A Minor 10 Gallon experiment..kick off 7.30am today.

[SteveD]

48L brew using 9kg of Warminster Maris Otter and about 250g Medium Crystal (from Farnborough Homebrew Shop). Mash in burtonised liquor at about 2.3L/kg. Boil it up with 113G (4oz) of MH Fuggles (a-acid 5) at the start, 1 oz MH Goldings (a-acid 4.3) with 10 mins to go, and let it steep on another oz of Goldings after the 90 min boil.

Then..the small experimentation...split into 2 x 24L and ferment one lot with Safale 04 and the other lot with Windsor. Then, dry hop the Safale brew once in the keg with another oz or so of Goldings but leave the Windsor brew as it is.

Finally, evaluate the 80 pints of results

Cheers,

Steve

[mysterio]

Good luck Steve, did the same thing with a batch of Mild for the first time a couple of weeks ago, only with S04 & Muntons P.G. yeast (and no dry hopping). They both turned out... virtually identical

I'll be doing 10 gallon batches all the time now I think, virtually no extra effort.

[eskimobob]

Good luck - sounds like a good trial

[Andy]

Don't forget some pics!

[Seveneer]

Good work. I must try this sometime myself.

Loking forward to the results.

/Phil.

[SteveD]

Don't forget some pics!

Oh.......Bum!

[Seveneer]

So, how did it all go then? I guess there are no pictures but did it all go according to plan?

/Phil.

[SteveD]

Well....ouchy! I now remember why I named the last 10 gallon brew I did 'Disasterbrau'. The problem is, my normal brew length is 5 gals and certain parts of my gear are not up to 10 gallon batches. Most critically, the HLT, an electrim bin, and the boiler (14 gallon to the lip). Mash tun will take 10KG grain easily so that's ok.

So....Things that went wrong...

(1) being clever and gently preheating (retorrification) the grist in the oven to reduce Strike heat/initial heat differential, and forgetting the oven was on while mashing in bag 1/3. Bag 2/3 meanwhile had quietly melted in the oven where it was near the gas jet, and proceeded to dump its 3kg contents in the oven and all over the floor when I went to take it out. After a period of swearing, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, I ignored it, and mashed in bag 3/3 instead. Then thought..b0llocks! It's all going to be boiled anyway, so I scooped it all up off the floor and mashed it in.

(2) Mashing in...Liquor run in at 73C in stages as the mash got stiff. All ok, 9kg pale and 11oz (mixed units hahahaha) crystal. Initial heat 65C...good. 1.5 hrs later mash complete...take temp...middle 65..good. areas at 62..ok. One corner at 56C!! Aaarrgh! WTF! Can only think that I didn't stir it thoroughly enough. No lumps, so not much stirring. Picnic cooler hasn't lost heat like that before

(3) runoff... painfully slow. Managed to clear it eventually by using a lot of sparge liquor to raise the bed. Suddenly it freed up. I reckon it was an airlock in the copper manifold....but, who knows. Constant battle to keep the sparge liquor hot enough, while maintaining delivery. (Why a bigger HLT is needed for 10 gal brews). Then ...hey!! Plastic wort transfer pipe drops off the Mashtun tap, and I get hot wort all over the floor....great. Walking on Velcro.

(4) Boil...having sparged to 12 gallons, and down to G 1006, once it comes to the boil it naturally foams over, mocking the 2 gallon headspace I'd left, and doing it's best to run over the element plugs and blow the fuses in the house. Fortunately it failed. Once the foam subsided the boil proceeded as normal.

Everything else was normal.

I expected to get OG 1052 for 2x24L in the fermenters . After all that went wrong I got OG 1051.75. So.... nothing went wrong!HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Extraction efficiency using topped up fermenter volume in the calculation, 89.7% . I guess a bit over 90% considering losses to hops in the boiler spillage, etc.

Yeasts in at 5.40pm.... now 9.55pm, pancake already present with Windsor yeast. Safale 04 starting, but more slowly.

