BeerBorg

I bought enough grain to make at least 5 more batches.

I'm all in.

mashani wrote:I bought enough grain to make at least 5 more batches.

I'm all in.

You are going nuts on this thing. Brewing is so easy with this unit it makes you want to brew a couple times a week, and I want to. Unfortunately I am kinda' a at a standstill on brewing because we just went from winter to summer here and no spring inbetween and I have lot's to do to get caught up on. I think I am going to skip for now my try at a full volume small batch and the next time I get a chance to brew it will be a 5 of a Blue moon clone for summer. I am a little hesitant on doing something with a lot of wheat and oats in it with your method without the bottom pads or a bag. But I will try it sometime.

My drain pipe mod came in the mail this morning (thanks, Tyler).

My plan right now is to do my next batch with the fine crush from the Kitchenaid, and recirculate manually every 10 minutes or so. The next batch I'll use the pump, but not the drain pipe mod.

I may do a batch or two where I crush using my cereal crusher, although I'll probably get a better drill first. It's just so much faster than the Kitchenaid. The Kitchenaid is great for PM batches, but it just takes too long to mill a full grain bill.

After I get my process dialed in, I'll see if I even need to add the drain pipe mod. If I'm getting good enough efficiency without it, I may skip it since I'm lazy, but everybody who uses it seems to get great efficiency (not just good efficiency), and the idea of using that much less grain for the same result appeals to me, so my frugalness may win out over my laziness.

My LHBS gives a discount for buying a full bag of grain. They have an option to buy a bag and pick up what you want when you want it, and I've done that in the past. But the last time I was there, I decided to just bring the bag home because it's not really convenient for me to get there and I think I'll be doing a lot more all grain batches.

One thing I like about this thing is the ability to set a timer and also to set the length of time for the mash. I've added the water and set it to start heating at 8 AM and to keep it at temperature for 3.5 hours. So it'll be ready when I get up in the morning. I can also sleep in and still have it stay at mash temperature long enough.

I think this batch is going to end up a lot closer to where BeerSmith predicted. I took a preboil reading (I usually skip that step). BeerSmith predicted 1.058, and I got 1.056 adjusted for temperature. I also ended up with more volume than I should have (I didn't account for the fact that the wort is going to continue to drip for quite a while after adding the last of the sparge water).

One thing I messed up on is that I forgot to put those silicon mats on the bottom of the basket before adding the grain. Since I had a pretty fine crush, I'm sure some got through.

I may end up with some astringency on this batch, but I guess I'll have to live with that. At least I'm getting more acceptable numbers than before.

bpgreen wrote:I think this batch is going to end up a lot closer to where BeerSmith predicted. I took a preboil reading (I usually skip that step). BeerSmith predicted 1.058, and I got 1.056 adjusted for temperature. I also ended up with more volume than I should have (I didn't account for the fact that the wort is going to continue to drip for quite a while after adding the last of the sparge water).

One thing I messed up on is that I forgot to put those silicon mats on the bottom of the basket before adding the grain. Since I had a pretty fine crush, I'm sure some got through.

I may end up with some astringency on this batch, but I guess I'll have to live with that. At least I'm getting more acceptable numbers than before.

I'm getting better, but I think my preboil gravity was off. My FG was 1.060 instead of the expected 1.066. That's better than last time (1.060 vs expected 1.071), but I've still got room for improvement.

Did you double check your kettle volumes? I was thinking I had low efficiency for my first few brews, then checked my volumes. I was off about .5 gallons, so I was collecting 6.5gallons instead of 6 like I thought. So my efficiency was better than I calculated.

Entropy_Brewing wrote:Did you double check your kettle volumes? I was thinking I had low efficiency for my first few brews, then checked my volumes. I was off about .5 gallons, so I was collecting 6.5gallons instead of 6 like I thought. So my efficiency was better than I calculated.

I haven't checked, and I had a lot left over, but I attributed that to starting with too much and not boiling long enough to boil off the extra.

I also remembered that I started milling the grain a couple of weeks ago before I realized that I didn't have an open keg and the drill caught and I lost some of my grains (no idea how much; I was irritated and just swept them up and didn't weigh them). So I was closer than I thought.

So I am almost done brewing my 8th batch in this thing, again following the same process I have been, which is 3.6ish gallon target volume after boiloff, 3.5ish after cooled, 3ish gallons into fermenter, full volume no-sparge BIAB with a mashout step (4.6 gallons of water up front for this grain bill). Stirred about ever time the burner kicked in and turned off, stirred during the mashout.

