Brew Day Tomorrow - Check My Work?

[Obese Chess]

Hello again!

Okay. I'm one of those people who has to write things out in my own words to fully understand them, so I am cobbling this together from How to Brew and Beersmith's instructions.

Tomorrow is my first brew day, and, because I'm insane, I'm doing an all-grain porter.

It's a 5-gallon batch with a 13.15lb grain bill (was supposed to be 13lbs but I got a little heavy with the scoop on a few things).

All of my gear is clean, will be sanitized before use, thermometers/hydrometers/etc are all calibrated, everything is tested and leak free, grains are crushed.

So, let's make sure I've got this right!

1. Preheat mash tun with hot water. Heat appropriate amount (looks like 4.9 gal) of strike water to 164 (source: beersmith) to mash at 152.

2. Stir water and grains into mash tun. Keep some extra hot water around in case temperature drops too low.

3. While mashing (single step infusion, one hour) heat 4.8 gal sparge water to 170.

4. After one hour, drain fluid from mash tun, one quart at a time, into a pitcher and gently pour that back over the grainbed. Repeat process until fluid coming from mash tun is transparent.

5. Once clear, start to gently drain wort into 10-gal brew kettle, about 1qt/minute. Once water is approx 1" over the grain bed, gently begin pouring sparge water over grain. Continue to add sparge water until runoff gravity is 1.060 (Beersmith's "Estimated Pre-Boil Gravity").

6. Add water if needed to achieve pre-boil volume of about 7.5 gallons (forgot to write this one down but I think it's 7.5ish).

7. Once gravity is reached, boil wort in 10-gal brew kettle and add hops according to schedule.

8. After boil is finished, cool with immersion chiller. I realize that many things say to start cooling the wort with 15 minutes remaining in the boil but 1. this doesn't make a lot of sense to me and 2. isn't entirely feasible as I'm running the wort chiller through the garden hose spigot and brewing in the kitchen, not sure I'm gonna be able to get away with bringing the garden hose through the house into the kitchen

9. Once wort is cooled to about 80, dump kettle into bucket for primary fermentation. I have been advised to use a (sanitized) paint bucket filter to catch hot break, hops, and other types of goop out of the fermenter, and to dump to get a head start on aerating the wort.

10. Add water if needed to reach 5 gallons. Take gravity reading. Stir, pitch yeast according to directions. Seal bucket, attach airlock. I do not think I will need a blow off tube in an 8 gallon bucket for a 5 gallon batch but I'm willing to be wrong.

11. Let sit in dark, safe temperature controlled area (aka under something in my garage). Take gravity readings after a few days. When final gravity (estimated 1.017) is reached, you're done. May rack into secondary depending on how I feel, and bottling I will get to when I come to it.

Do I have this right? Any glaring errors or omissions?

Thanks y'all. I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate how cool and supportive everyone has been and the amount I've learned over the past few weeks (just enough to know I know nothing).

 

[bucketnative]

I would say that when you lauter (pour your wort back over the grain bed to clarify) you don't want to disturb the grain bed. To accomplish this, I typically lay a piece of aluminum foil with holes poked in over the top of the grain. This deflects the direct stream of wort and minimzes disturbance of the grains.

Step 5 is off... you want to sparge to your pre-boil volume. Don't worry about the runoff gravity so much. Look at Denny Conn's description of infusion mash with batch sparge: http://dennybrew.com/

Don't need a secondary, unless adding fruit or aging. Rack out of the fermenter when ready to bottle.

 

[LittleRiver]

...8. After boil is finished, cool with immersion chiller. I realize that many things say to start cooling the wort with 15 minutes remaining in the boil but 1. this doesn't make a lot of sense to me...

They don't say to start chilling with 15 left in the boil, they say put the immersion chiller in the boil to sanitize the chiller. Start the flow of chilling water after the boil is complete.

...11. Let sit in dark, safe temperature controlled area (aka under something in my garage). Take gravity readings after a few days. When final gravity (estimated 1.017) is reached, you're done. May rack into secondary depending on how I feel, and bottling I will get to when I come to it....

