BeerBorg

Mashani... have you tried fermenting in the Mash and Boil? That would be the ultimate in easy brewing.
I know you were planning to try it.

Banjo-guy wrote:Mashani... have you tried fermenting in the Mash and Boil? That would be the ultimate in easy brewing.
I know you were planning to try it.

Not yet, because it would require me to not brew for longer then I want at the moment.

Maybe in the summer I'll mix up some quick extract batches stove top with some AGs fermented right in the M&B.

If I do that I will just slow-chill in the M&B, pull out the foam stopper, dump in some yeast, put in a stopper and an airlock, and let it rip and the heck with whatever kettle trub is on the bottom.

If it won't work well that way, it's not worth doing, I may as well pour it into a fermenter.

I'll probably try it with an AG paterersbier and see what happens.

Going to be a thread necromancer here, since I did something different.

As in I did it the normal way. Mostly.

I brewed ~6 gallons of Belgian Strong Golden which is enough to last me a year at least. I used the remaining bag of my "Belgian Mix" (~5# of grains) plus 7# of pilsner (so ~12# of grain) + 2# of clear cassonade sugar. I used 1oz of Styrian Goldings and 1oz of Hallertau Blanc as the hops.

In trying to figure out how to fight my house Brett, I decided to try to brew this as a concentrated batch, and then dilute it with ice water to get it to pitching temps fast. If that fails, then I'm going to try something else next time. My brett won't wreck this beer, so it's OK either way.

So I brewed it to target 5.25 gallons of volume after sparging, which I somehow nailed exactly (I will admit I pressed on the grains a bit at the end to eek out a tad more, but made it). And then boiled that down to 4.25 gallons (remember it shrinks a bit more when cooled), and let it chill down to below 140, at which point split it between 2 of my fermenters each with about 5 liters of ice water in each of them, which got me right to good pitching temps with just a short cold water bath. Basically I applied one of my stupid extract tricks to an AG beer. Because I can. Why not, seems to me like it should work just fine. I adjusted my hop schedule to account for the higher boil gravity, just like I would have for such a beer, that's really all that is needed.

My pre boil gravity was such that post boil it should have ended up at 1.088, which after dilution puts my OG just a tiny bit below style at around 1.068, but because I did a high fermentability Belgian style step mash schedule and added all that sugar, the ABV is going to be plenty in range, around 8% most likely. So I consider it "close enough". It will have appropriate body/head for sure because of the wheat/oats/etc. that were in my Belgian Mix.

Lifting that grain basket sucked. I like lifting my little 3 gallon no sparge batches better LOL.

I finally got around to brewing my third batch today.

I made a few changes. I threw in some rice hulls. I didn't weigh them, just grabbed a big double handful. I also used a recirculating pump and stirred every 10 or 15 minutes. I also mashed for a longer time (kind of by accident; I forgot to start heating my sparge water). I used a thicker mash (.3 vs .35 and .37 in prior batches) based on a blog entry I misread earlier (it recommends .3 and mentions that they used to recommend .37).

I also used a pretty fine crush and used those silicone mesh things weighed down by some glass weights (remember these for later) that I got for making sauerkraut.

I got very slightly better efficiency than my last batch, but I'm still not seeing anywhere near the efficiency other people seem to be getting. Part of that may be due to the fact that I used 4 lbs of unmalted wheat just because it's cheap. I think I'll try making a batch with all two-row and a little C60 next batch and see how that does.

I've also never done anything to my water. I have a Pur filter on my kitchen faucet and just use the water as it comes out of that. So it may be that my mash pH is not very good.

I'm going to try a batch without the wheat and see what happens. Then I'll look at the mash pH.

I kept some of the spent grains (they're drying in the oven now). I add them to smoothies mostly for the added fiber and protein, but partly to use them as food since composting and using as fertilizer seems more wasteful. The rest I dumped into the compost pile. I should have scooped the grains out a little at a time with a smaller container. The sparging bucket was really heavy and I dropped it twice while dumping it. The first time, I cut one of my fingers and the second time, I dented the sparging bucket. But I finally got the grains dumped out. I saw one of the silicon filters and fished it out, then got some shredded paper to mix in (too much nitrogen in the grains, so it would be really smelly). I added the shredded paper, got a garden fork, mixed it all up (including digging a little deeper into the older compost and mixing that in as well).

