Going all grain. advice wanted

[Corksniffer]

Yes, a valve would make life alot easier! I'm just a little scared drilling the pot might F-it or something but it should be ok. Using a 5mm food grade hose to transfer at the mo. Have to suck the end to siphon and all.. Sorry! My terms still aren't the best. The mash measurement pre-boil hit around 1.054 and 23l in fermenter was 1.060. You got it, I use the same bag as a strainer over the FV which does a tremendous job of removing hops. I noted grassy flavours in kit beers so definitely would like to keep these out (but could also just use hop bags in the boil..) Made sure not to transfer any trub this time too!

 

Good to know you and alot of others get good results with the no-chill method, what did you make?

[headmaster]

[/b]

I have a pool' date=' could cube it up and dump it in but the water's only ever as cool as 30 degrees, not sure if that would really achieve much

[/quote']

 

I have been looking at reducing chill haze as well. I have just run a batch using the backyard pool to chill the cube to see what this would do. Used an infra-red laser sight thermometer to measure cube temp.

 

This was for a Czech pils batch, weyermann pils grain, saaz hops, Urquell yeast etc. I have a jerry can shaped HDPE ‘cube’, I often fit 24 litres in there.

 

My notes say, after transferring to cube, cube temp 86°C. (as per usual squeezed almost all air out and laid over to sterilise lid area)

 

Left for 10 mins to ensure sterilisation dropped to 84°C

 

Tied rope to handle and dropped in pool. Pool temp 26°C. Quickly sank to bottom of the pool. (more dense/heavy than the pool water due to sugar)

 

Pulled it out 30 mins later. Measured 47°C so the pool dropped it almost 40°C in 30 mins so more than a degree a minute.

 

Of course the cold break remained in the cube, and I poured all of this in to the FV as per my usual practice. So not sure if this pool chill will make any difference but will find out soon.

 

Has just finished fermenting and looks pretty clear but have not cold crashed yet. Chill haze will show up if there when I cold crash it of course.

 

One thing I know greatly reduces chill haze for me, is doing a protein rest at approx. 50°C

 

I was doing these on every brew but stopped due to scorching on element problems and chill haze came back. The protein rest breaks down some haze forming proteins apparently.

 

Another thing I do is to recirc wort during the boil through the hop spider, the hop matter forms a filter and appears to take out quite a lot of break. It gets to the point of overflowing and if the bittering hops have been in for long enough, I often take out the spider, tip out the ‘hop cake’ at the bottom, and hose out the trub/break from the walls of the spider, then put back into the boil for the flavour/aroma hop additions. Seems to reduce trub amount in dregs.

 

[headmaster]

Double post

[Otto Von Blotto]

Yes' date=' a valve would make life alot easier! I'm just a little scared drilling the pot might F-it or something but it should be ok. Using a 5mm food grade hose to transfer at the mo. Have to suck the end to siphon and all.. Sorry! My terms still aren't the best. The mash measurement pre-boil hit around 1.054 and 23l in fermenter was 1.060. You got it, I use the same bag as a strainer over the FV which does a tremendous job of removing hops. I noted grassy flavours in kit beers so definitely would like to keep these out (but could also just use hop bags in the boil..) Made sure not to transfer any trub this time too!

 

Good to know you and alot of others get good results with the no-chill method, what did you make?[/quote']It should be fine with the right tool for drilling the hole. Just buy the valve first so you know what size the hole needs to be I have to go and clean my urn today, since I couldn't be arsed yesterday after the brewing was finished, so I'll grab some photos of the set up that might help. Hop bags are good too, I have a big hop sock that I turned into a "spider". It's great for pellets but not so much for flowers. I replaced my old grain bag recently though because it had a small tear in it, so I'll just use that for boiling my hop flowers in when I brew with them. They block the outlet if they aren't contained.

