What did you brew today?

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Brewed a messed about with tropical IPA, used up hops in the cupboard. Only question form a newcomer is as follows.

I took a gravity after mash and got an expected 1.056 as per recipe in brewers friend, boiled for an hour including hop additions at 60 minutes and 0 minutes, took another gravity and it stood at 1.076, the first reading would yield a planned ABV of 5.6% but the new reading would come in at around 8%...... or so I think. Is this normal for such a rise and does the second reading not really count?

Cheers.

You’ve boiled off some of the water and concentrated your wort - this is normal! You can add water to get back to the gravity you’re looking for or just enjoy a really strong beer.

The second reading is arguably the most important, this is the reading you’ll use to determine the strength of your beer.

 

[chrisb8]

Brewed a messed about with tropical IPA, used up hops in the cupboard. Only question form a newcomer is as follows.

I took a gravity after mash and got an expected 1.056 as per recipe in brewers friend, boiled for an hour including hop additions at 60 minutes and 0 minutes, took another gravity and it stood at 1.076, the first reading would yield a planned ABV of 5.6% but the new reading would come in at around 8%...... or so I think. Is this normal for such a rise and does the second reading not really count?

Cheers.

What were your pre and post boil volumes?

As well as accounting for the boil off, did you make sure that you took the readings at the calibration temperature of your hydrometer? Usually this is at 20C. If not then one or both of your readings could be inaccurate.

 

[foxbat]

Brewed a messed about with tropical IPA, used up hops in the cupboard. Only question form a newcomer is as follows.

I took a gravity after mash and got an expected 1.056 as per recipe in brewers friend, boiled for an hour including hop additions at 60 minutes and 0 minutes, took another gravity and it stood at 1.076, the first reading would yield a planned ABV of 5.6% but the new reading would come in at around 8%...... or so I think. Is this normal for such a rise and does the second reading not really count?

Cheers.

A 20 point rise is far more than can be accounted for by boiloff alone. I boil gently and gain about 3 or 4 points. Gravity readings need temperature correction (normally to 20C). Here's the calculator I use.

Hot wort reads low. I'm guessing your pre-boil reading was taken at a high temperature and thus gave a lower reading than it actually was.

 

[foxy]

A one hour boil wouldn't boil off that much wort, I would suspect that it has stood before taking another reading for the OG and has measured the concentrated sugar at the bottom. Reading for the OG should be done from the fermenter.

 

[Dutto]

.........

Is this normal for such a rise and does the second reading not really count? ...

Hiya.

The OG is the Specific Gravity of the wort BEFORE fermentation. It is usually taken BEFORE adding the yeast or any nutrients and AFTER adding the water to get the volume required.

Boiling off a load of water during the boil will obviously raise the SG.

Hope this helps.

 

[Frog 1]

Thanks all, temperature is a good question, if I'm honest, I can't remember if I let it cool fully, so maybe thats the reason, I'll remember that next time, weird thing is, I thought about that post mash, but not so much post boil, newbie mistake I suppose, but learning all the time. I boiled off around 4 litres, from 25 down to 21, added a lot of hops so they might have absorbed a bit too. I presume the OG will not be as extreme as I thought then, original ABV expected was around 5.6, so if I get that or more I'm happy, I'll take a reading tomorrow and see how it's going.

I'm using a fermenter fridge thats round at my dads, but its an industrial unit so he's not too happy when the compressor kicks in (very noisy), so trying it without the motor, using just as an insulated box, ambient temperature is about 16 degrees, its bubbling but no that fast so I've opened the door and now its bubbling nicely at around 19 degrees.

I am dry hopping this brew with 3 extra hop batches at 2 day intervals so hoping for a fruity New England IPA, I've been messing with the recipe so fingers crossed.

 

[MmmBeer]

Bottled a kit this afternoon, a Wilko Sweet Newkie Brown that was given as a xmas present. As it was syphoning, I noticed a smell that immediately took me back to my kit brewing days from the 80's and 90's. Was this the elusive homebrew twang? I tried to pick out the individual aromas, but the only one I could define was bread yeast.

Part way through bottling I remembered to fetch my measuring cylinder and hydrometer and after taking an FG reading had a swig. Within a second one flavour shone out, green apples, not that of a granny smith, but the more intense, artificial aroma of a shampoo or washing up liquid. My beer clearly contains diacetyl, usually caused by the yeast having insufficient time to clean up after itself.

.....Except that it has been in the fermenter for nearly 3 weeks, I replaced the kit yeast with a pack of Gervin. I noticed that the bubbling had stopped after just 3 or 4 days, but a week later, after I had moved the fermenter to remove another from my brewfridge, it started up again.