Then I rinsed out all of the pieces and filled the M&B with water (and oxiclean) and put the sparging basket in it to soak.

I'f you've been paying attention (as I clearly wasn't), you know that buried deep within my compost pile are some very nice glass weights. I hope I see them again some day.

Sorry about those glass weights! I can’t keep track of the number of times that I’ve dumped some brewing item in the the trash or down the drain by accident. I haven’t a had screw-up free brewing session in a while. I’m sure your beer will still taste great!

I've always managed to remember to fish out my weights from my pile of grains. I don't always remember that even if the surface of the bed of grains isn't hot, that doesn't mean it's not hot if you dig down in there to find stuff. Ouch.

RE: The unmalted wheat, you could get a little bottle of amylase enzyme (it's cheap) and add some to your mash to help convert it.

Critical things for me for efficiency besides stirring once in a while are getting my mash PH right away to 5.2 - 5.4 by pre-adjusting the mash vs. needing post-adjustment after 10-15 minutes, and doing a mashout where I'm sure the entire mash gets to 170 while stirring it (both sensor and my probe thermometer reading 170) before pulling the basket.

I've done 14 batches in the thing now, and I've got ~60# of grain to make more with. I think by the time I get to 25 batches I'll have paid off 1/2 of what I spent on the mash & boil in ingredient savings. Not "time" although I mostly ignore it and do other things while it's doing it's thing, so it doesn't "seem" like more time.

EDIT: And for sure I'm making better beer in a technical sense. Better foam retention, better lacing, even in light bodied beers. Lighter color where appropriate. When using pilsner more able to notice the nice "grainy" vibe it brings. Stuff like that. I made really good extract beer, but can't deny that this stuff is better.

mashani wrote:I've always managed to remember to fish out my weights from my pile of grains. I don't always remember that even if the surface of the bed of grains isn't hot, that doesn't mean it's not hot if you dig down in there to find stuff. Ouch.

RE: The unmalted wheat, you could get a little bottle of amylase enzyme (it's cheap) and add some to your mash to help convert it.

Critical things for me for efficiency besides stirring once in a while are getting my mash PH right away to 5.2 - 5.4 by pre-adjusting the mash vs. needing post-adjustment after 10-15 minutes, and doing a mashout where I'm sure the entire mash gets to 170 while stirring it (both sensor and my probe thermometer reading 170) before pulling the basket.

I've done 14 batches in the thing now, and I've got ~60# of grain to make more with. I think by the time I get to 25 batches I'll have paid off 1/2 of what I spent on the mash & boil in ingredient savings. Not "time" although I mostly ignore it and do other things while it's doing it's thing, so it doesn't "seem" like more time.

EDIT: And for sure I'm making better beer in a technical sense. Better foam retention, better lacing, even in light bodied beers. Lighter color where appropriate. When using pilsner more able to notice the nice "grainy" vibe it brings. Stuff like that. I made really good extract beer, but can't deny that this stuff is better.

As I think about it, I don't think the problem is with the wheat being unmalted. There should be plenty of enzymes in 10 lbs of 2 row to convert 4 lbs of raw wheat. And wheat's gelatinization temperature is within the temperature range of the mash, so that's not an issue, either. But I'll try a batch without the wheat just to be sure.

I'll try the mashout step, also (in another batch to try to narrow things down). In a way it's not really an additional step. It's just a matter of waiting for the temperature to get to 170 before lifting the basket.

I'll also try to adjust the pH of the mash. I have a suspicion that this may be the problem. I never got very good efficiency with BiaB batches, but it didn't matter so much because I was getting most of my fermentables from LME. I've never played with my water just because it seemed like too much trouble, but it may be a simple step that pays of big time.

Even though my LHBS sells LME for a low price in bulk ($2/lb if you buy at least 33 lbs and bring your own containers) and it was always really fresh (I think they once apologized because they had tapped the barrel the week before), I'm still saving enough going all grain that this will pay for itself in a year or two. If I can get the fantastic efficiencies I keep reading about, it'll pay for itself even faster. But even if I stay around 65%, I'll save money.

I sent more time on this batch because I forgot to set it to come to temperature overnight and also was more hands-on, stirring the mash and monitoring the recirculating pump (I've bought Tyler Brower's drain pipe mod, but haven't added it yet). But in prior batches, this has taken less hands on time than a partial mash (maybe a mini mash depending on definition). Actually, I think this may be its biggest selling point. I'll probably add the drain pipe mod so that I can get back to unattended mashing.

