One other thought about the gravity on the second batch:
The sample I collected and tested on the refractometer was from a flask
where I had poured the trub (after whirlpooling and transferring the wort
to carboy) to measure this loss to see if that figure was accurate in
BeerSmith. After several minutes, it settled down so there was about 1/2"
of good-looking wort on top of the trub & hops particles and that's what I
sampled.
Would it be possible that the majority of the beer volume (in the carboy)
was higher gravity than this sample because it did not have the trub
"crowding out" as much of the sugars?
The active fermentation has lasted quite a bit longer (still going) in the
second batch. The krausen fell and disappeared from the first batch after
only a couple of days. Doesn't seem like 3 gallons at 1.054 vs. 2 gallons
at 1.062 would be that different.
On Sun, Apr 28, 2019, 5:40 PM Steve Paulson <blueangel6@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Besides the correct (lesser) amount of water, the only difference in the
BIAB process I did was a 1-hr "sparge" (with frequent stirring of the
grain) by adding the sparge water to the main kettle and raising the heat
to 168 for the first batch.
For the second batch, with the correct amount of water, I set the grain
bag on a large colander over another pot and poured the 168 F sparge water
slowly (and running it through a second colander to spread it across the
grain), then adding the collected wort to the main kettle and stirring /
tea-bagging the grain in the main kettle for 12 minutes. (BIAB forums I
read seemed to indicate a 15-minute sparge was plenty with no difference in
efficiency). I'm surprised how much less efficient this sparge seemed to
be, if that really was the difference. But I can't think of anything else
that was different. Same grain, same mill, same crush, same temps.
I guess keeping some DME on hand to raise the gravity for high gravity
beers might be a good idea. :)
I'm going try again with a the sparge technique from batch 1 with the
water volume from batch 2, but I'll have to get some more grain first.
--Steve
On Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 5:19 PM Wild Child <wildchild75@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hope it turns out well!
Let us know how it goes.
Speaking of browns King's mountain is also a nice easy drinking beer!
Donna
On Sat, Apr 27, 2019, 2:15 PM Steve Paulson <blueangel6@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Alright, I worked on it in BeerSmith a bit. The beer I brewed last night
is about 18 IBUs and should finish at 5% ABV. Should be a pretty easy
drinking brown ale. Not really what I was going for, but I bet my wife will
like it.
I had to increase the hops even in the 2 gallon recipe to hit the
desired 28 IBUs and it should finish at 7.6% ABV. And Imma gonna dry hop
this with Golding and Citra. I'm trying to replicate Short's "Good Humans"
dry-hopped double brown ale.
I am rebrewing (mashed in already) the beer with the corrected recipe.
Benefit of small batch brewing! :) Guess what, BeerSmith figures the
total water for this recipe is 3.86 gallons -- exactly one gallon less than
the batch I brewed last night that finished at 3 gallons (although that did
include a 2-pint starter that I dumped in).
--Steve
On Sat, Apr 27, 2019 at 11:16 AM Steve Paulson <blueangel6@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I did my first small-batch all-grain brew last night, although it
wasn't as small of a batch as I thought I had planned because I made a
mistake in BeerSmith. It was set for a 3-gallon BIAB batch. I changed the
batch size to 2 gallons (without "scaling" the recipe) and that messed me
up because it didn't change any of the quantities and I had set the recipe
amounts to hit targets that were apparently counting on less water. When I
changed the batch size back up to 3 gallons, it shows what I actually
brewed, I think. Not sure why, if the batch size it editable, that doesn't
actually trigger a re-scale. It seems like it should have flagged the
discrepancy somewhere...and maybe it did. Oh well.
I thought it was too much water (4.86 gallons total, including sparge,
for just over 5 lbs of grain), but I figured BeerSmith was accounting for
losses, etc. and it would all work out. It was supposed to be a double
brown ale (OG 1.076) so I guess I lucked out there because the OG ended up
being 1.054. So just a regular brown. Ah, well. Live and learn. I'm going
to have to play with BeerSmith a bit and figure out what I actually brewed
-- specifically, its IBUs are probably lower than I expected because it is
diluted -- and it was already a fairly low IBU to begin with, so I hope it
has enough for stability -- but heck, we'll just have to drink it quick.
But it came into the fermenter at exactly 3 gallons, so BeerSmith got that
right.
I pulled out some of my canned wort and my previously harvested yeast
to build a starter earlier in the evening and that worked great. It's been
in the fermenter for 8 hours (yeah, I was up until 3:00am because I didn't
really get started until about 9:30 last night) and it's already bubbling
nicely. I love seeing an airlock bubble!
The grain mill I bought from a member of another homebrew club worked
like a charm. I don't mind hand-cranking, especially since this is a
smaller grain bill.
I think maybe I'll figure out what I did wrong in BeerSmith, fix it,
and re-brew today to get that double brown! :)