The temperature of your fermentation is important, and will vary some depending on what yeast you use. Read the yeast package to find the temp range. For the first 2-3 days you want to be on the low side of that range, since fermentation is exothermic.

 

[Obese Chess]

now THAT makes sense!

 

[Obese Chess]

I would say that when you lauter (pour your wort back over the grain bed to clarify) you don't want to disturb the grain bed. To accomplish this, I typically lay a piece of aluminum foil with holes poked in over the top of the grain. This deflects the direct stream of wort and minimzes disturbance of the grains.

Step 5 is off... you want to sparge to your pre-boil volume. Don't worry about the runoff gravity so much. Look at Denny Conn's description of infusion mash with batch sparge: http://dennybrew.com/

Don't need a secondary, unless adding fruit or aging. Rack out of the fermenter when ready to bottle.

Got it on the lautering, I meant to add that detail. So the pre-boil gravity doesn't matter so much, just empty the wort into the kettle after lautering and then gently pour sparge water through the grain bed in "batches" (beersmith is calculating this) until my pre-boil volume is in the kettle?

 

[rburrelli]

Got it on the lautering, I meant to add that detail. So the pre-boil gravity doesn't matter so much, just empty the wort into the kettle after lautering and then gently pour sparge water through the grain bed in "batches" (beersmith is calculating this) until my pre-boil volume is in the kettle?

And just because you reached what Beersmith says should be you final gravity, don’t assume it is done. Take hydrometer readings over a period of a few days to see if it is indeed completed. Yeast have their own agendas.

 

[Obese Chess]

Right, yeah, just wait for it to stabilize, basically?

 

[davidabcd]

Take gravity readings after a few days.

If you know by a visual observation that the beer is fermenting, I don't see a reason to take a specific gravity reading before a week or two unless you're in a rush. I go by, the less the fermenter is opened, the better.
I do three weeks but those are big beers.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

1. Preheat mash tun with hot water. Heat appropriate amount (looks like 4.9 gal) of strike water to 164 (source: beersmith) to mash at 152.

I'm assuming that what you're heating water in isn't your mash tun? I'd suggest you'll end up a bit under your target temperature. 164 would be about right if the water in your mash tun was at 164 - adding 164F water to a mash tun will result in a lower temperature. Heat the water to 168. Also, just heat up 4 gallons of strike water (see the next step).

2. Stir water and grains into mash tun. Keep some extra hot water around in case temperature drops too low.

To start with, stir 4 gallons of your strike water in with your grains. Have some boiling water available. After 'mashing in' (stirring grains and water together), wait 2 minutes then check the temperature. If it's low, add a litre or two of boiling water, stir, then check and repeat in another two minutes. If it's high, add a litre or two of cold water, stir, then check and repeat in another two minutes. The temperature WILL vary at different spots in the mash tun - don't worry about it. Choose a spot to measure the temperature and stick with it. Don't sweat a degree or two - you won't notice a difference between a 150F and 154F mashed beer.

3. While mashing (single step infusion, one hour) heat 4.8 gal sparge water to 170.

Yep.

4. After one hour, drain fluid from mash tun, one quart at a time, into a pitcher and gently pour that back over the grainbed. Repeat process until fluid coming from mash tun is transparent.

You probably won't get transparent liquid (wort). Just go until there aren't 'bits' coming out in the wort.

5. Once clear, start to gently drain wort into 10-gal brew kettle, about 1qt/minute. Once water is approx 1" over the grain bed, gently begin pouring sparge water over grain. Continue to add sparge water until runoff gravity is 1.060 (Beersmith's "Estimated Pre-Boil Gravity").

Pre-boil gravity is the gravity of the combined wort in your boil kettle. The runoff gravity will typically get to about 1.008. However, as already mentioned, this method is for fly sparging. I'd strongly recommend you go with batch sparging as already recommended. If you want to try fly sparging once you have a few brews done, then go for it.

6. Add water if needed to achieve pre-boil volume of about 7.5 gallons (forgot to write this one down but I think it's 7.5ish).