 

I've read other places that 50C rests help with chill haze, but they also degrade head retention due to breaking down those proteins. I think I'll stick with using Polyclar to fix the chill haze issues personally. It removes tannins rather than proteins which keeps the beer stable for longer too.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

[Waylon]

50C rests can result in stuck recirculation so be careful boyz.... Ive been bitten once with a low mash under 55C that got vary sticky in the heat exchange recirculation

[Otto Von Blotto]

I never use mash rests in the 50s. It just builds up too much crap on the element in my urn and causes it to cut in and out during the boil. I never noticed any great improvement from it anyway.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Good to know you and alot of others get good results with the no-chill method' date=' what did you make?[/quote']Forgot about this question, I brewed a XXXX Bitter rip off yesterday. Second and last one. I'm not a huge fan of these beers but I wanted to see whether or not I could brew an accurate representation of them at home, with the knowledge and equipment I now have. A lot of guys get into brewing to try to replicate these beers and often times they turn out nothing like them due to a range of factors. My first one was reasonably close, but it did lose its bitterness over time and became too sweet. I'm hoping to avoid that on this batch and used some gypsum in the water this time.

[headmaster]

To avoid the scorching on the element I've done a couple of batches by heating smaller amount of strike water (16L rather than 25L) to about 53c, mixing in grain and switching off element, let sit for 30 mins, while thats happening putting 9L in a pot to boil on a gas burner. Then after rest I dump in the 9L bringing me up to mash temp of about 64c.

 

Another way that I used to do this without scorching (not knowing what I was doing right!) was to rest at 50c and when ramping to final mash temp, I would not stir it up at all. Because I have a re-circ pump, after 30 mins of recirc at 50c, the liquid was clear, still full of starch no doubt though. I ran into problems when I stirred it up then ramped, making the liquid cloudy, and had to tip the batch (2 of them actually) due to a horrible burnt flavour.

 

Because I like to re-use my yeast I don't really want finings like polyclar in the yeast I'm re-using, but I suppose with my harvesting method, the polyclar is likely to settle out to the lowest (trub) of the three layers (diluted beer, yeast then trub)

[headmaster]

 

I've read other places that 50C rests help with chill haze' date=' but they also degrade head retention due to breaking down those proteins. I think I'll stick with using Polyclar to fix the chill haze issues personally. It removes tannins rather than proteins which keeps the beer stable for longer too.

 

Kelsey[/quote']

 

I don't remember having head retention problems using the 50c rest. In fact I started doing these rests when making belgian witbiers, and due to the wheat content, the head was like marshmallow, you could almost chew it! Some slightly overcarbed versions taking a good 5 mins to pour into a glass due to the head formation.

 

I do have some polyclar, tried it once but didn't seem to do anything at all. Even though I used a stirplate to mix it up I probably didnt use it the right way though. I have used geletin to pretty good effect though.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Maybe it's the mid 50s rests that potentially ruin the head, I'm not sure. A rest at 72 for about 15 minutes after the mash helps with head retention though. The problem with the urn elements is that once the stuff gets caked on there, it's stuffed, so it doesn't really make any difference if you stir it or leave it. Even if I start with a lesser amount of water, the element will still end up with shit all over it. The last one I did I took some of the wort itself into a pot and boiled it, then returned it to the urn to bring the temp up. I did this 3 or 4 times to get it into the 60s. I probably stuffed the enzymes in it by doing this because the beer came out awful, thick with haze and tasted nothing like a pilsner. There was fermentation though, so obviously some conversion occurred. In any case, the damage was done already and the boil cut out numerous times, although there was no burnt flavour in the beer. After that I decided F it, I'll just do 63/72/78 for lagers, and mid-high 60s for ales. It works best for me.

 

I've used gelatine before as well but I found it made the sediment fluffy and easily disturbed. I then tried isinglass which gave the same result but made a very compacted sediment, so I've stuck with it ever since. My usual regime is isinglass for yeast and Polyclar for chill haze. I have had batches where the Polyclar hasn't worked though, such as the pilsner that's currently on tap, but most of the time it does its job well. All of these things do their job best when the beer is chilled, though.

 

I wouldn't be overly concerned with Polyclar ending up in harvested yeast; even if some did make it into the following batch at pitching time it would just drop out to the bottom of the FV anyway. It doesn't affect yeast. Isinglass and gelatine do though, so if you're harvesting from trub probably better to avoid them. As you know, I harvest from my starters so it's a non issue for me.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

[CaffeinatedSentryGnome]

is this where a 3V system has the advantage?