I'll leave it a couple of weeks before tasting, I may have wasted 4 hours of my time, but maybe there's enough yeast left to do its job.

 

[Hengoedbrewer]

I brewed a Citra / Cascade IPA on Sunday morning, my 3rd BIAB all grain attempt.

2.5 kg Crisp Malting - Finest Maris Otter 38 3 91.7%
225 g Flaked Barley 32 2.2 8.3%

15 g Magnum Pellet 10.2 Boil 20 min 22.17 9.1%
10 g Citra Pellet 12.8 Boil 10 min 11.11 6.1%
20 g Cascade Pellet 7.8 Boil 10 min 13.53 12.1%
10 g Citra Pellet 12.8 Boil 5 min 6.11 6.1%
20 g Cascade Pellet 7.8 Boil 5 min 7.44 12.1%
10 g Citra Pellet 12.8 Boil 0 min 6.1%
20 g Cascade Pellet 7.8 Boil 0 min 12.1%
20 g Citra Pellet 12.8 Dry Hop 5 days 12.1%
40 g Cascade Pellet 7.2 Dry Hop 5 days 24.2%

Mashed at 67c. First time using 1) late hopping method 2) my new brew fridge 3) no chill method of cooling. It all seemed to go really well other than I had to top up in the FV as I surprisingly only had 9 litres post boil following an 8L mash; and 6L sparge. I was aiming for 12L in FV. There was also poor prep on my part with the fridge; a shoe rack I intended to use as a shelf to pop the FV on was too wide so had to chance putting it on the fridge shelf. Seems solid enough, only an 11l brew. Next time I will have the fridge ready to go as soon as I am able to pitch yeast. I also managed to misread my own instructions and filter hops out twice- I meant to do it before transferring to the 2nd FV after chilling but I actually did it after the boil as well- but I understand this doesn't actually matter too much?

I got 1.054 at 22.4c as my OG; 11L in FV. OG which was roughly what Brewers Friend told me I should get. I still don't really understand the efficiency thing using BF, but am not too bothered for now as long as it tastes okay at the end... but would be nice if I could work out how efficient my set up is eventually. Fridge seems to be doing the job, it is maintaining the 19C I am looking for- I had to move probe last night as I think it had come away from the FV a bit where it is sitting in a bubble wrap pocket. As long as my toddler daughter doesn't get into it I think the fridge will really improve my brewing. I have bungee corded the fridge shut over the tube heater cable so fingers crossed.

 

[Torshon]

Brewing a Mango Milkshake as we speak......

 

[Pennine]

Brewed up a preprohibtion lager with Cascade and Chinook, reused a slurry of Cml Pia.

 

[MmmBeer]

Just finished brewing a old peculiar clone, GW recipe.

 

[foxy]

A tweeked Tetley's Mild.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

A new dark beer using Bravo hops. I’ve not used these before and not seen them mentioned on the forum - I’m hoping that’s not a bad sign!

 

[foxy]

An ordinary bitter, OG 1,038. Veloria malt, crystal 60, crystal, 90 and Gladfields Gladiator.
Hops Challenger, Northern Brewer and Willamette.
View attachment 21890

Got second place with this in the Melbourne Beerfest yesterday, so having a few tonight.

 

[Dutto]

A Coopers English Bitter! Sprinkled an extra Nottingham Yeast in to the FV.

 

[Subtle Duck]

29kg Citra at boil
protofloc tablet 15 mins to end
15kg Citra and 15kg Simcoe 10 min to end
44kg Citra and 44kg Simcoe at flame out

147 kg of hops, And we all thought James Morton was overly generous!

 

[ClownPrince]

Made 5l Lager last night.
- 1.5kg Lager Malt mashed at 67 degrees (ish) for an hour.
2g Summit Hops for 60mins
5g Lemondrop Hops for 15mins
10g Lemondrop Hops for 5 mins.

Used 7g leftover coopers Lager yeast.
May add some more Lemondrop hops as a dry hop.

 

[Frog 1]

Okay so my idea of not using the fermenting fridge hasn't worked out too well as the heating went off in the house reesulting in the fermenter going down to 15 degrees C.

So everything slowed right down and I have a feeling its stalled, it's at 1.043 now (down from 1.047) after starting the fermenter fridge and getting it to 22 degrees constant, but it hasn't changed since yesterday, I've just given it a stir and hoping it might get going, any ideas?

 

[The Baron]

Yorkshire Bitter 2 tweaked from the first with more Target hops and First Gold to 22 Ltrs. just added Wilko Ale Yeast from previous brew

 

[geigercntr]

Took the new bit of kit (Robobrew Brewzilla) for a spin and brewed a tweaked version of James Morton's Session wheat. Chugging away nicely with US05