MyQul's Brewday

[Redron]

Keep us informed....:thumb:

 

[MyQul]

Keep us informed....:thumb:

Well my target OG was 1039 but I only got 1.034, which is 62% efficiency. However I forgot to measure how much wort was left behind with the break material after a did a whirlpool. So if my boil off calculations were wrong the wort could have been more dilute than it should have been.

Having said that though I collect 6.5L of wort and it kind of looked like 1/2L left begind iirc. That all being so (if my maths is correct) I need to add 14% more grain to hit my usual 72% efficiency.

Normally with my usual method of maxi-biab I squeeze the bag like it owes me money (you have to really with maxi-biab because your making a concentrated wort, so you lose proportianally a lot more brew length if you dont). But I didnt squeeze the bag with todays no-sparge. Not doing a sparge saved me time as well as less clearing up to do (which saves yet more time)

Overall I'm really pleased with no sparge as I was surprised how clear the wort was due to not squeezing the bag.

 

[Redron]

Thanks for the update MQ.
I think I need to experiment a bit more and make notes . I always make some kind of note. Initially I used to note down virtually everything, volumes,timings, hops etc, but have got a bit lazy recently and now just note the brew, the date, and the OG.
I do true biab at the moment, generally starting with 33L and ending up with 22/23L in the fv. I don't sparge at all and squeeze the daylights out of the bag.

So, next time i think I will start with 20L for the mash and 13L for a dunk sparge and see if this improves my efficiency. After that it may be time to buy a grain mill...

Incidentally, I think Rob at The Malt Miller will crush grains to your requirements, so maybe worth an ask if you're biab brewing and get a finer crush...

 

[MyQul]

Thanks for the update MQ.
I think I need to experiment a bit more and make notes . I always make some kind of note. Initially I used to note down virtually everything, volumes,timings, hops etc, but have got a bit lazy recently and now just note the brew, the date, and the OG.
I do true biab at the moment, generally starting with 33L and ending up with 22/23L in the fv. I don't sparge at all and squeeze the daylights out of the bag.

So, next time i think I will start with 20L for the mash and 13L for a dunk sparge and see if this improves my efficiency. After that it may be time to buy a grain mill...

Incidentally, I think Rob at The Malt Miller will crush grains to your requirements, so maybe worth an ask if you're biab brewing and get a finer crush...

Although you dont sparge I'm surprised your not getting higher efficiency because you squeeze the bag. I find squeezing really helps with efficiency. Also as I mentioned try stirring the mash every 20 mins too. Also @Covrich reckons doing a mashout will help with efficiency I dont bother doing one.

I bought the mill so I could have a large stock of specialty grains in. So having whoever I bought my grain from crush it will negate the point of me have the mill

 

[Covrich]

Although you dont sparge I'm surprised your not getting higher efficiency because you squeeze the bag. I find squeezing really helps with efficiency. Also as I mentioned try stirring the mash every 20 mins too. Also @Covrich reckons doing a mashout will help with efficiency I dont bother doing one.

I bought the mill so I could have a large stock of specialty grains in. So having whoever I bought my grain from crush it will negate the point of me have the mill

I will be honest I am not sure whether or not it does help.. I just see it as I am heating the wort up to that point anyway so I lift the bag just while it gets a blast of heat and add it in and stir it and rest..

I get usually 70-75% doing this method and I do NOT increase my grain bill (I usually do 10 or 20 grams here and there over just incase but I am not increasing by 200 ect).. I stir the mash mid way.. I sometimes mash for longer but it is usually just when I am ready to proceed.

What I do is put a cake stand in an old FV and put the grain bag in there and it drains.. I let it drip out then pout the wort back into the pot.. In fact actually when I lift the bag post mash I do this also (I started doing this because the grains in while heating seemed to send my metal probe thermometer beserk..) So when I add back in for mash out I pour over the drained wort back over the grains and stir

Now If I whirlpool hops or mix up the wort over the chiller it kicks all the crap up.. but as long as I leave it long enough my wort is very clear. Seems you are finding this too..

I know full BIAB no sparge its not for everyone but I find comapred to when I do smaller batches (where I do dunk sparge and get 80%+) I find its a much streamlined process and for me works really well.

Edit @redron personally I would highly recommend the mill.. I usually mill the day before but fresh fine crush def helps efficiency.. I also have started to stir mid mash..

 

[Redron]

So, following on from this thread. Today was my brew day with a view to improving my 'efficiency'.

Fullers ESB which called for 5060g Maris Otter Pale malt and 500g crystal malt.
I used 5700g MO Pale and 500g crystal malt In order to compensate for my predicted poor efficiency and so enable me to hit a decent OG. I would have been happy with 1054 on past experience....
33L at 73deg for my strike water.

On advice from previous thread posts, and not something I normally do, I stirred three three times during the 90 min mash period, and then boiled for 90 min as per recipe.
The OG pre yeast pitch came in at 1058 with 21.5L in the FV.
I make that pretty much 65% efficiency according to the forum brewhouse efficiency calculator.

That is better than I normally get, but only just.
Next time I may try less strike water and a dunk sparge....

And in the context of efficiency...
In between mashing, boiling, and cooling, I knocked up a lentil, sweet potato and spinach Dahl for tea ! And no, we are not vegetarian, but after a visit to the 'fun police' , aka the docs yesterday, it seems I have to reduce my cholesterol a fair bit.
Don't you just hate it when they ask you how many 'units' you drink ?!

