Jeremy9991
Active Member
This is the 5th brew on the new system and first time I've had this problem, so I'm hoping you intelligent folks can help me learn from it for the future. Brewing on a 3 vessel E-Herms system with keggles (based on the electricbrewery.com). Fair warning it is a long post but I tried to give all the info needed.
I wrote the recipe and use BrewCipher for all my numbers. Here are the numbers and what happened during the brew.
Fermentables: 29 Pounds
Mash Efficiency: 78%
Total Water Needed: 16.03 Gallons
Pre-Boil: 11.54 Gallons @ 1.071
Boil-Off Rate: 1.24 Gallons/Hr
Post-Boil Volume: 10.3 Gallons
OG: 1.081
Grain bill was 2 row, flaked oats, honey malt, white wheat malt, carapils, acid malt, dextrose, etc. All things I've used before without issue.
How the brew went...
Both carboys have been sitting since the brewday last night and will be checked today, but any ideas on what happened? I've never gotten such build up before. Yes the recipe is designed to make this a hazier double IPA, but I've brewed several other very similar beers that have never come out anything at all like this. Even in the wort sample for gravity there was a ton of suspended floating ****. Aside from the small mash temp increase, and too speedy of sparge, my numbers ended up pretty close to where I expected.
Big difference from the previous brews I've done are the new whirlpool valve, so usually I just go straight from boil to chill. Did the 45 minute gap to naturally reduce temperature hurt me? The particulate was clearly there before that though. Should I wort chill it immediately down to 170 from 212 for the whirlpool next time?
Any and all feedback is much much appreciated. Cheers and happy brewing!
I wrote the recipe and use BrewCipher for all my numbers. Here are the numbers and what happened during the brew.
Fermentables: 29 Pounds
Mash Efficiency: 78%
Total Water Needed: 16.03 Gallons
Pre-Boil: 11.54 Gallons @ 1.071
Boil-Off Rate: 1.24 Gallons/Hr
Post-Boil Volume: 10.3 Gallons
OG: 1.081
Grain bill was 2 row, flaked oats, honey malt, white wheat malt, carapils, acid malt, dextrose, etc. All things I've used before without issue.
How the brew went...
- Strike water was heated to 163 and moved from the HLT to the Mash tun without issue
- Grains were slowly mashed in and allowed the mash to rest for 5 minutes when it appropriately settled out at 152. PH was adjusted using salts to target 5.25. Came out a bit low at 5.15, but I didn't acidify the sparge water later because (water is 6.0 with all non detectable values).
- Started Herms re circulation and everything went smoothly. Great flow and temperature was steady. All the sudden temperature started climbing to 158 and even with the HLT cut down to 135 it wouldn't drop. Cold water addition brought it back down to 150, but it was at 156-158 for about 25 minutes. My ideal mash temp for this brew was 150.
- Mashed for the full 60 minutes regardless and with 10 minutes left started heating the sparge water. Vorlauf and the wort cleared very quickly. Temp was good and sparged with the appropriate volume at 191 degrees for 25-30 minutes.
- Wort in the boil kettle looked good, but was seeing some suspended particulate in my sight gauge that I don't usually get. Once I got my pre-boil volume I took a reading and was under for my pre-boil OG. Should have been at 1.071 and was at 1.061. Adjusted my numbers and rolled with it. Skimmed the foam off the top as it heated and moved on.
- Boiled quickly and right as it was about to boil over I cut the element (209). Turned the element back on after about 15 seconds and the rolling boil started. Hop additions were added (.5 at 60 and .5 at 10). Boiled for 60 minutes. Started to see larger and larger particulate built up in the sight gauge, and I didn't have any whirfloc on hand as I've never had to use it before. Boil temp was 212-214.
- At the end of the boil I cut the element and started whirlpooling through the wort pump (whirlpool valve on the side). Let it naturally come down to 200 and added the first whirlpool hop addition. Then at 185 added the second. Total time from end of boil to end of whirlpool was 40-45 minutes.
- From there I pulled out of the side port to avoid hop and trub, to the wort chiller it went and right into the carboy at 70 degrees. This is when I start noticing significant and large chunks or particulate.
- Filled two carboys and was under my desired volume by about .5 gallons, and gravity sample was 1.079 once cooled.
- Carboys were oxygenated using a stone and pure O2 (purged with CO2 prior to filling), and then yeast starters were added. Within 20 minutes both carboys had at least 1-2 inches of particulate on the bottom and there was clear color separation throughout the beer. Tons and tons of suspended particulate matter in both large and small chunks (protein I assume? )
Both carboys have been sitting since the brewday last night and will be checked today, but any ideas on what happened? I've never gotten such build up before. Yes the recipe is designed to make this a hazier double IPA, but I've brewed several other very similar beers that have never come out anything at all like this. Even in the wort sample for gravity there was a ton of suspended floating ****. Aside from the small mash temp increase, and too speedy of sparge, my numbers ended up pretty close to where I expected.
Big difference from the previous brews I've done are the new whirlpool valve, so usually I just go straight from boil to chill. Did the 45 minute gap to naturally reduce temperature hurt me? The particulate was clearly there before that though. Should I wort chill it immediately down to 170 from 212 for the whirlpool next time?
Any and all feedback is much much appreciated. Cheers and happy brewing!