BREW DAY!! WATCHA’ GOT, EH? 2022

[Classic Brewing Co]

1 hour ago, jennyss said:

@MitchBastard, I have taken to having a second google window open when I look at the Coopers Community - there is always something to look up!

Yes Jenny there are certainly a lot of words/phrases etc that keep bobbing up in this home brewing caper. 

Mr Google is very helpful.

[Classic Brewing Co]

2 hours ago, MitchBastard said:

Brewed my house ipa yesterday.

Looks the biz Mitch, sounds like a great beer.

[Classic Brewing Co]

8 hours ago, stquinto said:

Another Duvel clone

Wow that's a big OG !! 

[MitchBastard]

6 hours ago, Classic Brewing Co said:

Looks the biz Mitch, sounds like a great beer.

Cheers mate!

[Pezzza]

9 hours ago, MitchBastard said:

Brewed my house ipa yesterday.

Hey there @MitchBastard Mitchie - looks good - as usual ; )

Qn - probs should be on the Ferment Thread but...

What are your thoughts on kegging an IPA as soon as you have hit FG and done any Late Hopping wanted... maybe inside 7 days on a good yeast intro.

I usually run my routine Coopers FV non-pressure ales for a two week stretch - like at 18 to start with - and most ferment is done early - and then a bit chill time later on... maybe a warmup for a bit in the middle...  and believe The Bavarian @Aussiekraut AK does do a 14 day Ale round trip as well most times. 

I did do 5 AGs rapidly once a little while ago in a bit of a hurry - and kegged as soon as I hit FG and the beer was ok - but my gut feel is that it is good for a bit of FV conditioning time - no hard data here though.

Am interested to read your thoughts - and also any Crafty Brewery general practices you may have observed... I sorta think they have less time to leave stuff hanging around in Fermenters cos time is money and limited infrastructure and trying to get some volume throughput and beerflow as well as cashflow... and so they maybe catch up on conditioning in the keg?

Help please

[MitchBastard]

2 hours ago, Itinerant Peasant said:

Hey there @MitchBastard Mitchie - looks good - as usual ; )

Qn - probs should be on the Ferment Thread but...

What are your thoughts on kegging an IPA as soon as you have hit FG and done any Late Hopping wanted... maybe inside 7 days on a good yeast intro.

I usually run my routine Coopers FV non-pressure ales for a two week stretch - like at 18 to start with - and most ferment is done early - and then a bit chill time later on... maybe a warmup for a bit in the middle...  and believe The Bavarian @Aussiekraut AK does do a 14 day Ale round trip as well most times. 

I did do 5 AGs rapidly once a little while ago in a bit of a hurry - and kegged as soon as I hit FG and the beer was ok - but my gut feel is that it is good for a bit of FV conditioning time - no hard data here though.

Am interested to read your thoughts - and also any Crafty Brewery general practices you may have observed... I sorta think they have less time to leave stuff hanging around in Fermenters cos time is money and limited infrastructure and trying to get some volume throughput and beerflow as well as cashflow... and so they maybe catch up on conditioning in the keg?

Help please

Hey mate, 

Before working in a brewery, Ive always been a big advocator of conditioning as long as need be. My general time frame in fermenter would be at least 2 weeks, minimum. Just as a general rule. Whether It’s a lager or ale, I’ll ramp up the temp on day 3 or 4, that’s when you’d find your yeast has done the heavy lifting and can cope with higher temp. . If it’s a lager it goes up from 12 to 18. If it’s a an ale it goes from 18 up to 20. If I’m dry hopping, I’ll chill back down to 16  from 20 and dry hop for 4-5 days, cold crash then keg on day 14 or 15.  
 

imo it’s not always the fg you’re waiting on, you’re waiting on a yeast clean up. Yeast will produce over 500 compounds during fermentation and does require ample time to clean em back up once the ferment duties are done. I rekon you’ll get cleaner beer if you factor this in. If you’re not overly worried, keep an eye on your fg, and also your pH. If you see a jump in pH once fg has been reached, your yeast is beginning autolysis and on its way out. I’d at least wait for that…..

