I lost 6l of a 23l batch?

Thanks!

 

[Slid]

Hi Tom - nil desperandum! We all have had days like this, but rarely suited up!

To answer your questions:

1. I hate using hop pellets and put the things in a bag - either a nylon paint strainer or the nice fruit bag you can pick up from Sainsbury's.
You tie the bag to the handle of the boiler to keep it away from the element, either with the drawstring or using twine, string, or suchlike.

2. Your OG is low, because your "efficiency" suffered from so many cock ups. I don't suggest wringing your suit kex out to gain extra volume (apologies for my poor sense of humour). You just have to learn enough to not to mess up as much next time. Same as all the rest of us did.

 

[TomB88]

Hi Slid, thanks for your reply!

1. I see... I will get some next time I am in Sainsbury's. I had read that hop bags can hinder hop efficiency, do you find that to be the case using these bags?

2. I had, perhaps incorrectly, thought that the mash was the critical step in terms of efficiency. i.e. if one got 75% efficiency from the mash, but then boiled off too much water the OG would be higher. Are you saying that efficiency can be lost elsewhere as well?

I remain astounded that I lost 6 extra litres. I will have to account for that if I hop stand again.