Home Brew Forum

Hi all,

Managed to squeeze another brew day in today whilst (cough) working from home!

Got exactly 19l into the FV which I'm chuffed about, I'm constantly hitting my target volumnes and my efficiency's are up in the mid 90's according to beeralchemy.

What I am noticing though is that my Expected ABV's are too high for the recipe; is this because my target efficiencies are set for 75%?

Also made a lucky save (hopefully), whilst going out to check the temp I noticed my FV tap had a slight leak which I tried and failed to repair. I've had to decant the entire brew into a plastic carboy, give it a shake and hope for the best. All of which was probably no less than 40mins from initial transfer to the FV!

Has anyone else experienced this sort of thing and got away with it?

Cheers

Rick

I reckon you'll be fine as long as you've sanitized everything. Why do you do 19L brews? Corny? You could always brew 23L and bottle the rest.

The US-05 is doing a fantastic job already, like a real maelstrom in there!

19L for cornie and I don't have enough bottles for the odd bits, plus my OCD would kick in if different bottle types were used!

rick_huggins wrote: Got exactly 19l into the FV which I'm chuffed about, I'm constantly hitting my target volumnes and my efficiency's are up in the mid 90's according to beeralchemy.
What I am noticing though is that my Expected ABV's are too high for the recipe; is this because my target efficiencies are set for 75%?

Do you mean that your gravity prior to pitching yeast is higher than you expected? If that is so then yes it is because you are getting higher efficiencies than the 75% of your target efficiencies. You will get to know your average efficiency after a few and then just use that as your target efficiency. You will find that it will be fairly consistant unless you do some of the more extreme recipes.

rick_huggins wrote:Also made a lucky save (hopefully), whilst going out to check the temp I noticed my FV tap had a slight leak which I tried and failed to repair. I've had to decant the entire brew into a plastic carboy, give it a shake and hope for the best. All of which was probably no less than 40mins from initial transfer to the FV!

How long had it been in the FV? Once the yeast is pitched it is best not to allow any air to get in contact with the beer, so shaking is not a good idea. Use a pipe that reached the bottom of both FV's and syphon/use your tap to transfer. If you were worried about lack of yeast you can always make sure some of the slurry gets transfered over with it.

Edit: Re-reading it seems as if you had only just pitched your original yeast so what I said doesn't apply. The beer will be fine and atleast you've given it a good aeration!

Digby Swift wrote:

rick_huggins wrote: Got exactly 19l into the FV which I'm chuffed about, I'm constantly hitting my target volumnes and my efficiency's are up in the mid 90's according to beeralchemy.
What I am noticing though is that my Expected ABV's are too high for the recipe; is this because my target efficiencies are set for 75%?

Do you mean that your gravity prior to pitching yeast is higher than you expected? If that is so then yes it is because you are getting higher efficiencies than the 75% of your target efficiencies. You will get to know your average efficiency after a few and then just use that as your target efficiency. You will find that it will be fairly consistant unless you do some of the more extreme recipes.

rick_huggins wrote:Also made a lucky save (hopefully), whilst going out to check the temp I noticed my FV tap had a slight leak which I tried and failed to repair. I've had to decant the entire brew into a plastic carboy, give it a shake and hope for the best. All of which was probably no less than 40mins from initial transfer to the FV!

How long had it been in the FV? Once the yeast is pitched it is best not to allow any air to get in contact with the beer, so shaking is not a good idea. Use a pipe that reached the bottom of both FV's and syphon/use your tap to transfer. If you were worried about lack of yeast you can always make sure some of the slurry gets transfered over with it.

Edit: Re-reading it seems as if you had only just pitched your original yeast so what I said doesn't apply. The beer will be fine and atleast you've given it a good aeration!

Yes pre-pitching SG is way over what the recipe states, which probably explains the reason my beers have been quite strong.

The brew had only been in the first FV for 30-40mins max before I spotted the leak and moved it to the carboy.

The US-05 is certainly doing it's job now, so hopefully it'll be ok with no infection

Ta

Rick

Seeing as you are not bottling any does that mean you are bringing a full cornie with you
the next time you are up , i`ll give my mates a bell then

Mark, I've got 48 grolsch bottles with 4 Shades of Stout marked on them and another 30 awaiting to be united with Stella; the cornies will have to wait until your on your way darn sarf mucker!