Working for a producer of Belgian beers, we arnt the fastest brewery at pushing out beer. High fg and Yeast heavy beers need time and we gotta wait for it all to happen. Our quad can be in tank up to 9weeks before it’s ready to pack. Saying that, if we were banging out IPAs, and had a centrifuge, it may be as quick as 3 weeks from grain to can or keg. 

[Pezzza]

2 hours ago, MitchBastard said:

Hey mate, 

 

Beautiful.

Thanks Mitchie @MitchBastard

Yeah I reckon I will stick to the slightly longer FV game plan - thanks mate!

 

[Classic Brewing Co]

2 hours ago, MitchBastard said:

Hey mate, 

Before working in a brewery, Ive always been a big advocator of conditioning as long as need be. My general time frame in fermenter would be at least 2 weeks, minimum. Just as a general rule. Whether It’s a lager or ale, I’ll ramp up the temp on day 3 or 4, that’s when you’d find your yeast has done the heavy lifting and can cope with higher temp. . If it’s a lager it goes up from 12 to 18. If it’s a an ale it goes from 18 up to 20. If I’m dry hopping, I’ll chill back down to 16  from 20 and dry hop for 4-5 days, cold crash then keg on day 14 or 15.  
 

imo it’s not always the fg you’re waiting on, you’re waiting on a yeast clean up. Yeast will produce over 500 compounds during fermentation and does require ample time to clean em back up once the ferment duties are done. I rekon you’ll get cleaner beer if you factor this in. If you’re not overly worried, keep an eye on your fg, and also your pH. If you see a jump in pH once fg has been reached, your yeast is beginning autolysis and on its way out. I’d at least wait for that…..

Working for a producer of Belgian beers, we arnt the fastest brewery at pushing out beer. High fg and Yeast heavy beers need time and we gotta wait for it all to happen. Our quad can be in tank up to 9weeks before it’s ready to pack. Saying that, if we were banging out IPAs, and had a centrifuge, it may be as quick as 3 weeks from grain to can or keg. 

Informative & very useful information Mitch, Cheers.

I can't help thinking if our @jennyss is already Googling some of this as there is a word in there I have never heard of. 

[stquinto]

10 hours ago, MitchBastard said:

Working for a producer of Belgian beers, we arnt the fastest brewery at pushing out beer. High fg and Yeast heavy beers need time and we gotta wait for it all to happen. Our quad can be in tank up to 9weeks before it’s ready to pack. Saying that, if we were banging out IPAs, and had a centrifuge, it may be as quick as 3 weeks from grain to can or keg. 

Interesting stuff mate

As an avid consumer (and now brewer) of such beers I tend to leave them a longish time, either fermenting or bottle conditioning. Defo worth the wait IMHO

[Aussiekraut]

Brewed another M54 experiment today. It's pretty much the Clayton's Lager but I added dry enzyme to it. I did like the CL a lot and still do. But I wanted to test the dry enzyme and see what it does to this sweet malty lager kinda beer. The problem is, I overshot the numbers again...by a lot. Last batch came up 3 points above the OG estimate but this one ended up 8 pints above. This is going to throw my ABV numbers out big time. If this ferments out to 1.000 instead of the expected 1.008 based on the recent batch, it'll end up being a 6.95% ABV beer, instead of the expected 5.1%

I don't know what is happening to my numbers but my efficiency appears to be going through the roof! This one has an estimated OG of 1.045 and I ended up with 1.053. That's an efficiency of 89%. I don't mind as such but it makes it hard to control the alcohol levels I really like to have a kind of measure I can rely on. I could reduce the amount of Grain I am using but in order to do so, I need to be able to rely on outcomes. 

I know, first world problems...