Are you boiling on your stovetop? I don't think you'll have much boiloff. Assuming this is a 5 gallon batch, and you'll leave 1/2 a gallon of trub, you'll probably only have 1/2 to 1 gallon of boiloff, so aim for a pre-boil volume of 6.5 gallons. You can always top up with cold water in the fermenter if you need to.

7. Once gravity is reached, boil wort in 10-gal brew kettle and add hops according to schedule.

Yep.

8. After boil is finished, cool with immersion chiller. I realize that many things say to start cooling the wort with 15 minutes remaining in the boil but 1. this doesn't make a lot of sense to me and 2. isn't entirely feasible as I'm running the wort chiller through the garden hose spigot and brewing in the kitchen, not sure I'm gonna be able to get away with bringing the garden hose through the house into the kitchen

This has already been answered!

9. Once wort is cooled to about 80, dump kettle into bucket for primary fermentation. I have been advised to use a (sanitized) paint bucket filter to catch hot break, hops, and other types of goop out of the fermenter, and to dump to get a head start on aerating the wort.

I've never used a filter to keep trub out. Sometimes I let it settle then rack to fermenter off the top, sometimes I dump it all in (except the hops - they go in a hop basket). Hot and cold break won't hurt your beer. Filtering through a bag shouldn't hurt either though - but might be messy. Also, it's yeast dependent, but 80 is on the high side - can you get it cooler than that? Ideally, you pitch yeast slightly cooler than the temperature it's going to ferment at. Don't worry if you can't though - just get it down to ferment temperatures as fast as possible.

10. Add water if needed to reach 5 gallons. Take gravity reading. Stir, pitch yeast according to directions. Seal bucket, attach airlock. I do not think I will need a blow off tube in an 8 gallon bucket for a 5 gallon batch but I'm willing to be wrong.

Ok. You shouldn't need a blow-off tube unless it's a notoriously eruptive yeast like a hefeweizen.

11. Let sit in dark, safe temperature controlled area (aka under something in my garage). Take gravity readings after a few days. When final gravity (estimated 1.017) is reached, you're done. May rack into secondary depending on how I feel, and bottling I will get to when I come to it.

Don't rack to secondary. Wait a week at least to take a gravity reading. Don't be tempted to keep opening the fermenter - oxygen is the enemy of your beer!

 

[Obese Chess]

Yeah, apparently the A10 is an incredibly fast-working yeast so I was planning on giving it 5 days or so.

 

[Obese Chess]

Gnomebrewer, I am a little bit behind at work right now but wanted to sincerely thank you for all your help and your in-depth answers.

 

[smata67]

You must be an engineer. Couple of tips. BS, at least my ancient version, typically underestimates the strike water temperature. Quantity will be what you pick, either 1.25 qt/ lb or 1.5 qt/lb, that does not change, but the temperature I would increase about 5F over what BS tells you or you will end up a little low on your mash temperature. Not a huge deal if you do, unless it is 5-10 degrees off or more, IMO. To brew this recipe (5G), your mash tun will need to be at least 25 quarts. I use the 28 quart Igloo Island Breeze cooler for batches up to about 14 lb of grain. I don't know my exact sparge water quantity ahead of time. After I drain the mash tun, I measure that volume and then subtract it from my boil volume. That becomes my sparge volume, as what you pour in should be what comes out (the grain is saturated). This way you don't leave any valuable wort behind or fall short. Brewing lore says that the proper way is to add grain to water to minimize or avoid dough balls. So put about 3/4 of your anticipated water volume into the tun and then gradually add grain while stirring. Then add grain/water as needed, making sure you always have room for remaining grain. Honestly, I don't abide by the 1 qt/min mash tun drain approach, I just drain the sucker down at full blast. I do vorlauf a quart or two and that is usually sufficient to ensure clarity. I think most people get a bit peeved at the slow pace and do this also (drain at full blast). I only filter trub/hops into the fermenter if I intend on harvesting the yeast, otherwise, I don't bother. I know I have a tight fermenter and the airlock tells me things are going fine, but if not, I will pop the lid and take a look. Otherwise, I pretty much leave everything alone until about two weeks. At that point, I take a gravity reading to ensure I did not get stuck at some point. If I did, there are some measures to be taken, but usually this does not happen. I will usually leave in primary for 3-4 weeks. I do think you will get lower than 1.017, if you are mashing at 152F or less, but English yeasts, for example, might be fine with that, but I would expect lower if using American ale yeasts. You are off to a good start, but it is important to stay paranoid about sanitation, that is what will kill the beer. Most other things are rather forgiving and you will end up with beer and be well along on the journey.

