Any advice on my last brew?

[lashack]

Homebrewers,

I am a beginner brewer (3rd brew ever) and wanted to get some guidance after my last brew. This was a 5 gallon DME batch of a German Hefeweizen [Extract]. I bought all the ingredients the day of brew and used the recipe in picture below. Please give me any advice and reason for issues for how the brew went.

1) Steeped 10 oz. of German Munich Malt in 1 gallon of water for 30 mins in 5 gallon brew kettle. Water temperature was 170°-180° F. Recipe called for 150° F, but stove top kept water temp too high (even after turning burner of med to low to off).

2) Added 2 more gallons to brew kettle (3 gallons total) along with 6 lbs. of DME. Turned burner on high and dissolved DME. Brought brew kettle to a boil, then added 1 oz. of German Hops and boiled for 60 mins.

3) After 60 mins, I removed brew kettle from stove and immediately placed into sink with ice around it. The temperature would not drop so I added the remaining 2 gallons of cold water that had been in the freezer. Temp still would not drop, so I added another bag of ice around brew kettle. Temp. finally dropped to around 72°-73° after 2 hours (could not get temp. any lower).

4) Siphoned wart into 6.5 gallon carboy, gave it a good shake, then pitch the yeast (removed yeast directly from refrigerator). Gave it another small shake then plugged it up with airlock.

5) Ambient temp. is about 68°, first 24 hours the internal temp has been around 72°-74°. To try and keep temp. down I continuously place wet refrigerated t-shirts around carboy to keep internal temp around 69°-70°.

0 Hours

24 Hours

48 Hours

Please critique to your heart desire and any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks everyone.

- Lashack

 

[Subdivisions]

1) Don't steep the grains with the burner on. You can extract tannins at higher temperature. Get it up around 160, toss the grains in and let it sit for a half hour. You're not really mashing here so keeping the temperature exact isn't necessary. You can also put the grains in when you first turn the flame on and pull them out when the temperature reaches 170. Either way works.

3) When chilling in an ice bath you'll probably have to drain the water and re-fill / add more ice a couple times. The water gets hot pretty quick and just dumping more ice in melts the ice quickly.

5) Get a big rubbermaid tub that your carboy will fit in and fill it up to the top of the beer with water. You can put a shirt over it that dips into the water and wicks it up. Keep a couple 2 liter bottles of water frozen and toss one in periodically. That will keep the beer temperature pretty stable without a lot of fooling around.

Looks like it came out pretty good!

 

[andy6026]

Cover that carboy with a towel if you haven't already - Minimize any contact with sunlight

 

[kh54s10]

I find that I have to stir both the ice water around the pot and the wort also to get ice baths to work quickly.

Make the swamp cooler described above, control the fermentation temperature (wort temperature) to the mid sixties for most ales. Since you have a stick on temperature gauge on your carboy don't have water that high it will destroy the fermometer.

Look into making yeast starters when using liquid yeast.

Keep light off the beer. I use the cardboard box my Better Bottles were shipped in. One end is cut off and I cut out a circle for the airlock or blow off tube to come out. I just drop it over the fermenter so it is always in the dark. Sunlight (uv) will skunk your beer.

 

[lashack]

1) So no steeping grains with flame on. Bring it up to 160 F, flame off, throw in grains for 30 mins. Awesome

2) I have a question about chilling as fast as possible. Along with ice bathing brew kettle, what about placing 4-8 quarts of frozen water instead of added 4-8 quarts of really cold water to lower temperature? Any suggestions

5) Question: If I dunk the carboy in a rubbermaid container filled with water and ever so often place frozen 2 litter bottles in the water, will this keep the temp at a fairly constant temp or 65-68 degrees F?

Thanks these are great suggestions.

 

[lashack]

I have the carboy in a small closet with no light entering and the door stays close. I also am keeping refrigerated chilled water soaked t-shirts over the carboy and getting a temp of 68-70 F reading on the temp sticker.

Is it too late to try the swamp cooler tub after the first 48 hours of fermentation? Is the first few days during the rigorous fermentation more important than the last 8-12 days of (not as active) fermentation?

 

[d3track]

1) from a time standpoint, you can add steeping grains in sooner and pull them out at 150-155, especially since it can take a while for some stove tops to reach a boil with larger volumes

3) you can boil and freeze a couple gallons worth of water, add to fermentor, then add partially cooled wort - helps get temps down quick and tops up

4) try to pitch yeast as close to wort temp as you can, learning pitch rates will improve your final product

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

You can use ice in your wort to cool it and function as top off water. You should boil the water first and then cool it and put it in a sanitized container to freeze. If you use a cleaned and sanitized milk jug, you can just cut it away and add the 1 gal ice block to your wort.

