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hey all.

Did my first all grain brew yesterday, well ended up doing two, a Nelson Sauvin Summer ale and an APA.

I did the Sauvin as my first. Got the mash to 63.7 (supposed to be 64) and it dropped to 62.9 over the hour, sparged and got 25 ltrs to boil (beersmith said 27.69) Boiled her up and got a paltry 12ltrs (supposed to be 23ltrs) sg of 1055. Gravity reading pre boil of 1020 at 44 degrees. I suppose you'd call it an equipment test It was good fun though.

So, back to beersmith for some tweaking of numbers. I changed the grain temp from 22 to 20 degrees and the next mash was bang on, changed the evaporation rate to 18% which is 10ltrs over a 90 min boil (man my pot boils off some wort) however I think I went a bit hard on that, might knock it back to 15% or so. Ended up getting a full 20ltr Jerry can of hot clear beer.

Few questions for the beer gods.

Should I be concerned with all that beer going into thin air, what about the 3 ltrs left in the kettle and the 1.5 in the mash tun? Is it normal to have so much water make so little beer? does it effect the end product, ie make it weak? Am I crazy even asking this? Do ex beer kegs have as much boil off?

Now that I have 12 ltrs of Nelson Sauvin, can I add water to it to make up a desent batch or best to just ferment as is?

I really enjoyed the day yesterday, it was great fun to make beer from scratch. the equipment worked, nothing got stuck, the paint from my burner is nearly gone and i have two new AG brews ready to ferment.

Lifes good.

Cheers all

dregs

hey all.

Did my first all grain brew yesterday, well ended up doing two, a Nelson Sauvin Summer ale and an APA.

I did the Sauvin as my first. Got the mash to 63.7 (supposed to be 64) and it dropped to 62.9 over the hour, sparged and got 25 ltrs to boil (beersmith said 27.69) Boiled her up and got a paltry 12ltrs (supposed to be 23ltrs) sg of 1055. Gravity reading pre boil of 1020 at 44 degrees. I suppose you'd call it an equipment test It was good fun though.

gravity reading of 1020 at 44C. Hydrometer or refract? If thats a hydro then that is actually 1028 at 20C. The SG of 1.055 was taken at room temp (~20C)?

Your temp loss of ~1C over an hour is fine. In fact thats quite good so dont stress about that.

So, back to beersmith for some tweaking of numbers. I changed the grain temp from 22 to 20 degrees and the next mash was bang on, changed the evaporation rate to 18% which is 10ltrs over a 90 min boil (man my pot boils off some wort) however I think I went a bit hard on that, might knock it back to 15% or so. Ended up getting a full 20ltr Jerry can of hot clear beer

Few questions for the beer gods.

Should I be concerned with all that beer going into thin air, what about the 3 ltrs left in the kettle and the 1.5 in the mash tun? Is it normal to have so much water make so little beer? does it effect the end product, ie make it weak? Am I crazy even asking this? Do ex beer kegs have as much boil off?

What have you set your loss to trub in the equipment setup? It should be 0. You then add the extra volume (in your case, 3.5L) to the desired total volume as this fixes up a bug in the calculations.

So if you want 18L in your fermenter, set the total volume to 21.5L. the 3.5L leftover can be strained and used for starters at a later date if you freeze it.

The 1.5L dead space in your mash tun can be entered into the equipment as well.

The amount of boil off is quite high so you may need to turn down the burner (which one are you using?) so as to not have such a high evap rate. I use an old keg and get 12% per hour with a NASA. I boil for 90 mins total, the first 30 min is on flat out to get a good hot break, the 60 min with hop addition is a nice rolling boil on almost the lowest setting.

You are evaporating water, not beer so you are concentrating the beer. As long as you allow for this in your settings and water volumes its ok. Your beer may be a touch darker than predicted - it wont be weaker, actually makes it stronger.

Now that I have 12 ltrs of Nelson Sauvin, can I add water to it to make up a desent batch or best to just ferment as is?

I really enjoyed the day yesterday, it was great fun to make beer from scratch. the equipment worked, nothing got stuck, the paint from my burner is nearly gone and i have two new AG brews ready to ferment.

Lifes good.

Cheers all

dregs

What IBU were you aiming for? 12L at 1.055 is not the problem, its the IBUs you had calculated for 23L that is now in effect, doubled. Beersmith has a dilution tool you can play with to work out how much you need for the desired OG.

The problem you will face is that with such a low mash temp you risk ending up with a thin beer if you dilute it too much.

I would suggest leaving it at this stage and learning from it rather than mucking about with it which risks turning a decent beer into water.

