BeerBorg

berryman wrote: I have a little more boil off then most are stating.

FWIW, I think I've mentioned this before somewhere, but at least for me, since I've change my boil off in BeerSmith to 0.6 gallons instead of 0.5, and it makes things work out so I don't need to tip at all if I don't screw something else up. It seems "a little bit more" then 0.5 gallons.

bpgreen wrote:Thanks for the info. I feel a lot better about my efficiency now. Maybe I've been trying to fix something that wasn't broken.

I don't think about doing a longer boil or boiling some separately until it was too late. As you point out, that would make a significant difference.

I think my poor efficiency is self-imposed and due to trying to be a cheapskate and use raw (unmalted) wheat for a chunk of the grain bill(and counting on the two row to convert it). I Just looked over my notes for the all-grain brews I've made with the Mash and Boil. I could have sworn that I tried one without using the raw wheat, but maybe not. I was looking at the past few brews, and the more wheat I used, the worse the efficiency was (today's batch was the worst, even with an overnight mash). I think that in addition to not converting well, the wheat also absorbs a lot more water, so with today's batch, the grain wasn't completely covered by water by the time I woke up. And wheat is much smaller (even when malted), so it's harder to crush it well.

For my next batch, I'm just going to use two row and specialty grains and see what happens. I started using the raw wheat as an extra fermentable when I was doing partial mashes (technically probably mini mashes). Since I was getting most of the fermentables from the LME doing that, the impact from the poor conversion wasn't as much of an issue. But now that I'm doing all grain, it makes more of a difference.

I'll probably also brew better beer using proper ingredients.

If your raw wheat isn't converting and leaving a bunch of residual starches, it should show up on an iodine test. That would be an easy way to find out.

Also, if you are leaving residual starches, I'm surprised that you don't randomly get opportunistic infections from wild yeast strains, some of which are able to break down the starches and ferment them. You'd get gushers or bottle bombs if you didn't keg if that happened. It might take a few months for a low grade infection to really show up, but eventually it would. Kegging since it has pressure release, I guess you might not notice except for the beer drying out slowly over time.

FWIW, 25-50 cents worth of amylase enzyme added to the mash would probably help convert it if you wanted to try to keep using it, assuming that made it "cheaper" still.

All that said, you will probably make better beer though if you use more malted barley, at least in the cases where beer is supposed to have maltyness in its profile.

How long does it take for the temperature to drop below 170 on the MB when using the no chill method?
I’m going to use Mashani’s chil method and seal the MB and let the wort chill in the MB.

I know that the ambient temperature has be accounted for so a general hard number is hard to come up with.

I’m brewing tomorrow and the outside temperature is going to be 20f. I planned on using my immersion chiller but sub freezing temperatures make me worry about using the outside faucet.

I'm guessing you will probably get to 170 in an hour or two depending on room temp. I haven't paid exact attention, I just ignore it until the next evening normally.

Left in the mash & boil, its from somewhere around 140 or so to pitching that it takes *foreeeeeever*. The "no boil" batches I did at 150 took only maybe 3 hours less time to cool to pitching then if I had boiled it.

If leaving it outside at 20 degrees is what your gonna do it might all happen a lot faster though.

How have you been adjusting your hops to account for the added bitterness?
My last brew was an oatmeal stout. It’s really good but it’s more bitter than I want. I used the whirlpool check off box in Equipment profiles but I don’t know if I added the correct amount of time to account for cool down to 170.

I’m brewing a Dunkel tomorrow morning. Im looking for 25 ish IBUs.
Right now I’ve got .30 oz of Perle (8.7%) for 90 minutes and .50 oz of Tettang (3.8 %) at 20 min that gets me 25.6 IBU.

Using the BeerSmith whirlpool hop utilization check off box in equipment profiles, and assuming 120 minutes whirlpool time, the IBUs increase 22.3 to 25.6. Does that sound about right from your experience?

If you are not chilling at all and throwing your hops in @flameout, set Beersmith for 180 minutes for the whirlpool. That is about as long as it will calculate so it's as close as BeerSmith will get. It is going to assume that at 180 minutes you are below it's whirlpool bitterness contribution temperature and it cuts off *completely* it's utilization calculations at that point. It also assumes you are starting your whirlpool at around those temps (~185 I think is where it sets itself), and not at near boiling temps. As in for something like the first 15-20 minutes or so you are going to be getting way more utilization then it assumes if you throw in at flameout if your at room temperature ambient and not chilling at all.

And the thing is, even though Brad didn't code for it because of what he describes as "dramatic drop-off", you still get utilization at 170, and 160, and even 150. I know I'm not nuts saying so because I've done the no boil beers with long mash hops/hop stands (4-6 hours) at 150 and gotten about what I expected as far as bitterness out of it for the time I left it at 150. And the bitterness remained stable until it was all consumed months later.