[Aussiekraut]

On 8/2/2022 at 7:02 PM, MitchBastard said:

Working for a producer of Belgian beers, we arnt the fastest brewery at pushing out beer. High fg and Yeast heavy beers need time and we gotta wait for it all to happen. Our quad can be in tank up to 9weeks before it’s ready to pack. Saying that, if we were banging out IPAs, and had a centrifuge, it may be as quick as 3 weeks from grain to can or keg. 

I like that and I like the fact that you guys are giving it the time it needs, not what accountants may say you should do.

One day, I will get down there to sample your beers. I mean it's a 45 minute drive, I just need to convince SWMBO to do the drive home.

Is Madocke dog friendly? That'd help immensely  

[kmar92]

35 minutes ago, Aussiekraut said:

Brewed another M54 experiment today. It's pretty much the Clayton's Lager but I added dry enzyme to it. I did like the CL a lot and still do. But I wanted to test the dry enzyme and see what it does to this sweet malty lager kinda beer. The problem is, I overshot the numbers again...by a lot. Last batch came up 3 points above the OG estimate but this one ended up 8 pints above. This is going to throw my ABV numbers out big time. If this ferments out to 1.000 instead of the expected 1.008 based on the recent batch, it'll end up being a 6.95% ABV beer, instead of the expected 5.1%

I don't know what is happening to my numbers but my efficiency appears to be going through the roof! This one has an estimated OG of 1.045 and I ended up with 1.053. That's an efficiency of 89%. I don't mind as such but it makes it hard to control the alcohol levels I really like to have a kind of measure I can rely on. I could reduce the amount of Grain I am using but in order to do so, I need to be able to rely on outcomes. 

I know, first world problems...

Have you by any chance changed the malt that you are using? I have been finding that varying brands and types of malt produce very different yields on brew day.

[The Captain!!]

Totally agree with @MitchBastard here.  Gotta give the yeast time to act on the compounds that need to be cleaned up. 

Ales with ale temps are easy enough to just let be, there's a reason why Lager breweries have horizontal conditioning tanks to let that yeast cake more area over the beer. 

Let the beer mature on yeast and clean up. then drop ya yeast. then chill.

[Aussiekraut]

10 hours ago, kmar92 said:

Have you by any chance changed the malt that you are using? I have been finding that varying brands and types of malt produce very different yields on brew day.

Nope. The last time I changed basemalts was probably a year ago, when I replaced MO with Voyager Veloria. I'm beginning to think it is BeerSmith's calculations that are out of whack. I imported all the grain add ons to get things more accurate. So instead of just picking any pale malt for example, I specify that I am using Barret Burston pale malt. But I didn't notice much variation in the numbers in BeerSmith either. 

My process hasn't changed one bit and I even took a sample and checked with the hydrometer to ensure it's not the refractometer who lies. 

[Shamus O'Sean]

22 minutes ago, Aussiekraut said:

Nope. The last time I changed basemalts was probably a year ago, when I replaced MO with Voyager Veloria. I'm beginning to think it is BeerSmith's calculations that are out of whack. I imported all the grain add ons to get things more accurate. So instead of just picking any pale malt for example, I specify that I am using Barret Burston pale malt. But I didn't notice much variation in the numbers in BeerSmith either. 

My process hasn't changed one bit and I even took a sample and checked with the hydrometer to ensure it's not the refractometer who lies. 

So annoying.

I think that the Beersmith calculations would be fine.  The basic formulae would not change.  About all you can do is increase your brewhouse efficiency to something like you are actually getting and see how that goes. 

I increased my BH efficiency on my last brew by 2% to 71%.  I still over shot again (84%), but at least got closer.  For me, this is happening with both Pilsner Malt and Maris Otter.  With this last brew, I just had to add a few extra litres of water in the fermenter to get closer to my intended OG.  The bitterness would have been reduced due to the extra water, but only by a few points.  I will have to adjust the BH efficiency again for the next few brews until I find a sweet spot.

[MitchBastard]

23 hours ago, Aussiekraut said:

I like that and I like the fact that you guys are giving it the time it needs, not what accountants may say you should do.