Glad you enjoyed the day, its a lot of fun isnt it?

Cheers
DrSmurto

p.s. what efficiency did you predict? and what did you end up with?

Your volume issues are what a lot of first time AG brewers experience. My first AG was planned for 23 litres, but I ended up with only 15 in the fermenter.

The loss of volume as such is not a big issue, and can be made up easily once you know your system and what your efficiency and output is. The difficulty with the smaller than planned volumes is that it throws out your calculations for IBU levels, and you potentially end up with a beer which is too bitter.

I think your starting volume was too small. For a 23 litre batch I need to collect about 30 litres of wort. I lose about 5 litres to evaporation, another litre to contraction of volume due to chilling, and about 1 to 1½ litres trub etc in the kettle. (I strain my kettle trub into a PET bottle, and freeze it for starters, so no waste at all)

Your evaporation / boil off volume seems very high to me, and I think your boil was probably much too vigorous.
Once I get my kettle to the boil I turn down the heat until I get a gently rolling boil, but no more. A gently rolling boil is one where the wort convects and breaks the surface. I don't believe there is any benefit in a very vigorous boil, although some will disagree with me. I also believe a gentler boil will also allow more of your hot break to clump together, whereas a hard boil allows it to continue to collide and prevents clumping.

Yes, you should be concerned about minimising the losses you describe from your mashtun and kettle.

My mash tun loses only ½ litre, and your loss of 1½ litre seems high. How do you drain your mash tun?
The 3 litres left in the kettle is larger than I would expect from my system. How do you drain your kettle?

Yes, you can add more water to make up your planned volume, but be aware you will dilute the SG, and you might end up with watery thin flavourless beer.
The time to really add water is preboil, but you need to dial in your system, and know what it does before you can do that. In my case, I often only get 28 litres of wort into the kettle when I complete sparging, and I add about 2 litres of water preboil. However, even after doing that I still achieve or exceed my target gravity.

Why did you do a 90 minute boil? Usually 60 minutes is sufficient for most types of brew.

Without knowing your recipes and planned volumes, I can't comment on your efficiencies and what you should have expected. Can you give us more information?

Glad you enjoyed the day, no looking back now!

Do what the guys above said..

Also, if you add 3ltrs water to your 12ltrs wort, it will give you an SG of 1044, which it is according to recipe.
or add 4ltrs of water and itll give you an SG of 1041..

This will give you a little more volume and stay within appropriate Gravities.

As the guys said, if you dilute any more than above, you will end up with a thin watery beer... It will also lessen the Bitterness aswell...

CB

Just realised I posted this in the wrong forum, don't have my AG legs yet.

Hey cheers Doc, thanks for your help.

Gravity reading was Hydrometer, the Sg was taken at room temp of around 25C. How are you doing the conversions for differing temps?

I was happy with the mash temp loss.

Loss to trub, I have set at 3.5. I need to set the total Vol not the program? Starters=great idea!

Yeah evaporation is big with my pot, it's wide 425mm, big surface area. I have a NASA burner (fly me to the moon) I'll turn it down after 30

I was aiming for 36.8 IBUs, I think I'll leave it as is and not dilute.

I can't give you the efficiency as I've changed this around in the program since the original.

Thanks again for your suggestions, it's a big learning curve at the moment, but slowly slowly.

dregs

Set loss to trub as 0 - Add this loss to your total volume.

This is a bug/fault in the program which unfortunately the bloke who wrote knows about as just shrugs his shoulders.
The problem is that this extra volume isnt included in the calculations for EBC, IBu etc.

Beersmith has a hydrometer adjust tool. Enter in what temp your hydro is calibrated for (says this on it) and the readings you have and it adjusts it for you.

As Warra has said, you only need a rolling boil, not gangbusters so you should leave it on as low as possible so as to not use too much gas. I am one in the other camp who says that a good strong boil produces a better hot break etc etc yada yada yada.

warra48 wrote:Your volume issues are what a lot of first time AG brewers experience. My first AG was planned for 23 litres, but I ended up with only 15 in the fermenter.

The loss of volume as such is not a big issue, and can be made up easily once you know your system and what your efficiency and output is. The difficulty with the smaller than planned volumes is that it throws out your calculations for IBU levels, and you potentially end up with a beer which is too bitter.