It is about 5% of what you'd get at a boil at 150, about 10% at 160, about 20% at 170. This would be "dramatic drop-off" if you were chilling it quickly, but the Mash & Boil insulation makes it not very quick. It takes a good long while for it to get below 150 and your spending a good amount of time between boiling and the 180s it thinks your starting your whirlpool at too and getting a lot more utilization during that timeframe then it's calculating.

So because of all that, 180 is working good for me for @flameout with slow chill in the Mash & Boil. It covers the time spent above BeerSmiths temperature assumption for whirlpool, and the time still getting AAUs after BeerSmith would assume "dramatic drop-off" and cutting off it's calculations completely. It might not be perfect, but it's as close as I have gotten BeerSmith to my perceptions, and I like the results set like that, so it's close enough for me.

I've done a bunch of APA and Hoppy Saison like beers with nothing but @flameout hops from a boil, and also gotten about the level of bitterness I expected from doing it as above.

Note once you do this, you will see your later hop additions calculate in such a way doing this that even a 30-40 minute addition will contribute nearly as many IBUs as a 60. And this is accurate assuming those hops don't get pulled out at flameout. You can get a lot of IBUs from nothing but a flameout hop addition with high AAU hops if no-chilling in this thing. Like I said, I've made APA like beers that way and they were very much bitter enough.

I hope that made sense.

Thanks. That all makes sense,
I’m not adding any hops after the 20 minute addition I’m doing a standard bittering addition at 90 minutes and a 20 minute addition.
The 20 minute addition probably ends up being equivalent to a 60 minute ( or so ) bittering addition. It takes a long time to drop to 185 when no chill is used and as you said it’s not as if hop utilization suddenly stops.

You gave me an idea that didn’t consider. I could add the hops in a hop spider or muslin sack and pull them after the boil. That seems like a way to treat the brew as if it’s an immersion chiller brew.
I’m not making an IPA or APA that would call for post boil additions

Pulling the hops out, especially later hops, may make it closerish. I do not think it's "totally the same" because whatever alpha acids that got pulled out of the hops and into solution that have not already isomerized will continue to isomerize over that timeframe. But at least you won't be pulling more alpha acids out of the hops if there are still some in there. The later the hop addition, the more it will matter.

I thought that might be the case but I wasn’t sure. I did pull the hops at the end of the boil anyway. I hope it helped lower the bitterness a bit.
I’m using the Wyeast Staro Lager yeast, Wyeast recommends bumping up the bitterness to compensate for the increased maltines that this yeast brings to the table. Maybe I lucked out and got the balance just right.

By the way, it took 20 minutes to drop from boiling to 180 with outside the temperature reading 30 degrees.

Banjo-guy, if you are looking for a way to chill quickly check out the Syclla immersion chiller from Jaded Brewing. It's pricey but it drops the temps RIDICULOUSLY quick. Like boiling to 180 in 10 seconds and down to pitch temp in about 5 minutes.

If you're not looking for way to chill quickly ignore this post

Kealia wrote:Banjo-guy, if you are looking for a way to chill quickly check out the Syclla immersion chiller from Jaded Brewing. It's pricey but it drops the temps RIDICULOUSLY quick. Like boiling to 180 in 10 seconds and down to pitch temp in about 5 minutes.

What I want and was planning on getting until I decided to start kegging and have spent some money on that and not close to being done yet.
Takes me at least 30 mins. or more and maybe even close to a hour with my 25' chiller. I want one.............

I "want" one too, because my old chiller doesn't fit, which is why I've slow chilled everything.

But I haven't had any bad experiences with slow chilling and have learned how to adapt recipes to it easy 'nuf, so I can't "justify" paying what to my cheap a$$ brain seems like almost as much as I spent on the M&B on a new chiller, when all I have to do instead is just wait until the next day to put it into my fermenter. It splits up the cleaning tasks too, which I actually like. Plus the really jacked up my water/sewer last year, it's like 2x more expensive now, so not using extra water makes my cheap a$$ brain happier too.

I had a good system going before I got the M&B. Put my Megapot in a ice bath in the sink, put the immersion chiller in and about 15 mins. into the fermenter. Not with this deal now. I will be working on the answer for this and already know what I need to do. I guess spend some more money again.

I have a chiller. The temperature was so cold that I was worried about using the outside faucet. I didn’t want to freeze my pipes. Maybe there was nothing to worry about but I didn’t want to take a chance.

I like the overnight chill method. It leaves you one less thing to clean.