First AG brew. 2 post brew questions

[stansoid]

Hey everyone,

I picked up a barley crusher on a black Friday sale.. So of course, I had to try doing an all grain brew after work. New toys demand to be played with!

I kept it small scale for obvious reasons (minimizing cost of potential failure.. apartment.. no propane.. it’s a week night). I plugged a 1 gallon recipe for a "Chestnut Brown Ale" I found in the Brooklyn Brewshop's Beer Making Book into Beersmith. The book claims the recipe should hit 6% ABV. Beersmith says 5.2% with a target OG of 1.054.

I used a small unmodified 2 gallon cooler as a mash tun and big ass strainer over the boil pot to sparge.

My math was a bit off and the strike water did not get the mash temperature up as high as I had hoped. By the last 10 minutes the mash temperature fell a bit below my target temperature range, so I added some hot water to heat it up. (the lesson learned is warmer water and to not leave the 2 gallon cooler on the cold tile floor)

I missed my target OG by about 5 points (1.048 vs the 1.054) and landed at around 68% efficiency. Not perfect, but for a first try at AG, not a bad outcome. Wort tastes and smells great. (yay me and such)

Post brew I have two questions for the more experienced home brewers in the crowd:

First – The recipe called for throwing 3 roasted chestnuts into the boil at the start. I did that. It appears that some small fragments of chestnut are in my carboy hanging out with the yeast. I realize in retrospect that this was perhaps not the best plan for my first AG, but whatever. Is this likely to cause problems? (see picture of bits of chestnut.. or possibly something else floating at the top of the carboy)

Second – There is a ton of sediment floating around at the bottom of the carboy. There is just a lot of sediment floating around period. Is this normal? I presume it’s the hops, but having never done an AG batch before, I have no idea. (again, see picture).

Any input on if this is either normal or if I made a mistake is appreciated.

Thanks and cheers

 

[Hello]

First, the chestnuts will likely fall to the bottom and I don't think it was a bad idea. Second, trub is trub. Rack from over it when you bottle and life will be okay. Does that help?

It sure looks like a beautiful beer.

 

[RM-MN]

When you brew with extract a lot of the trub has already been removed making the extract. All grain has it all in there and it looks like a HUGE amount but it is mostly water and over time when the yeast is done stirring it up it will compact into a much smaller layer. The trub you see is mostly proteins, not the hops. Hops do take up more space when they are rehydrated in the boil but not anywhere near that much.

 

[lhommedieu]

No worries. Just keep your fermentation temperature steady and follow standard sanitation procedures when you rack, and you'll be fine. You probably already know to keep your carboy in a dark place.

 

[stansoid]

Thanks. That sets my mind at ease.

It is happily living inside a small chest freezer with a temperature controller keeping it at about 17.8 C (64.something F).

 

[djfriesen]

The only potential issue I can see with the chestnuts is lack of head retention from the oils, but this will likely depend on batch size and number of nuts. I don't have any personal experience, but either way, it will be beer in the end.

That layer, as stated above, is proteins. Read up on hot- and coldbreak. If you don't whirlpool and/or filter into your fermenter, these proteins go along for the ride. No real problem, as they will settle out during fermentation. In my experience, they usually form a darker layer at the bottom of the carboy, and then a lighter layer of flocculated yeast settles on top. Congrats on the first AG brew.

I got into brewing with the BBS kits. Did the book happen to address a possible head retention issue with the nuts in that recipe? I found their kit instructions to be more good than bad, but they definitely left some (what I now consider to be) important stuff out in an effort to speed up/simplify the process. Just curious.

 

[stansoid]

I don't believed the book mentioned anything on head retention. It did say something about most nuts not being compadable with brewing, but chestnuts are an exception. I am away from home with work so I can't check the exact reason. I'll report back.

 

[stansoid]

following up on my last reply -

There was no mention of head retention in the book. I just tried the first bottle of it. The beer is pretty nice. About 5% abv, but has poor head retention. Its a sweet/mellow beer and the nuttiness comes out well in its smell. I'm fairly happy with it.

I'm mostly excited that my first AG brew is decent

See picture.

 

[lhommedieu]

Great job! I think that you'll find that subsequent bottles will taste even better as they age out. Now - go brew another batch!