 

[MyQul]

Im doing this tommorow

Cardinal Sin - Blonde Ale

Original Gravity (OG): 1.041 (°P): 10.2
Final Gravity (FG): 1.010 (°P): 2.6
Alcohol (ABV): 4.03 %
Colour (SRM): 4.6 (EBC): 9.1
Bitterness (IBU): 22.6 (Tinseth)

19L

82.09% Pale Malt 2.7kg
5.02% Biscuit 165g
5.02% Carapils 165g
5.02% Vienna 165g
2.86% Torrified Wheat 94g

18 g Bramling Cross (6% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)
13 g East Kent Golding (6.5% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
7 gStyrian Cardinal (9.2% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
13g East Kent Golding (6.5% Alpha) @ 1 Minutes (Boil)
8 g Styrian Cardinal (9.2% Alpha) @ 1 Minutes (Boil)


Single step Infusion at 66°C for 60 Minutes. Boil for 60 Minutes

Fermented at 18°C with Gervin ale yeast

It's a shame the Fullers yeast I'm culturing up isnt quite ready yet as this would go perfectly with this.

I'm doing this as a maxi-biab. First time doing maxi-biab using my 12L pot. Hope I've worked everything out correctly :pray:

 

[MyQul]

I found some Styrian Wolf and Styrian Eureka in my freezer that I didnt realize I had so I used those instead of the Styrian Cardinal and EKG. I'll save the EKG for next week to do a nice Classic English Bitter with.

So my hop shedule for today went;

32 g Bramling Cross (6% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)
5.3g Styrian Wolf @ 0min
22.5g Syrian Eureka @ 0

I pushed the late hops post boil to get more flavour from them as I think the grains wont have a partcularly strong flavour that I want to accentuate

@Redron I worked out how to caclulate my brewhouse efficiency and the last brew I made which was made with precrushed malt but had a stir of the mash every 20 mins and a dunk sparge came out at 74.83%. A little more than the target 72%. I'll work out my efficiency for today, tommorow after my wort has cooled, and post it. Hopefully my grain mill may have boosted the efficiency a bit

 

[MyQul]

I did the calculation to get my brew house efficiency fryesterdays brew and it only came out at 66% :-(

I think the reason was because when I was crushing my malt there was some grains that weren't crucshed at all (I beleive its because of @dutto's explanation for this, that the gap between the top of the milling surfaces is different from the gap at the bottom). At the time I didnt think that there was that many and they wouldn't make much of a difference but there must have been more uncrushed grain mixed in with the crushed than I thought and it did make a difference
I thought that I have crushed it fairly fine but next time I do an even finer crush and see what happens.

Overall though, I'm not particularly unhappy with 66% efficiency as I can just add more grain. The Irish Lager malt I buy from GEB is cheap and now I have the mill I plan on buying a 25kg bag so it makes it even cheaper. I also discovered yesterday my new 12L pot is actually 13.5L so I can get more grain and mash liqour in there. So for me these two things balance out a lower efficiency

 

[Leon103]

Should have stuck with pre crushed grain lol

 

[MyQul]

Should have stuck with pre crushed grain lol

:lol: Nah. I'm actually rather happy with the mill.

 

[MyQul]

Im making this tommorow

I Don't Go Sarf of the River - Lite Anglo American Steam Beer/Pseudo Lager

7L

OG 1.039
FG 1.007

IBU 12

Mash Temp 64C

Lager Malt 1.056kg
Vienna Malt 149g
Table Sugar 137g
CaraBlond 50g

First Gold 5.59g @ 60min
First Gold 3.78g @ 0min

Yeast: Mangrove Jacks Califorian Lager yeast

I might dry hop it with the same amount of first gold as the 0 min addition

I've added 25% more grain as I'm doing a no sparge. I will also be using my new mill for the first time

After stirring the very dense krausen back into the wort this is now down to 1.004 (88% attenuation) so it's 3.94ABV%. 4% with the priming sugar I imagine. So quite pleased

 

[cheapbrew]

Did you do a diacetyl rest Michael?

 

[MyQul]

Did you do a diacetyl rest Michael?

Kind of. Unintentionally. I dont think it would have needed one anyway but I fermented it at 16C/17C on my kitchen floor, then to make more room on the kitchen floor for another bigger FV I put the Steam Lager up on the kitchen work surface a couple of days ago which is 20C

 

[cheapbrew]

That'll do then.

I tasted my red stripe clone attempt (and its parti-gyle) after taking readings and they were lovely and probably didn't need a rest but I'm giving them a rest anyway as I'm in no rush. I will cold crash in a day or so to clear and probably bottle at the wwekend.

 

[MyQul]

That'll do then.

I tasted my red stripe clone attempt (and its parti-gyle) after taking readings and they were lovely and probably didn't need a rest but I'm giving them a rest anyway as I'm in no rush. I will cold crash in a day or so to clear and probably bottle at the wwekend.

You used a proper lager yeast fermented cold didn't you? so it's problably a good idea to do a diacetyl rest just to make sure

 

[cheapbrew]

Yes I did W/34/70 @ around 9 degrees and yes I'm doing the rest just to make sure, maybe next time if they taste as good I'll leave it out and see.

 

[Dutto]

:lol: Nah. I'm actually rather happy with the mill.

Me too! :thumb:

I also sparged at the reduced (for me) rate of 1ltr per minute and at the end of the sparge I "squeezed" the grain using a plastic board and an old bench-top anvil to get the most liquid possible out of the mash.

Net result? The photo below! :thumb: :lol: :thumb: :lol:

 

[MyQul]

Me too! :thumb:

I also sparged at the reduced (for me) rate of 1ltr per minute and at the end of the sparge I "squeezed" the grain using a plastic board and an old bench-top anvil to get the most liquid possible out of the mash.

Net result? The photo below! :thumb: :lol: :thumb: :lol:

What was your target OG?

 

[Dutto]

What was your target OG?

OG 1.031 according to Brewers Friend! :lol: :lol: :lol:

PS

Even if I had added an extra kilo of grain it still didn't get to THAT OG! :thumb: