#1 brewday. Need some help.

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46philh
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#1 brewday. Need some help.

Post by 46philh » Sat Feb 18, 2017 5:06 pm

First brew day since three years ago. new location few changes to the equipment and a two year old son!:). The good lady took him out for day.

Bought a a large hop spider but think might not be too practical for 23ltr brews as does not touch bottom of 70ltr boiler. Not an issue really as want to get back to doing 46ltr brews soon as soon as everything sorted out.


Wort from my mashtun had loads of grain dust in. Never had a problem with this before all I can think of is new sparge arm set off way too fast and maybe this has caused grain bed to get disturbed ?

Not sure what I can do if this happens again.

Now have an integral garage for brewing in. Managed to sort steam extraction as you can see in photo. worked well.

https://flic.kr/p/RZXiFE

When using a hop spider do you also need another filter inside to filter out hot break? Had to leave last few litres in boiler and was all starting to get sucked out into FV.

https://flic.kr/p/S3yPEV

Last few ltr from boiler. Omg. What has gone wrong:'(

https://flic.kr/p/SaYQb9

PS. Might have mixed up reference to hot and cold break up above.
Last edited by 46philh on Sat Feb 18, 2017 7:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

jaroporter
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Re: #1 brewday. Need some help.

Post by jaroporter » Sat Feb 18, 2017 6:29 pm

welcome back to the fold :D
what was the returning brew?

some like to filter the break from the boiler, some aren't bothered. i've never noticed a problem/difference with it (in fact some analysis says it's beneficial to the yeast), but that's my anecdotal opinion and everyone has one on it so which random internet profile do you trust.. ?? :lol: you can utilise that last few litres though, strain it out and freeze it to use as starterwort/krausen later.
might help though if you can upload the pictures to jim's so people can see them?
dazzled, doused in gin..

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Kev888
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Re: #1 brewday. Need some help.

Post by Kev888 » Sat Feb 18, 2017 7:09 pm

Good to see you back to brewing!

The flour could be reduced if you're able to recirculate before running off into the kettle, trapping it in the grain bed. It may have been caused by a finer crush, or grain from the bottom of a sack where more fine stuff settles, or something like that.

If you cool using an Immersion Cooler, the hot and cold break will likely be mixed together, though more cold break may form in the fermenter later. Cold break in the fermenter isn't considered to be a major problem by many people, users of plate coolers of CFCs routinely see it ending up there unless measures are taken to remove it. But hot break is a bit different and I'd suggest ideally leaving it behind if possible, though I doubt it will ruin your beer.

Filters can easily get blocked by break (without hops to form a bed over them) unless they're quite large ones, but you may be able to angle or shorten your dip tube to leave more dead-space for the break to settle into, and of course allow time for that to happen before running off the wort. Some people find that whirlpooling helps, but it doesn't for me as the break is too runny to form into a cone without hops mixed in, though use of a mesh ring can help trap/support it in the centre of the kettle.

(Your last picture doesn't seem to have been set to public access yet, so I can't see that one).
Kev

46philh
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Re: #1 brewday. Need some help.

Post by 46philh » Sat Feb 18, 2017 8:57 pm

Thanks for help. Last picture link fixed.

Brewed hop back summer lightning as that was the first brew I did about six or seven years ago now

A ran off a litre or so and returned to mt at the start but thinking back I must have stopped the runnings quit a few times with messing about with sparge and and not recirculated each time.
I think thats where the issues started.


I used to use the copper pipe with tiny holes as filter and hops would have filtered out cold break.

Glad to hear cold break in FV is ok with now using hop spider.

Fil
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Re: #1 brewday. Need some help.

Post by Fil » Sun Feb 19, 2017 1:25 am

hi and i wouldnt worry about break material in the fv, when designing and building my bigger kit i wanted to minimise deadspace losses and opted to go hop spider too with an external cfc
I considered whirlpooling to minimise break in the FV but many brewers with deeper insight than i suggested that break material in the FV was no bad thing and could even aid yeast population growth by providing building blocks, And it will fall out as trub PDQ too ;)

I will admit i never seem to draw of the crystal clear tun runnings some achieve with batch sparging in the 3v kit even with jugging back but that also drops out as trub in the FV, you may find you have an inch or so more trub to deal with than expected

If concerned about hop utilisation in the spider you could consider recirculating the boil back through the hop mass enclosed in the spider, without any hop debris to worry about a lil brown solar pump is more than upto the job of recirculating a 90 minute boil :)
ist update for months n months..
Fermnting: not a lot..
Conditioning: nowt
Maturing: Challenger smash, and a kit lager
Drinking: dry one minikeg left in the store
Coming Soon Lots planned for the near future nowt for the immediate :(

46philh
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Re: #1 brewday. Need some help.

Post by 46philh » Wed Mar 01, 2017 3:47 pm

Thanks. Not too much trub and went for a crash cool and into the corny keg last night. Going to force carb at some point and treat more of a test brew trying out the bottling gun I bought about 4 years ago!

Forget to take pictures of the FG! Sample tasted pretty good. Such a relief to get the first brew done and reasonable result. Since the brew day I have had time to reflect what didn't run so well and now on to the next brew soon. :)

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