One more thing. In the future, let your yeast (liquid or dry) slowly adjust to your wort temp before pitching. Going straight from fridge to warm wort will shock them and can cause death (to the yeast, not you) or off flavors. As mentioned, do a starter for liquid yeast.

 

[MadHomebrewer]

When I'm steeping grains for an extract I just put the grains in at the start. Once you hit 170 take them out and continue heating till your boil.

 

[lashack]

I think adding ice blocks to wort (properly prepared) will be my next go at retrieving optimal wort temp before ptiching yeast.

I specifically posted taking the yeast directly from fridge to chilled wort in original post because I figured room temp yeast the best way to ensure better results. Thank you.

What are some good yeast starter techniques for liquid yeast?

 

[flars]

This is the pitch rate/starter calculator I like to use.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/

Take a look at the other calculators on the site. There is a good one for calculating OG.

 

[aprichman]

For full boil 5 gallon batches an immersion cooler is pretty much needed. I do full boil 2.5 gallon batches and use my kitchen sink to cool the wort down. Here's a few tricks I've learned that help cut down my time. Here's a typical brew day for me.

I fill the sink up with cold water (In Oregon this is ~60F). During the last 2-3 minutes of the boil I'll put my big metal spoon in the kettle. After that I place my kettle in the cold water bath with the lid off. I stir the pot vigorously during this time. This drops 2.5 gallons of hot wort down to ~170-180F. For a hoppy beer I'll stir in my whirlpool hop addition. After that I'll put the lid back and let the hops infuse at that temperature for around 15-20 minutes. After that I'll fill the sink back up with cold water and put the kettle back in for 15 minutes. Then I'll take the kettle out again and put it back in another cold water batch for 15 minutes. At this point I'll do 1 more cold water bath with 7lbs of ice which is the smallest bag the store sells. The last cold water bath takes 30 minutes and chills the wort down to ~64-66F.

Total time with the hopstand is around 80 minutes, without it around 60 minutes. If I was adding 2 gallons of cold water I can't imagine it would take longer than 30-40 minutes.

If I were you I would try stirring the wort with the lid off in cool water for 3-4 minutes. Put the lid back on and cool the wort in fresh water for another 15 minutes. After that add the top up water and cool in another bath with ice for around 30 minutes. Total time should be around 50 minutes. If you add ice directly it should cut the town time even more. I'm not sure if ice is regulated in the same manner as bottled water (which actually has it's own set of GMPs - which are enforceable manufacturing practices) but at the very least the ice should be as clean as tap water.

 

[Subdivisions]

Is it too late to try the swamp cooler tub after the first 48 hours of fermentation? Is the first few days during the rigorous fermentation more important than the last 8-12 days of (not as active) fermentation?

The first few days are the most important to keep the temperature down. I usually take it out of the swamp cooler after a week.

At this point it probably wouldn't make much difference if you did it. You can always get ready for the next batch though.

 

[lashack]

It turned out delicious. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1433294019.681110.jpg

 

[Gavin C]

Very nice documentation of your process. Looks like a tasty Hefe.

 

[rodwha]

What I do to chill my wort (post boil is around 4.5 gals) is to fill the sink with cold water, place my pot in it, and stir. After 5-10 mins I drain it and repeat.
For the next two sink fills I use a gallon jug of chilled tap water along with cool tap water, and again stir for 5-10 mins, remove and drain. Finally I get the large jug of water (2.5 gal type) and a small bucket I collected ice in and fill the sink 2 more times.
This takes me at least 30 mins. At this point I grab chilled filtered tap water and add half of what I think I'll need and pour that in before I pour wort in to help blend it better.
I have marked my buckets to get a fair estimate of volume, and at this time I add any additional top off water needed.

In the beginning I used 2 qt juice jugs to make my starters in. I used 1 qt of filtered tap water with 4 oz of light DME. Bring water to a boil and add DME. Turn off heat and stir until dissolved. Place in fridge to chill. Once chilled fill jug and add yeast. Shake the bageezus out of it to help aerate it and place in the dark at room temp. Several times a day shake it violently again. Oh, and don't screw the lid on all the way as this acts as the air lock.
If money isn't an issue then buy the 2L flasks and stoppers. You may want to buy a wine bottle cleaning brush and bend it like a carboy brush to easily clean it.

 

[rodwha]

Oh, and when I used plastic storage containers I also kept several water bottles (1 liter to 2) and froze them. I had to change them out three times a day to maintain the temp.

 

[cooper]

1)

5) Question: If I dunk the carboy in a rubbermaid container filled with water and ever so often place frozen 2 litter bottles in the water, will this keep the temp at a fairly constant temp or 65-68 degrees F?

Thanks these are great suggestions.

In my experience this method has kept my brews around 65-68 degrees. Another tip would be to put just a cap full of bleach in the water to keep and bugs from growing... you'll be surprised at what you'll find in there after three to four weeks.