I think your starting volume was too small. For a 23 litre batch I need to collect about 30 litres of wort. I lose about 5 litres to evaporation, another litre to contraction of volume due to chilling, and about 1 to 1½ litres trub etc in the kettle. (I strain my kettle trub into a PET bottle, and freeze it for starters, so no waste at all)

Your evaporation / boil off volume seems very high to me, and I think your boil was probably much too vigorous.
Once I get my kettle to the boil I turn down the heat until I get a gently rolling boil, but no more. A gently rolling boil is one where the wort convects and breaks the surface. I don't believe there is any benefit in a very vigorous boil, although some will disagree with me. I also believe a gentler boil will also allow more of your hot break to clump together, whereas a hard boil allows it to continue to collide and prevents clumping.

Yes, you should be concerned about minimising the losses you describe from your mashtun and kettle.

My mash tun loses only ½ litre, and your loss of 1½ litre seems high. How do you drain your mash tun?

>>>>> Beerbelly falsie 47ltr Coleman esky

warra48 wrote:The 3 litres left in the kettle is larger than I would expect from my system. How do you drain your kettle?

>>>>> Beerbelly Hopscreen 60 ltr kettle widemouth

warra48 wrote:Yes, you can add more water to make up your planned volume, but be aware you will dilute the SG, and you might end up with watery thin flavourless beer.
The time to really add water is preboil, but you need to dial in your system, and know what it does before you can do that. In my case, I often only get 28 litres of wort into the kettle when I complete sparging, and I add about 2 litres of water preboil. However, even after doing that I still achieve or exceed my target gravity.

Why did you do a 90 minute boil? Usually 60 minutes is sufficient for most types of brew.

>>>>> I see a lot of recipes that boil for 90, I thought I had read that it gets the hot break well and done before the addition of hops. No need, go 75 or 60?

warra48 wrote:Without knowing your recipes and planned volumes, I can't comment on your efficiencies and what you should have expected. Can you give us more information?

Yes, I will show you the APA I did after my first. I have adjusted things in Beersmith with this one and it ended up ok volume wise, I got a bit more out of the kettle too leaving around 2ltrs in. My technique of mashing and sparging may be a problem too. I put the water in, then grain, give it a good stir up, put lid on for 60, then open the tap full and drain, put sparge in mix a bit then drain.

How fast do you drain? How much and how often do you mix the grain?

warra48 wrote:Glad you enjoyed the day, no looking back now!

This is the APA

Type: All Grain
Date: 28/01/2009
Batch Size: 23.00 L
Brewer:
Boil Size: 36.99 L Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 90 min Equipment: My AG equipment
Taste Rating(out of 50): 35.0 Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00
Taste Notes:

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
3.50 kg BB Ale Malt (6.3 SRM) Grain 70.00 %
1.00 kg Weyermann Munich (16.0 SRM) Grain 20.00 %
0.50 kg BB Wheat Malt (3.2 SRM) Grain 10.00 %
18.00 gm Magnum [12.50 %] (60 min) Hops 25.9 IBU
18.00 gm Simcoe [12.80 %] (10 min) Hops 9.6 IBU
15.00 gm Simcoe [12.80 %] (0 min) Hops -
0.50 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs American Ale yeast 1056 Yeast-Ale



Beer Profile

Hydrometer Gravity reading pre boil of 1036 at 27C
Est Original Gravity: 1.047 SG >>>>
Measured Original Gravity: Haven't done one yet
Est Final Gravity: 1.014 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.005 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.34 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 0.65 %
Bitterness: 35.5 IBU Calories: 90 cal/l
Est Color: 9.3 SRM Color: Color


Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Full Body, Batch Sparge Total Grain Weight: 5.00 kg
Sparge Water: 31.80 L Grain Temperature: 20.0 C
Sparge Temperature: 75.6 C TunTemperature: 20.0 C
Adjust Temp for Equipment: TRUE Mash PH: 5.4 PH

Single Infusion, Full Body, Batch Sparge Step Time Name Description Step Temp @2.3ltrs per Kg
60 min Mash In Add 11.50 L of water at 74.5 C 66.0 C


I pretty much hit my boil size of 37 litres, I got 29 after the boil and got alot more from the kettle to fill a 20ltr Jerry can to the brim, so maybe they can take more than twenty. I think I need to get more from my mash and turn down the burner.

Thanks Warra, great help.

I strain my kettle trub into a PET bottle, and freeze it for starters, so no waste at all

warra, that is smart. thanks.

Dregs,

Given the size of your equipement, which seems big enough to do double batches, I'm not surprised you have larger than usual loss to trub and dead space.
All I can suggest is you make sure your pick up tubes are as close to the bottom surface of your mashtun and kettle as it is practical to get them.

PS: that looks like a nice APA recipe.