Different Paths to the Same Result?

[jlnota]

I brewed my first batch of beer using Brooklyn Brew Shop Kit. I followed the direction carefully and the beer came out great.

A friend introduced me to a home brewer who was looking for someone to brew beer with. I was under the impression that he was experienced.

After brewing some batches of beer with him I have my doubts.

Here are some of the things I have questions about: I do believe we have the right water to grain ratio correct. He has this Gatorade cooler like thing with a faucet at the bottom. We pour our 5 pounds of grain into that and after our 2 gallons of water reaches 170 degrees we pour that on our grain, close up the lid and wait one hour.

One hour later we open the faucet and let the wort empty out into a steel pot, where we boil for 1 hour adding our hops. This is where I have my question. He cools his wort by pouring 2 gallons of cold water into the boiled wort.

I cooled my wort by putting the pot into a tub of ice water.

 

[Cyclman]

As long as its filtered water, same difference.

 

[chad_]

You may benefit from better mashing and sparging techniques. Onto your question, you can pour water into it to cool it and to raise the amount of water you have, but it might be better to start with more water in the boil for better flavor

 

[jlnota]

Would it not be better as my Brew Shop Kit directions said to do, to heat the other amount of water you are going to use and pour that through the gain to extract more of the sugars?

The other batch we did on another day he had me poured the 2 gallons of water into the wort just before boiling, then we did our wort boil for one hour. I was thinking he might of had too much to drink before we started brewing that day. I could be wrong.

 

[DSorenson]

Yeah, I'm not sure about your partner's experience either. He might have just as much experience as you do.

Generally (for my system) a mash works like this:
1) heat strike water about ten degrees above desired mash temp. Right now I'm conducting a mash at 154 F, so my strike water was somewhere very close to 164 F.

2) A good bet is to wait an hour for conversion to complete. That's what I'm doing as we speak.

3) Run off the wort from the mash tun into your boil kettle. I'll be doing this in about a half hour.

4) Pour hot water (just about 170 F) into the mash tun and gently stir; this is what's called a sparge. Let it sit for 20 mins and then run that off into your boil kettle. You're basically flushing out as much residual sugar as you can from the grain. This sparge water should be the remainder of the volume of water you need preboil. Today for my mash I will have conducted with mash with 3.75 gallons of water. That will yield about 1.8 gallons of wort. Then I will sparge with approximately 5 gallons to get myself up to a preboil volume of 7 gallons (you probably won't need 7 gallons, that's just for my brew today).

I hope that helps!

 

[broadbill]

I brewed my first batch of beer using Brooklyn Brew Shop Kit. I followed the direction carefully and the beer came out great.

A friend introduced me to a home brewer who was looking for someone to brew beer with. I was under the impression that he was experienced.

After brewing some batches of beer with him I have my doubts.

Here are some of the things I have questions about: I do believe we have the right water to grain ratio correct. He has this Gatorade cooler like thing with a faucet at the bottom. We pour our 5 pounds of grain into that and after our 2 gallons of water reaches 170 degrees we pour that on our grain, close up the lid and wait one hour.

One hour later we open the faucet and let the wort empty out into a steel pot, where we boil for 1 hour adding our hops. This is where I have my question. He cools his wort by pouring 2 gallons of cold water into the boiled wort.

I cooled my wort by putting the pot into a tub of ice water.

5 lb of grain absorbs 0.1 gal/lb...so that is 0.5 gallon. Therefore he is collecting only 1.5 gallons of wort from his grain (assuming no deadspace).

No sparge? He is probably leaving alot of sugar in there. Its fine to do a no-sparge though; if the recipe accounts for the loss of efficiency.

1.5 gallon wort + 2 gallons of top up water =3.5 gallons of water. Boil down to 3 gallons....are you only doing 3 gallon batches?

 

[TheZymurgist]

To answer your question, if I need to top up my batches, I use water straight from the tap. No filter, no boil, no sanitizer, nothing. I've been doing this for a couple years now, and have never had an infection, so I would say there is nothing wrong with your buddy's way of cooling the wort.

My concern is that you guys could benefit from some research and understanding of better techniques. Not that it's absolutely necessary to make beer, but to make a better, more consistent product, you ought to have an understanding of the mash (how different temperatures change the final product) and sparge techniques.

Again, it's not essential, but it could be helpful.

 

[kombat]

He's mashing with a ratio of 1.6 qt/lb, which is a little high, but not unreasonably so. The usual recommended ratio is 1.25 - 1.5 qt/lb.

What size batch is he brewing? It sounds like a 3 gallon batch? You'd lose 2 quarts to grain absorption, and assuming maybe 1 quart of dead space in your mash tun, your first runnings would be 1.25 gallons. If you boil that for an hour, you're significantly concentrating the wort, and you're going to darken it considerably. Conservatively, you'll lose 2 more quarts during a 1-hour boil, leaving you with just 3 quarts of wort at the end of your boil. If you then add 2 gallons to that, I assume he's brewing 3 gallon batches.

5 lbs of grain for a 3 gallon batch is going to be a pretty weak beer.

When he ran the wort off into the boil kettle, did he vorlauf at all? If not, then those first runnings are going to contain some grain husks, and boiling them will impart harsh tannins to the resulting beer, not to mention make it more challenging to get a clear beer at the end.

Conceptually, there's nothing wrong with using cold (preferably sanitized by boiling and cooling ahead of time) water to reach full volume and speed wort cooling. As I mentioned, boiling the more concentrated wort will darken the beer and result in increased maillard reactions, which can affect flavour. Finally, it also affects hop utilization, making it more difficult to achieve high IBUs in a very hoppy or bitter beer, but this is a non-issue for low-IBU beers.

Finally, as mentioned, it sounds like he's not sparging at all, which is just leaving precious sugars behind. When you're only starting with 5 lbs of grain to begin with, you want to get as much of those sugars as possible. If your description was accurate, then I predict the resulting beer will be very weak, dark, cloudy, and with noticeable tannins from the grain husks.

 

[jlnota]

5 lb of grain absorbs 0.1 gal/lb...so that is 0.5 gallon. Therefore he is collecting only 1.5 gallons of wort from his grain (assuming no deadspace).

No sparge? He is probably leaving alot of sugar in there. Its fine to do a no-sparge though; if the recipe accounts for the loss of efficiency.

1.5 gallon wort + 2 gallons of top up water =3.5 gallons of water. Boil down to 3 gallons....are you only doing 3 gallon batches?

We are doing what he calls half batches (half of 5 gallon), so in other words 2 1/2 gallon batches.

 

[jlnota]

That is the one thing I notice is he doesn't do is "sparge." I have tried some of his beer and to me it taste kind of bland, but he loves it. Thank you everyone for the answers. I hesitate in giving him suggestions being new. How would you like someone you take under your wings and that person starts telling you, you need to do this or that?

 

[TheZymurgist]

That is the one thing I notice is he doesn't do is "sparge." I have tried some of his beer and to me it taste kind of bland, but he loves it. Thank you everyone for the answers. I hesitate in giving him suggestions being new. How would you like someone you take under your wings and that person starts telling you, you need to do this or that?

The question is, do you like it? If not, there's no reason to brew with him. You'll just end up getting frustrated. Pick up the book 'How to Brew' or check out www.howtobrew.com

The book has been updated, but there's still some great info on the website. That will give you a better idea of the process.