If it can happen it will happen Part Deux the AG Saga...

[Battleaxe]

So...

If you are sitting comfortably I shall begin!

Tonight I decided it would be a good idea to grow some man balls and brew my first AG batch "Yay!" So I went to Wilkos and purchased the last piece of the puzzle... The 12L pan.

I brewed as per Clibits simple AG method

the Mash went well!

The Sparge went well!

My boil Gravity was spot on at 1.043 (Corrected)

The boil went as expected!

I then cooled in the sink at this moment I let complacency settle in I smiled thinking PAH! All Grain! It's really easy...

My plan was to syphon the wort through a mesh bag into a large FV correct it for volume and pour it into my two demijohns.

What actually happened was my Auto syphon SHARTED wort into the FV lost syphon and sucked up all the hops... Then the bag on my syphon evicted the sediment trap and filled the syphon with GUFF!. So now I'm stood with no way to clean the syphon because the Pot is in the sink.

I begin to panic, I pour everything back into the boil Pot cast the useless waste of space Auto syphon to one side and decide to use my sieve and filter bag to transfer the wort into the FV. This works until the bag clogs up with hops and other GUFF... I then decide to molest the sieve forgetting I've just stroked the cat...

Still molesting the sieve I manage to get the wort into the FV I corrected the volume to 5lts.

I then notice a lot of sediment in the FV! Is it Hops? Is it Trub? It's probably soil knowing my luck so at this point I lose it completely I filled both demijohns to the marks threw in some yeast (No temps taken... Probably too much yeast...) slam in the airlocks and cast them aside to the usual spot behind the sofa to ferment...

And to top it all off its meant to be a TT Landlord clone and it looks like Stout at the moment... It's Dark very very dark

However the grains cost £2.00 and the yeast about £3.00 so it's no big loss!

 

[cheapbrew]

Murphy is always lurking, waiting to catch even the most experienced out, I'd like to see a show of hands from those who have a perfect brew session every time with never a single problem, Congrats on your first AG and I'm sure your brew will be fine.:thumb:

 

[brisboy]

I know that sense of panic. Especially when everything else seems to have gone so well. "Now just one more thing to... Argh!" It'll be fine though. Trub in the fermenter just means you'll leave a little more behind when you bottle. I had a brew where I carefully sieved out hops and trub. I stepped into the kitchen to wash my hands for a second only to discover my three year old had upended the sieve and tipped it all into my fermentation bucket. It turned out fine.



Also try not to worry about colour. Remember that you're looking at cloudy wort much thicker than when it's in a glass. And if it does come out too dark it'll be tasty anyway. 😁

 

[JapanBrew]

Another "successful" brew day!!! That's about how it goes.... My 2 golden retriever dogs think they can help on bottling!!! Can you guess how many critters and nasties are being tossed around with those big guys running around my brew setup!?!?

 

[Battleaxe]

Just checked and we are bubbling! So all is not lost.

 

[GHW]

Nothing there sounds out of the ordinary, or like it will negatively impact your beer. Possibly a higher risk of infection but nothing to be unduly worried about. You'll always get bits of crud in the fv, it's a combinations of grain husk, flour, hop debris and break material (proteins clumped together and forced out of suspension). It will all settle in the fv along with the yeast and give you a trub/yeast cake on the bottom of the fv. You'll probably notice you have more of the trub than you do with kits, and might lose a bit of your beer to it.

When I did small batches I always just poured the wort straight from the boil pan through a dive into the fv. The hops form a nice filter which catches most of the other gunk.

 

[Tony1951]

I then notice a lot of sediment in the FV! Is it Hops? Is it Trub? It's probably soil knowing my luck so at this point I lose it completely I filled both demijohns to the marks threw in some yeast (No temps taken... Probably too much yeast...) slam in the airlocks and cast them aside to the usual spot behind the sofa to ferment...

And to top it all off its meant to be a TT Landlord clone and it looks like Stout at the moment... It's Dark very very dark

However the grains cost �£2.00 and the yeast about �£3.00 so it's no big loss!

This will be fine. I've made now 16 AG brews most of them about 23 litres and three of the last four I just upended my entire boiler into the FVbecause the filter on the tap blocked. Why anyone thinks you have more risk of infection I do not know. You just boiled all that material for an hour. It is sterile and the ugly looking muck that looks like something horrible is just barley flour and hops and protein out of the grain - the VERY material we carefully selected to make our delicious beer in the first place. If you had a lot of late hops in the boil, then it might be a little more hoppy.