[Otto Von Blotto]

is this where a 3V system has the advantage?

Well I guess it depends on what you're using as a mash tun. If you're doing BIAB and using a pot with gas burner set up then it doesn't matter really. The problems with cutout really only occur with electric elements that feature a boil dry function, such as those in the Crown urns. Other ones that don't cut out might cause scorching issues.

 

Most guys doing 3V seem to use modified eskies as mash tuns, and just add an amount of boiling water or hotter water, to bring the temps up. This could be done in any type of system but with the urns if the crap is already on the element then it's still gonna have issues during the boil anyway.

[Mark D Pirate]

Once I finally build my keggle any step or rests will be as simple as changing the STC and turning RIMS pump on .....rather time poor so just never manages to do it

[headmaster]

 

It doesn't affect yeast. Isinglass and gelatine do though' date=' so if you're harvesting from trub probably better to avoid them. As you know, I harvest from my starters so it's a non issue for me.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey[/quote']

 

I didn't think about the affect on the yeast, will have to read up on that before using gelatine again.

 

Might give the polyclar another whirl, as the bag of it is sitting there doing nothing!

[Corksniffer]

Fair enough, lemme know how you go. As plain and 'simple as these beers are, they're awful hard to replicate

 

Good to know you and alot of others get good results with the no-chill method' date=' what did you make?[/quote']Forgot about this question, I brewed a XXXX Bitter rip off yesterday. Second and last one. I'm not a huge fan of these beers but I wanted to see whether or not I could brew an accurate representation of them at home, with the knowledge and equipment I now have. A lot of guys get into brewing to try to replicate these beers and often times they turn out nothing like them due to a range of factors. My first one was reasonably close, but it did lose its bitterness over time and became too sweet. I'm hoping to avoid that on this batch and used some gypsum in the water this time.

[Otto Von Blotto]

I added more hops to it as well which increased the IBU by about 1.

 

Headmaster, basically the isinglass/gelatine attracts yeast cells and then drags them to the bottom of the fermenter when it drops out of suspension. Not really ideal at the beginning of the fermentation hence the caution about re-using yeast that's mixed with it. It might not be an issue, I don't really know, but logic would suggest that it could potentially be.

 

Corksniffer, I did manage to grab a couple of pix of the urn etc. earlier. I imagine it's pretty obvious what a ball valve looks like, but this is a photo of the hop "spider" I use to contain pellets in the boil. The legs sit on the outside of the urn and hold it in place. It wasn't bought like this; originally it hung from a stainless bar that sat across the urn but it moved around too much so the stainless steel rod was added later to make the legs and keep it in place much better.

 

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

[Corksniffer]

My "How to brew" arrived. It's FAT.. Looking forward to digesting! Ph strips also came, what absolutely rubbish. . I won't even use these they're so ineffective. Waste of money (I hear 'I told you so..')

 

Sweet spider, man!

[Otto Von Blotto]

Yeah the strips don't get much of a rating for measuring mash pH. I did take some pictures of my process today to give you a bit of an idea of what happens on my brew days, but the upload button seems to have disappeared for me... I'll have to upload them elsewhere once I get this cleaning and crap out of the way.

[Morrie]

Kelsey - why do you use different mash schedules when doing lagers and ales?

[Otto Von Blotto]

Morrie, mainly because I prefer my lagers to finish at a lower FG but still retain some head retention qualities. Actually on today's brew I raised the temp from 67 to 72 with about 20 minutes to go in the mash, so it had a 15 min rest at 72 before mash out. Will be interesting to see what effect this has.

[Hairy]

Below is a link to some useful information on step mashing and the various rests:

 

Brew Your Own - The Science of Step Mashing

 

Also a quote from the article on protein rests and the two enzymes at play:

 

There are two specific types of enzymes that were thought to be active in this range — proteinase and peptidase enzymes, collectively known as the proteolytic enzymes.

 

Proteinase is an enzyme that works on longer-chained proteins turning them into medium length chains. Peptidase enzymes chop up the moderate to short chains and break them down to their component form. Conveniently, these two enzyme groups have slightly different optimal temperature ranges, so you can hypothetically favor one or the other.