One day, I will get down there to sample your beers. I mean it's a 45 minute drive, I just need to convince SWMBO to do the drive home.

Is Madocke dog friendly? That'd help immensely  

Hey mate, yep we certainly are dog friendly! Would be good to see ya there. If you tee it up for a day I’m there I’ll show you round the traps 

[Pezzza]

A Sparkling Ale of sorts...bit of a late start in the day but needed doing - hoping to keg-on-up Mozzie Pale tomorrow and do a dirty backfill and get this fella charging : )

Lager Malt, Pilly, Munich and Carapils - just cos it was there and needed using ; )

Then HT Mit for bittering and maybe some Citra at FO for a tickle on the end.  See how we go hopefully becomes Beer of some sort 

 

 

[Classic Brewing Co]

33 minutes ago, Itinerant Peasant said:

A Sparkling Ale of sorts...bit of a late start in the day but needed doing

Good to see the chimney's smoking IP !! 

[Pezzza]

Hop Boil - always smells good ; )

[Tone boy]

45 minutes ago, Itinerant Peasant said:

Hop Boil - always smells good ; )

Could be a late night for you IP… Do you just cube that and stick it outside for the night?

I guess from your previous post this will backfill your pale ale tomorrow?

Cheers to you, don’t forget your beauty sleep

[RDT2]

1 hour ago, Itinerant Peasant said:

Hop Boil - always smells good ; )

Right up there with the Munich Dunkel boil

[Pezzza]

12 hours ago, Tone boy said:

Could be a late night for you IP… Do you just cube that and stick it outside for the night?

I guess from your previous post this will backfill your pale ale tomorrow?

It's low teens in the Brewery-Kitch here without heating @Tone boy Toner... I just do "desert" (no water) chilling w temp control fan overnight in the SS Boil Kettle w lid tight on and weight upon it and then backfill the following morning : )

Yer gunna oxygenate it anyway so if it gets a bit of oxygen from the vessel headspace during the evening chillin' then no biggie?

It seems to have no ill effects and JP How to Brew seems to think chilling overnight is not so bad...  rapid cooling immediately thereafter with a glycol chiller and then pitch would be better but ah well...  Suspect one day I will hafta consider cubing but am not that fired up about putting hot Wort into plastic at this stage 

 

[Pezzza]

12 hours ago, RDT2 said:

Right up there with the Munich Dunkel boil

Haha Gold @RDT2 RD but it does turn the little Kitch-Brewery into a bit of a Sauna haha - so I hafta open up everything and it can get a bit chilly on the feet ; )

[Classic Brewing Co]

20 minutes ago, Itinerant Peasant said:

It's low teens in the Brewery-Kitch here without heating

Sounds like you are battling the elements IP, Mountain Brew must be a tough place to work in the colder months.

According to the BOM it is 12.4c ATM at Glenelg going down to 8c with showers so that's hardly paradise, even the seagulls are tucked away under the rocks.

I am sure you will get on top of it mate, just break out the Rum & Port & you will be fine. 

[ben 10]

Style: Foreign Extra Stout

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------

Batch Size (fermenter): 21.00 L   
Estimated OG: 1.063 SG
Estimated Color: 77.7 EBC
Estimated IBU: 63.2 IBUs


Ingredients:
------------
Amt              Name                                             Type          #          %/IBU         Volume        
4.00 kg          Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC)                 Grain         1          67.8 %        2.61 L        
1.00 kg          Rye Malt (Weyermann) (5.9 EBC)                   Grain         2          16.9 %        0.65 L        
0.50 kg          Carafa I (Weyermann) (630.4 EBC)                 Grain         3          8.5 %         0.33 L        
0.20 kg          Caraaroma (256.1 EBC)                            Grain         4          3.4 %         0.13 L        
0.20 kg          Roasted Barley (Joe White) (1398.7 EBC)          Grain         5          3.4 %         0.13 L        
45.00 g          Super Pride [13.90 %] - Boil 60.0 min            Hop           6          63.2 IBUs     -             


---------------------------------