I am relatively new to brewing, I have made 7 batches so far. The problem is I am having hip and hand surgery at the end of August and only have a few weeks to iron out some process issues. I will be out of commission for 3 to 4 months and I have 2 goals that I would like to accomplish before the surgery.
1) Have a few batches come out that are reasonable beers. These are for me to drink while I am recovering.
2) Have 4 good batches that are either lagering or conditioning that would be ready for when I can start brewing again.
My first 3 batches were extract brews. They were just OK, both light in color and light in flavor. I talked to the people at the LHBS about this and they suggested maybe I measured the steeping grains too low. I did 3 batches and they all came out with the same issues. I am drinking them anyway
The rest of the batches were BIAB, and I bottled the first one a week ago. It is even lighter then light. I can attach an image if it would help, but suffice it to say it is way too clear.
The first 3 BIAB batches had OG's of 1.024, 1.036, 1.038. I should have figured it out earlier but the grain was not ground well. It is the same as the extract brews but I wasn't able to put this together until I read posts in this forum. I now have a corona mill and will start grinding my own grain. Of these 3 batches, I'm hoping 1 of them is drinkable.
During these batches I was working to get the process right. I brew 2.5 gallon batches, and I was not getting enough trub free wort to fill the fermentor. I decided it was better to have more wort then not enough so my 4th BIAB was 3.5 gallons. I also double ground the grain for this brew. I am unsure of the OG for this batch, I spaced on measuring until all I had was trub wort.
I know I have to do a better job in measuring, I'm hoping having enough wort will make that easier.
Process:
brew batches of 3.5 gallons so I have enough trub free wort to fill the fermentors with 2.5 gallons
ferment/condition for 4 weeks in primary
cold crash for 1 week in primary
bottle condition for 3 weeks
Questions:
From brew day to bottle takes 5 weeks with this schedule. If I only have 4 weeks, is it better to spend the last week ferment/condition or cold crash?
I cold crash in the primary fermentor. Maybe my experience to date is with more trub then I should have in the primary, should I rack to secondary before cold crashing so the volume of yeast/trub on the bottom of the beer is smaller to make bottling clearer. Even when I cold crash, when I put the siphon in the bottom of the fermentor a small cloud occurs.
For the brews that will lager, I will of course rack them to secondary bottles. Should I top them off with water so they are full with less of an airspace? Do I lean to a higher OG and color to account for this added water?
I am very open minded at this point, any suggestions will be considered.
Thank you