Relax - all will be well unless you leave the lid off and let the dog use it as a drinking trough. If beer was hard to make, the Celts, Vikings, Anglo-Saxons and Picts wouldn't have been drinking it all day and night in preference to water. I doubt they had auto-syphons, star-san, bleach and all the stuff we use.

 

[Cwrw666]

You will find quite a lot of threads on this forum that go on and on about sanitising, whereas anyone who does any brewing knows that we're always accidentally sticking non sanitised things into our brews, and you know what, you have to be pretty unlucky for it to ruin your brew.

 

[Tony1951]

You will find quite a lot of threads on this forum that go on and on about sanitising, whereas anyone who does any brewing knows that we're always accidentally sticking non sanitised things into our brews, and you know what, you have to be pretty unlucky for it to ruin your brew.

Hooray! Well said.

 

[Battleaxe]

Good part is I thoroughly enjoyed my evening! I liked it more than kits because you are more involved and it's exciting watching something you've created ferment I can't wait to have a taste!

 

[Notlaw]

I'm planning a similar cacophony of calamity tomorrow.

Knowing my luck, the wee'un will turn up with a sh*tty nappy just as I'm pitching the yeast.! :pray:

 

[Cwrw666]

When I said we often accidentally stick something in the brew that hasn't been sanitised, and get away with it - there are limits...:lol:

 

[Covrich]

When I started brewing and I made up a kit, I noticed after picthing teh yeast a dog hair floating on the top.. spooned it out and it was fine .. That brew day looked pretty successful really apart from a bit of panic with the transfer :thumb:

 

[BrewzLee]

My hop strainer blocked on my first AG brew day which resulted in me stirring up the sediment and transferring a lot of the trub from the boiler to the FV. The wort was very cloudy at first but when it was bottled on Monday the majority of the sediment had dropped out of suspension and the wort was clear! I'm sure you will experience the same, keep us updated as to how it turns out.

 

[Spapro]

Enjoyed the read, and looking forward to part 3 !

When I was hob top brewing I used to jug the wort, hops and all through a muslin cloth layed over a sieve into the FV. Needed 2 muslin cloths as the first would clog and need a 2nd. Always boiled the muslin cloths in a small pan for 15 mins to sterilise well. Worked welll enough though.

Good luck with the next brew and make sure to do another write up on here, can't wait !

 

[Battleaxe]

Enjoyed the read, and looking forward to part 3 !

When I was hob top brewing I used to jug the wort, hops and all through a muslin cloth layed over a sieve into the FV. Needed 2 muslin cloths as the first would clog and need a 2nd. Always boiled the muslin cloths in a small pan for 15 mins to sterilise well. Worked welll enough though.

Good luck with the next brew and make sure to do another write up on here, can't wait !

Yeah I just used a Muslin cloth soaked with Starsan... It worked for 30 seconds then clogged the cloth I need to rectify this in future somehow...

Pellet hops are good but they are hard to filter quickly and cleanly...

 

[Spapro]

Yeah I just used a Muslin cloth soaked with Starsan... It worked for 30 seconds then clogged the cloth I need to rectify this in future somehow...

Pellet hops are good but they are hard to filter quickly and cleanly...

Leaf hops in the boil (mostly) are a good idea.

 

[Covrich]

Leaf hops are less messy and do seem easier to keep out, pellets I think tend to be a bit more efficient and steal less wort.

 

[Spapro]

When I was jugging through muslin cloth (and a sieve) I found pellets where impossible, just clogged the muslin straight away. Leaf hops worked much better in terms of not clogging, they do soak up a bit of wort but I used to squeeze out my muslin cloth 'bags of hops' after sieving through the wort through them.

 

[Tony1951]

I'm planning a similar cacophony of calamity tomorrow.

Knowing my luck, the wee'un will turn up with a sh*tty nappy just as I'm pitching the yeast.! :pray:

Not that much different to some of the 'interesting' additions I've read of people adding to their brews - tins of teacle, coffee, all kinds gets dumped in. Probably better to stick to hops, grain, yeast and water though. :)