 

Brewers do not want a lot of longer chain proteins in their wort. A high level of big proteins can lead to haze and instability. However, brewers do want medium length protein chains because they are beneficial for a beer’s body and for foam retention. The optimal range for peptidase is between 113–128 °F (45–53 °C) while the optimal range for proteinase is 131–137 °F (55–58 °C). A 15–30 minute hold in the proteinase range was thought to diminish haze, but not negatively impact foam or body.

I have done a rest at 55C on a few occasions with no head retention issues.

[Morrie]

Thanks for that info Kelsey and Hairy. There is a hell of a lot of info available on step mashing and many brewers do different rests for different reasons. A lot of what you read can be conflicting and can do your head in trying to decide how to step mash. I know a simple infusion at 66 - 67 with a 78ish mash out works really well for me for pales, but it is now time for me to try some different stuff. I've read too long of mash times can be detrimental to beer foam while long mash times are good for efficiency. I think it is advised to go longer for the beta and less for alpha rests.

 

This is what I'm thinking of going with this weekend:

 

Mash in around 35C for 0 mins.

Acid rest for 10 @ 40C

Protein rest for 10@ 55C

Beta rest for 60 @ 66C

Alpha rest for 30 @ 72C

Mash out for 15 @ 78C

[headmaster]

Below is a link to some useful information on step mashing and the various rests:

 

Brew Your Own - The Science of Step Mashing

. A 15–30 minute hold in the proteinase range was thought to diminish haze' date=' but not negatively impact foam or body.

[/quote']

I have done a rest at 55C on a few occasions with no head retention issues.

 

Thanks for this info Hairy, very interesting. I will give this a go, will be easier to step from 55-58 to saccharification rest than it is to go from 50C.

 

Using this calc: http://www.onlineconversion.com/mixing_water.htm it means I only need to boil 5 litres of water for the step rather than 9 for 25 litre total.

[headmaster]

Reading this BYO article in full, looks like I should be doing an acid rest at around 45c when using rye or large amounts of wheat. I have had the gumming up problems the author mentions with rye, the acid rest is supposed to break down these gums or glucans.

 

So for me that would be dough in grain using 16L of water to rest at 45c for 15 to 30 mins, add 4L boiling water to jump to protein rest at 55c 15-30 mins then add 5L boiling water to jump to approx. 65c.

 

I've been using Fawcetts floor malted Maris Otter for ales, possibly it may benefit more from steps when compared to other malts available. interesting to see in this article a mention of british pale ale malts as being low enzyme:

 

"This is particularly true for beers brewed with low-enzyme malts, such as British pale ale malts. "

 

 

[Otto Von Blotto]

Thanks for that info Kelsey and Hairy. There is a hell of a lot of info available on step mashing and many brewers do different rests for different reasons. A lot of what you read can be conflicting and can do your head in trying to decide how to step mash. I know a simple infusion at 66 - 67 with a 78ish mash out works really well for me for pales' date=' but it is now time for me to try some different stuff. I've read too long of mash times can be detrimental to beer foam while long mash times are good for efficiency. I think it is advised to go longer for the beta and less for alpha rests.

 

This is what I'm thinking of going with this weekend:

 

Mash in around 35C for 0 mins.

Acid rest for 10 @ 40C

Protein rest for 10@ 55C

Beta rest for 60 @ 66C

Alpha rest for 30 @ 72C

Mash out for 15 @ 78C[/quote']I'd go around 63C for the beta rest personally, that's favouring it with very little if any alpha action. 66C is right in the middle of both. That mash schedule is what my lager schedule is based on, I just removed the first two steps because trying to do that with BIAB in an urn just didn't work due to the element cover being covered in gunk from the grains being added at 40C. I don't even think using a smaller amount of strike water and adding boiling water to bring up the temp would help in this instance because the crap is still gonna be there regardless. The beers actually turned out better without the first two rests, probably because I could mash and boil it properly.

 

I don't think these protein rests are even necessary with most modern malts anyway, they're just a carry over from the old days of under modified malts. In saying that, I'd still try one if it didn't result in shit all over the element causing problems, just to see how it affected the final result.