 

[jrgtr42]

Besides what others have said, I would recommend heating more water than you think you need. If for your strike water, you think you need 4.9 gallons, heat 6. For the sparge same. You can reheat cooled, extra water, but if you run out, it's hard to get to the right temps. Also, keep some cold water handy in case you overshoot your temps. Don't worry too much about a degree or two off, but it it's 5 degrees off, then you want to adjust it - don't worry about being exact on your mash volumes - again, it's pretty forgiving if you need to add a couple extra quarts to warm or cool it.

 

[jrgtr42]

duplicate …. sorry.

 

[Obese Chess]

Well, I made the last minute executive decision to pick up a propane burner to brew outside after concluding that I would likely destroy my tiny kitchen and that stuff would take forever. After setting everything up in the yard, it started raining (the forecast was "sunny") and it is not expected to stop for a few weeks.

Wish me luck!

 

[SKBugs]

This is a great post/thread. Very good info for us rookies. Thanks heaps

 

[Obese Chess]

So far so good! I may have used a tiny bit too much sparge water and have a bit too much going into the boil - seems to be more like 7.25 gal rather than 6.75 and still have a bit of wort left in the tun - but the bits of wort I've had have been tasty and the wort is damn near BLACK, a good sign for a chocolate porter imo. The wort is coming up to a boil now and I've got a sample in the freezer cooling down for a gravity reading.

 

[Obese Chess]

Alas... Missed pre-boil gravity thanks to the extra water. 1.035 vs 1.060. So it goes. At least I know *exactly* what I did wrong. We'll see how it looks after the boil!

 

[Obese Chess]

This... smells really good.

 

[TallDan]

Alas... Missed pre-boil gravity thanks to the extra water. 1.035 vs 1.060. So it goes. At least I know *exactly* what I did wrong. We'll see how it looks after the boil!

Yikes! If it was only the extra half gallon of water, you would be at 1.056, not 1.035. Your efficiency must have been really low. Maybe the grain wasn't crushed very well?

 

[Obese Chess]

Nah, it was the enormous extra volume of water, I'm confident of that. It was much more than just an extra half gallon and I know exactly what I did wrong - I was supposed to batch sparge with 1.5 gallons TWICE, I did it three times. Rookie mistake!

To make matters worse we had a lot more boil off than anticipated, so we could have used some of that extra wort - only about 4 gal went into the fermenter - but we hit expected final gravity of 1.069 EXACTLY before pitching yeast. So, all's well that ends well?

 

[TallDan]

Nah, it was the enormous extra volume of water, I'm confident of that. It was much more than just an extra half gallon and I know exactly what I did wrong - I was supposed to batch sparge with 1.5 gallons TWICE, I did it three times. Rookie mistake!

To make matters worse we had a lot more boil off than anticipated, so we could have used some of that extra wort - only about 4 gal went into the fermenter - but we hit expected final gravity of 1.069 EXACTLY before pitching yeast. So, all's well that ends well?

Sounds like you needed the extra water then; a lucky accident! Sure, your batch is a little smaller than anticipated, but such things happen when you're starting off and figuring the process out. Good news is: you have your first brewday done and your first beer fermenting!

 

[Obese Chess]

Yeah, we actually had additional extra wort that we could have added to the boil had we known how much was going to boil off, but... live and learn, and overall not bad for my first brew day! The good news is I took notes and now know roughly how much boil-off to anticipate next time. And of course, the better news is that I hit my FG! It looks and smells great, a very deep rich brown, almost black, with a lot of toasty sweetness. I'm really excited.

And now the waiting begins.........

 

[TallDan]

If you boiled off that much, you probably had your burner running too high. Next time try to keep a low rolling boil, not a raging violent boil. Boiling hard like that really just wastes fuel and water and can have negative effects on the beer.

