1st AG Disaster!

[JabbA]

I got my 4th AG brew on the go on Tuesday, Sarah Hugh’s Dark Ruby from Graham’s book.

Firstly, my one and only hydrometer got smashed in the shed and with no chance of getting one in time, I thought I’d wing it without one.

When running off the wort the tap on the mash tun became loose so I had to hold it in pace until the run off finished. The first run off was short by a litre and even after compensating for it the second batch was still short! Hey-ho onto the boil!

The wort got up to the boil in no time at all and in went the hops. After 75 minutes in went the chiller and late hops and when 90 minutes we up the tap to the chiller was turned on and the wort cooled to 25deg c in about 20 mins.

Then the real problems started; I started to empty the cooled wort into the fermentation bin and forgot to sieve the first runnings. Having turned off the tap and returned the bitty wort to the boiler I re-opened the tap when the flow stopped. After carefully scraping the hop strainer with a paddle the flow increased before coming to a stop again so I repeatedly had to scrape the strainer causing the wort to come trough with loads of crap in it.

In went a re-hydrated sachet of Nottingham and when the fermenter settled there was about ½ inch of sediment in the bottom of the bin.

My plan is to use some muslin to strain the lot before going into a bottling bucket. Would this sediment coming through to the fermentation bin cause any off flavours at all? I’ve scrapped the crud of the yeast head and the beer smells ok, fingers crossed for an OK brew!

Jamie

[vacant]

If you batch sparge, just keep a sample of the wort before you pitch then measure the OG when you've bought a hydrometer. It's only academic if the beer ends up with a reasonable amount of alcohol.

Perhaps you got a lot of grain through if your leaky tap meant the grain bed was disturbed when sparging? I sometimes do a "BIAB" AG (you can't get a stuck sparge using that method) so I have a large net curtain which only costs a couple of quid available - if my batch sparge went wrong I can filter through that in an emergency.

You don't mention what type of hop strainer you have. I use a piece of "vivarium stainless steel mesh" rolled into a tube, folded over at one end and the other end stuffed into the boiler tap. This has never blocked. I also do a "whirpool" when cooling reaches 27C and then leave for 20 minutes.

To remove the crud, it wouldn't hurt transferring to another FV when vigourous fermentation has stopped, i.e. usually 3 or 4 days.

[wetdog]

regarding the broken hydrometer, you should have just reserved a little of the wort and tested it when you bought a new one - the reading would stay the same as there is no yeast in it.
It's only really an issue if you fly sparge and need to test the sparged liquid as it flows out in order to know when to stop.
shouldn't worry about the sediment causing off flavours, people who use a CFC would get as much sediment in their fermentor as they don't get a cold break, although the hops do act as a filter.
I always use a plastic sieve on top of the fermentor anyway

[JabbA]

Good point about reserving a sample of wort to test later on!

The hop strainer i use is a home made affair ala Daab, a copper pipe with holes drilled in and crimped end. It has worked well on the other 3 brews I've done with it. Maybe leaving the chilled wort for 20minutes or so wouldn't hurt in future...



Cheers,
Jamie

[WishboneBrewery]

those be big ol' holes!
Might be better with lots of smaller holes