Edited to correct spelling of Tyler's last name

As far as color goes, when I do extract based batches (other than batches using some clearance kits, I haven't done any "true" extract batches in a long time), I do the boil in the wort from the mash and add all of the extract at flameout. My LHBS sells Pilsen LME. They used to sell others, but decided that it made more sense to sell the lightest LME and use steeping grains. Since it's ridiculously fresh, it's really light and I could brew a beer that is almost as light as something like Bud (at least I could brew something that light in color; I don't think I could brew something that light in taste).

The beer I have on tap right now is a "Beer Simply Beer" IPA (6 lbs Pilsen LME, 1 lb golden DME) that I brewed with an addition of some two row and some wheat. It's very light in color. Not as light as Bud, but probably no darker than something like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

Note that this is predicated on using the lightest available extracts and doing the boil with only the wort from the mash and adding the extract at flameout.

I have to check my freezer to see if I still have any LME. I may need to brew an extract batch just to see what the color can be.

In a smaller pot, it was difficult for me to add extract @flameout in my house due to Brett problems, it has to be 5 minutes before flameout to get it back up to "murder the stuff" temperatures and a lid has to stay on until it's cooled down or if it was a more concentrated boil, I could dump it into an ice water filled fermenter to dilute it to inteneded OG and cool it nearly instantly.

I think this is the lightest extract beer I ever brewed FWIW, it was made from MoreBeer Pils, a little bit of wheat dme, and some home made dandelion candi syrup, sorachi ace, and either a saison yeast or T-58.

The strong golden turned out very light. And very strong LOL.

I'll be brewing my 4th batch with this tomorrow (I know; I'm a slacker).

This is almost a SMaSH. I'm using 2 row and mostly Cascades, but the cascades are from 2011, and even though they're foil vacuum sealed, they've probably lost some of their oils, so I'm going to add some nugget hops for bittering. At least I think their nugget. They're in an unmarked seal-a-meal bag in the deep freeze.

Before I got the Mash and Boil, I did mini-mashes, with the vast majority of the fermentables coming from really inexpensive and really fresh high quality LME from my LHBS (part of why I wasn't all that motivated to go all grain).

So getting efficiencies around 60-65% didn't really bother me that much. But when all of my fermentables are coming from the mash, it starts to make a difference.

I've always just used filtered tap water in my mash. I figured that took care of most of the impurities, even if it didn't get it as clean as RO or distilled water. A coworker suggested that my problem might be my pH. So I got some pH strips and discovered that the pH of my filtered water is around 8! So even after adding the malt, my pH is probably too high.

I added some StarSan to the water for this batch. I know that's not optimal, but StarSan is basically food grade phosphoric acid, so it'll do for this batch. But longer term, I want to really dial things in.

So I ordered the Ward Labs test kit and some lactic acid. That way I can at least get my water in the pH range that I want.

But I can see where this is going. I bought some pH strips. I'm getting some lactic acid. And a Ward Labs test. I'm probably going to decide that the pH strips aren't giving me enough detail, so I need a pH meter. And then


And then



And then


Why am I suddenly thinking of Vonnegut?

Why am I suddenly thinking of Vonnegut?

Sometimes homebrewing is a *

Hitting the right mash PH right away drives my efficiency by at least 10%. Since I'm doing it like a BIAB my water up front matters a lot, the grains can't buffer the PH on their own as quickly as a thick mash. So I'm always pre-adjusting based on what BeerSmith calculates my estimated mash PH will be with my water profile to try to nail 5.4-5.2 range.

* or not.

So, I finally got the ERR4 on my 19th batch. Only thing special about this was it was a gruit, and I used Juniper in the mash. It had a little bit of rye in it, but it was like 9% rye, 89% pilsner, so I can't imagine the rye caused it.

The Juniper resin is pretty sticky, so all I can figure is some of it got down there and gummed up the sensor.

I could NOT get it to reset, it just triggered again after I reset it.

Luckily, my boil was 99% done anyways, so I just called it done and am just RDWHAHBing.

It's slow chilling overnight, so I will figure out what is going on in more detail tomorrow.

This is what I found in my precious. It is PBWing now because hell if I can get it off any other way, and once it's gone I will see it if fires up.

It almost looks mad![emoji4]