Ernst-Haeckel
Well-Known Member
I've completed 3 all grain batches, summed up as:
1) NB Psuedo-Pils recipe: Pilsner grain bill with some carahel and carafoam, but a kolsch yeast. Came out fantastic! Early addition Magnum hops gave it a very distinct bitterness that almost perfectly nails the Hofbrau original recipe, which I was not expecting. I think I am going to start calling it a Hofbrau clone, cause' it is dead on! 75% efficiency, pretty happy about it as my first all-grain!
2) NB Dunkelweizen. Screwed the pooch on this one and ended up with ~55% efficiency. May have been a bad crush or poor sparge technique. Cracked open the first bottle last night; tastes slightly watered down, and I am really surprised that the wyeast 3068 didn't create a stronger ester profile, temps must have been too low: next time, I am not going to transfer to a secondary, and not cold crash! All in all, it's a pretty boring beer, which is disappointing because it's one of my favorite styles!
3) Black IPA. 85% efficiency! I couldn't believe it! Just brewed it this weekend, so no report on how it turned out, but I am ecstatic about the boost in efficiency! Due to poorly predicted boil-off the bitter addition ended being in the boil ~75 min. instead of 60, but we will see how it turned out!
Why the huge boost? I basically changed my sparge technique. The first two batches I did a fly-sparge by constantly pouring sparge water into the MLT, keeping ~2 inches on top of the grain bed at all times. With the Black IPA I did a batch sparge: vorlauf, collect first runnings, then 2 sparges. The batch sparge took about 90 minutes, but I hear that is okay...
Anyhoo, I am very excited to be nailing down a technique that works well with my equipment. Almost everything I learned I got off this site, so thanks everyone! This forum is phenomenal!
1) NB Psuedo-Pils recipe: Pilsner grain bill with some carahel and carafoam, but a kolsch yeast. Came out fantastic! Early addition Magnum hops gave it a very distinct bitterness that almost perfectly nails the Hofbrau original recipe, which I was not expecting. I think I am going to start calling it a Hofbrau clone, cause' it is dead on! 75% efficiency, pretty happy about it as my first all-grain!
2) NB Dunkelweizen. Screwed the pooch on this one and ended up with ~55% efficiency. May have been a bad crush or poor sparge technique. Cracked open the first bottle last night; tastes slightly watered down, and I am really surprised that the wyeast 3068 didn't create a stronger ester profile, temps must have been too low: next time, I am not going to transfer to a secondary, and not cold crash! All in all, it's a pretty boring beer, which is disappointing because it's one of my favorite styles!
3) Black IPA. 85% efficiency! I couldn't believe it! Just brewed it this weekend, so no report on how it turned out, but I am ecstatic about the boost in efficiency! Due to poorly predicted boil-off the bitter addition ended being in the boil ~75 min. instead of 60, but we will see how it turned out!
Why the huge boost? I basically changed my sparge technique. The first two batches I did a fly-sparge by constantly pouring sparge water into the MLT, keeping ~2 inches on top of the grain bed at all times. With the Black IPA I did a batch sparge: vorlauf, collect first runnings, then 2 sparges. The batch sparge took about 90 minutes, but I hear that is okay...
Anyhoo, I am very excited to be nailing down a technique that works well with my equipment. Almost everything I learned I got off this site, so thanks everyone! This forum is phenomenal!