 

[kh54s10]

I'll give you a quick version of what I do.

1 fill the HLT with all the water I am going to use. I have a 3 vessel system - HLT - MT - BK.
2 heat to strike temperature, a little before reaching strike I run a gallon or so into my cool mash tun to pre heat.
3 strike temperature depends on temperature of the grain so I keep the grain inside until ready to dough in. Keeps it warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
4 fill the mash tun with the required amount of water.
5 add the grain, stir well until all the dough balls are gone.
6 close up the tun and wait the required amount of time - usually one hour.
7 at one hour open the tun and stir the grain well.
8 vorlauf until the wort is clear. It usually only takes 2 quarts with my system. I have a water heater braid in the MT.
9 pour the vorlauf back into the tun and start draining (I do batch sparging)
10 once the grain bed is set I open the valve all the way.
11 once the tun is drained I measure the wort in the boil kettle, I then add about 1/2 the sparge water, stir, vorlauf and drain
12 I then measure the wort in the BK so I know really close to what I still need to collect, I do a second sparge with the rest of the water.
13 know your boil off rate. I know that I need about 7.25 gallons in my BK to end up with 5.25 into the fermenter.
14 boil and add hops at the appropriate time. You don't need a volcanic boil. A good roll is all that is necessary. I have to have a little bit of a stronger boil to keep the flame on my burner steady, thus I have a pretty high boil off rate. Every system will have a different rate.

Don't sweat the minor details. Get the process down over a few brews, take notes to make corrections and most of all - have fun.

 

[Obese Chess]

If you boiled off that much, you probably had your burner running too high. Next time try to keep a low rolling boil, not a raging violent boil. Boiling hard like that really just wastes fuel and water and can have negative effects on the beer.

Interesting, I didn't even think of that angle but it makes a lot of sense! We also had a HUGE amount of hot break/cold break/whatever get caught by the filter bag, probably enough to have displaced 3/4 of a gallon. Next time I'm going to get started earlier, use a marker, and take more precise measurements.

Went in to the garage to check on the fermenter this morning. It's happily bubbling away! Garage is at 66° F and the thermometer on the side of the bucket says it's 74° in there, which I assume is due to fermentation being an exothermic reaction so I'm not stressing it.

I think I did the damn thing, y'all!

 

[TallDan]

Interesting, I didn't even think of that angle but it makes a lot of sense! We also had a HUGE amount of hot break/cold break/whatever get caught by the filter bag, probably enough to have displaced 3/4 of a gallon. Next time I'm going to get started earlier, use a marker, and take more precise measurements.

Went in to the garage to check on the fermenter this morning. It's happily bubbling away! Garage is at 66° F and the thermometer on the side of the bucket says it's 74° in there, which I assume is due to fermentation being an exothermic reaction so I'm not stressing it.

I think I did the damn thing, y'all!

You sure did!

What yeast are you using?

74F is pretty warm for most yeast. It would likely be better if you could keep it cooler. If you have a cooler place to put it, or can put it in a tub of water to cool it down that would help a lot.

 

[Obese Chess]

You sure did!

What yeast are you using?

74F is pretty warm for most yeast. It would likely be better if you could keep it cooler. If you have a cooler place to put it, or can put it in a tub of water to cool it down that would help a lot.

Imperial A10. I have an external thermometer in the garage and can confirm that the temp surrounding the bucket is 66 as of about two minutes ago. Is the temp inside the bucket more important? I can certainly put something cool on/around it!

EDIT I should also note that is a SUPER cheap thermometer that just sticks onto the side of the bucket and I have no idea how accurate it is, whereas I know the thermometer next to it measuring the ambient temperature is dead-on accurate.

 

[TallDan]

Temp inside is what matters. A water bath or swamp cooler setup wit an old T-shirt is the easiest way to keep it cooler.

 

[smata67]

I brewed yesterday also. Pitched S05 24 hours ago into a 1.075 Shallow Grave porter. Air lock has been going crazy since this morning. The Ranco controller is giving you the fermenting wort temperature. The other temperature is the temperature in the conditioning chamber. So the wort is 8 degrees higher than the surrounding temperature.