This is an "English IPA", 4.5# Maris Otter, 8oz British Medium crystal, 6oz British Brown Malt, 4oz Acid malt, 4oz Wheat malt, water adjusted with some baking soda and gypsum to bring it closerish to Burton water (not totally there, that would require me to use RO water and built up from nothing). Hops 1/2oz Willamette FWH, 1oz EKG @20, 1oz Styrian Goldings @flameout, since I'm slow-chiliing it overnight those late additions are like 40 minute and 20 minute bittering additions, so IBUs will be 50ish.

Mash PH ended up 5.3. I ended up mashing for 75 minutes, by the time the mashout was done it was 90 minutes. My temperature adjusted post mash/pre-boil gravity was 1.047, which is something stupid like 90% mash efficiency, so I'm going to end up post boil with a 1.056ish OG post boil (it's boiling now), and something like 78% brew house efficiency after I lose the 1/2 gallon at the bottom below the spigot/trub.

I think the 90% mash efficiency vs. the mid 80s I've been getting is just because it's mostly Maris Otter, and also that my mash was a bit longer. I always seem to get higher efficiency with Maris Otter, it seems to produce a sweeter wort. MoreBeer also crushes the stuff somewhat aggressively, but the silicon mats I am using on the bottom instead of a bag do the trick and keep everything but the flour like particles out of the bottom.

Anyways, that's my current story.

I just played with numbers in Beersmith, and if I pretend that I didn't lose any grain when my drill stuck, I got 66% efficiency. So I've gone from 40 to 60 to 66+ in 3 batches. And I haven't added Tyler's drain pipe mod yet.

I think for my next brew, I'm going to try using the recirculating pump without the drain pipe mod (which means I'll need to watch it more closely, negating some of the benefit). The batch after that will probably use the drain pipe mod.

Actually, even if I only get to about 70% efficiency, I'll be fairly happy, especially if I get to the point where I get that consistently. At that point, I'll be able to create a recipe and be reasonably certain it will be close to what I designed. If I get to the 80+% efficiency so many people seem to be getting, that means I'll be able to use less grain or brew stronger beer. Either one is a win.

One side note is that when I transfer the wort from the M&B to the fermenting bucket, I never need to worry about whether I'm getting enough aeration. I've got it on a cart and the spigot is almost a foot above the top of the fermenter. I open it up wide open and just let it rip. Sometimes the foam is almost to the top of the bucket.

My mash efficiency has pretty much gone up with every batch, but I don't think it's going to be as high as this last batch too often (although I've got enough Maris Otter for another batch or two, so who knows). I'll pull a hydro sample tomorrow after it's cool so I don't have to do a big temperature adjustment and make sure I am not nuts, but the other batches I tested worked out to what beersmith said they would, so I'm pretty sure it will be what I think.

And yeah, I haven't worried about aeration, I just put my fermenter under the sanitized spigot (also close to a foot above) and let it rip and I've got foam up to the 3.8ish gallon "top" of my 3 gallon fermenters when it's all done.

You guys are really making want to brew another batch.
I have an IPA fermenting that used the Brulosophy blended yeast. It has slowed down at 1.015 after 6 days in the fermenter. I haven’t checked it today but I’ve already ramped the temperature up to 72.

So after I think 11 batches now, I finally had to break out the PBW to get the thing shiny again. Scrubbing wasn't doing it. I guess that's not too bad.

mashani wrote:So after I think 11 batches now, I finally had to break out the PBW to get the thing shiny again. Scrubbing wasn't doing it. I guess that's not too bad.

Are you taking about the inside or the outside?

I haven't done as many batches as you, but I usually just use Oxiclean. Sometimes there's a bit of a film after that, or a little scale where the heating elements are, so I use a little white vinegar to counter the alkalinity and it looks good. I haven't really done much to the outside except wipe it with a clean damp cloth.

Inside, it had a brownish film forming on the sides near the bottom (lowest 1 foot or so) that I couldn't get off with other stuff.

I blame it on John Sand, he has brown goo issues.

The burner, I have kept pretty clean with some scrubbing and a bit of oxyclean or left over one-step solution after each use.

It might be because I am slow-chilling in the thing, so I've got wort in there for 20 hours sometimes.