(2 packets of each used, rehydrated with plain water at 30c for about 20 mins, then about 200ml wort added. Nicely cooking when pitched)


Phew!!

[Andy]

Just the usual things going wrong then!


I'd certainly skip the grains-in-the-oven thing! Promash/Beersmith will calculate the strike water temp for you and take into account the grain temperature which you can easily measure with a thermometer.

[Vossy1]

Well done SD, a reet result

We shall carry on brewing, whatever the cost may be

We shall never surrender

[Seveneer]

Sounds like a typical brew day

Glad it's worked out OK in the end.

/Phil.

[SteveD]

Just the usual things going wrong then!


I'd certainly skip the grains-in-the-oven thing! Promash/Beersmith will calculate the strike water temp for you and take into account the grain temperature which you can easily measure with a thermometer.

Well, I don't normally bother with the usual 3.5-5kg's used for a 5 gal brew, just make sure the grain is at room temperature, or sit it on the lid of the HLT as it's warming up, but with 9kg's of pale I thought that I'd have to use a strike heat a bit on the high side so I did the 'ole grain warming routine. Never liked it much to be honest, and now I know why!

Usually 5gal brew days go pretty much without a hitch, so this was an 'ordeal by wort', by comparison.

Still, all it did was obey the 5 rules of brewing which are.....

1. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong
2. Anything that can't go wrong will go wrong
3. If something is going right, you won't realise it till it goes wrong again.
4. Nothing happens quickly unless you don't want it to.
5. The time to be most alarmed is when you think everything is under control.

00.45 am: The Windsor yeast was out of the traps fast and is alredy around the first bend, developing a rocky head, but the Safale is getting into it's stride and building up a nice thick pancake in reply. By the morning I expect to be clearing up yeast off the floor.

No...the wort isn't too warm

Cheers,

Steve

[SteveD]

Yes...I cleared yeast and trub off the floor. I suppose it's one way to skim off trub.

Yes...the wort is now too warm. I reduced the central heating setting so that it the ferment wouldn't go over 20c but the two women in the house, contrary to my explicit instructions, and because they seem to like sitting around in vests and pyjamas with the central heating cranked up to Vesuvius levels, turned the central heating back up this morning while I was out....

Consequently wort temp is now 23.5c ..... it's got to 'silky bubble' stage and half gravity in 12 hours flat. No matter how many times I explain that the yeast can produce 'wrong' flavours when too warm, and how much better it would be if it fermented at 17 or 18c for longer..it doesn't matter.....No...got to have the house unbearably hot and sit around in teeshirts while my gas bill rockets and the beer goes to pot....

....where is the wide flat dish for water and the wet towels....sigh.

rant rant rave rant....

Hey...why don't I just stick it in the airing cupboard...or better still, the microwave!!!!

Steve

[SteveD]

Problemebrau just won't lie down and turn into nice textbook beer. Following on from the over-hot start of fermentation, the yeasts raced off and by the next evening were already slowing down. By today they seem to have virtually stopped, with the Safale packing down to a 1" layer on the bottom and the beer clearing down fast. The Windsor, also stopped, but with the beer is very murky and very little deposit on the bottom. Mind you, the blurb on Windsor says it's somewhat non-flocculent

The problem is this, both yeast appear to have thrown in the towel at about G 1020.

OG was about 1052, all malt with about 96% pale and 4% crystal. 1012/1013 might have been more resonable at the end of primary fermentation.

I've racked them into secondary FV's under lock and purged with CO2 as I was getting concerned about them sitting in buckets without producing a CO2 blanket. They can now safely sit a while while I work out what to do if no airlock bubbling starts up.

If nothing happens, any ideas beyond repitching with a fresh active yeast starter and giving it a swizz?

Cheers,

Steve

[moorsd]

My mate had this problem when using Safale with a Brewpaks kit, I advised him to rouse it occasionally over a few days, and it seemed to do the trick, finished at 1012 (from 1020) which was acceptable!

Failing that try some Dry beer enzyme as Daab suggested, bear in mind though that it will convert all dextrin’s so you will finish with a very dry beer!