 

[Obese Chess]

Cool, I've got it sitting on some cooling packs right now and that seems to have brought it down a bit until I can get it in an ice bath. Still bubbling like mad, which I expected from the reviews of this yeast - A10 is no joke.

 

[smata67]

So far so good! I may have used a tiny bit too much sparge water and have a bit too much going into the boil - seems to be more like 7.25 gal rather than 6.75 and still have a bit of wort left in the tun - but the bits of wort I've had have been tasty and the wort is damn near BLACK, a good sign for a chocolate porter imo. The wort is coming up to a boil now and I've got a sample in the freezer cooling down for a gravity reading.

I don't like leaving wort in the tun after the second running. I described what I do to avoid that. I measure the volume drained first go around and then subtract it from my boil volume and that is the sparge water (I'm doing batch sparging) volume I add for the second running. An interesting thing happened yesterday, I usually just drain the tun and when I don't see any more wort coming down the tubing, I shutoff the drain valve and move my pot over to begin the boil. I did not do it like that this time, I got distracted and came back 15 minutes and found that my wort volume had increased by 1/2 gallon! So that much trickled out or the bed settled or something and dumped some additional wort. From now on, I am not going to be in a hurry after draining, I'm going to give it some additional time to more completely drain.

 

[smata67]

Cool, I've got it sitting on some cooling packs right now and that seems to have brought it down a bit until I can get it in an ice bath. Still bubbling like mad, which I expected from the reviews of this yeast - A10 is no joke.

Smells awesome, doesn't it?

 

[Obese Chess]

Smells awesome, doesn't it?

It does! Makes me think I've got a pretty good batch going in spite of my weird mix-ups.

 

[LittleRiver]

... It looks and smells great, a very deep rich brown, almost black, with a lot of toasty sweetness. I'm really excited. And now the waiting begins.........

Patience is a virtue for the type of beer you are describing. Age is going to help it.

Don't be in any hurry to get it out of the fermenter, give it an extra week, or two, or four.

Once it's packaged (bottled I assume) don't be in a hurry to open the bottles. You're gonna open at least one early to give it a taste (like we all do), but give the bulk of the bottles at least a month to age (at room temperature).

Take a six pack or two and put them in the back of bottom cabinet where you will forget about them and find them 6 months or a year from now.

 

[Obese Chess]

Yes, the notes I have here say explicitly that it gets much better with age after bottling - "don't be in a hurry. 3 months is NOT too long."

Based on the recipe I based my beer off of, it looks like he kept it in primary for about two weeks before racking into secondary for another two weeks and then bottled. Per recommendations from members here I will likely skip secondary and bottle after about 3-4 weeks in primary (depending on when the gravity stabilizes).

Ugh. I've got the bug, y'all, I'm already planning my next one.

 

[LittleRiver]

...bottle after about 3-4 weeks in primary (depending on when the gravity stabilizes)...

If it were me, I'd just leave it alone for a month. The gravity will stabilize sometime during that period, but it will continue to mature and change character (for the better) even after the gravity stops changing. Check the FG when you bottle it. [That's not a general recommendation, it's a recommendation for this situation, for this type of beer.]

Then give it another month in the bottle.

Ugh. I've got the bug, y'all, I'm already planning my next one.

Well done! If you're having fun you're doing it right!

 

[kh54s10]

I would age it a bit longer in the fermenter but there is no reason to leave it in there for a month or more. The aging can be done in the bottles. And that decreases the chance of infection or oxidation while sitting in the fermenter.

 

[Obese Chess]

Yeah, I asked the folks at Imperial, they said that especially because the volume is comparatively small and A10 is such a fast-working yeast, there's not really a benefit to leaving it in the fermenter for a month - that said, bottle conditioning/aging will be key on a beer like this. So, I'll probably take a gravity reading on Sunday (8 days after) and then another a few days later and if it's stabilized I'll bottle on 9/22 and leave it alone for a while. Exciting stuff!

 

[Jag75]

I've had great results with Imperial yeast . Good stuff for sure.