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Date: 31 Jul 2006 06:19:07
From: Baron218
Subject: First All Grain.
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I did my first all grain batch on Saturday and I ran into a few
problems that I was hoping people would have insight on. I did a
witbier with about 9 lbs of grain.
1) My gravity at the end of fly sparging was 1.014. I had about 6
gallons, added hops at the right time and boiled it down to a little
under 5. My final gravity was 1.022. It should have been around
1.045, did I screw up some place.
2) I boiled in a 13 gallon keg, and used a homemade counterflow
chiller. I got a very bad wort flow through the chiller and couldn't
even start my siphon. The spigot I think is too high in the keg at
about 2 inches from the bottom, and once the keg cooled enough I
eventually lifted it way up into the air so I don't think gravity was
the problem either. Also, when I run regular water through the
counterflow chiller, it runs through just fine.
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Date: 31 Jul 2006 07:58:07
From: Baron218
Subject: Re: First All Grain.
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Yea, the final gravity was taken as the first bits rolled through the
counterflow chiller before it got stopped. And the fly sparge was temp
corrected.
Derric wrote:
> > 1) My gravity at the end of fly sparging was 1.014. ...
> > ... and boiled it down ... My final gravity was 1.022. It
> > should have been around 1.045 ...
>
> Just a question to be perfectly clear... did you correct the hydrometer
> reading for temperature?
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Date: 31 Jul 2006 14:52:47
From: Derric
Subject: Re: First All Grain.
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> 1) My gravity at the end of fly sparging was 1.014. ...
> ... and boiled it down ... My final gravity was 1.022. It
> should have been around 1.045 ...
Just a question to be perfectly clear... did you correct the hydrometer
reading for temperature?
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Date: 31 Jul 2006 07:49:38
From: Baron218
Subject: Re: First All Grain.
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I actually just got it off line as I was trying to do a Hoegaarden
clone. I know the recipe sounds a bit weird with so much flaked wheat.
Also, is 9 plus lbs of grain common for 5 gallon recipes because it
was hard to sparge in my 5 gallon gott cooler.
John 'Shaggy' Kolesar wrote:
> On 31 Jul 2006 07:17:34 -0700, <MGarshick@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > John 'Shaggy' Kolesar wrote:
> >> On 31 Jul 2006 06:19:07 -0700, <MGarshick@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > I did my first all grain batch on Saturday and I ran into a few
> >> > problems that I was hoping people would have insight on. I did a
> >> > witbier with about 9 lbs of grain.
> >> > 1) My gravity at the end of fly sparging was 1.014. I had about 6
> >> > gallons, added hops at the right time and boiled it down to a little
> >> > under 5. My final gravity was 1.022. It should have been around
> >> > 1.045, did I screw up some place.
> >>
> >> What was the recipe and batch size?
> >>
> >>
> >> John.
> >
> > here is the recipe:
> > lbs. White Wheat Malt info
> > 2 lbs. Belgian Pils info
> > .5 lbs. Munich Malt info
> > 4.75 lbs. Wheat Flaked info
> > .25 lbs. Oats Flaked info
>
> I haven't used flaked wheat, but did some quick googling on the groups
> archives and see several posts about it not being able to convert itself.
> With the flaked wheat being >50% of the grain, I wonder if you had
> conversion problems that caused your unusually low OG. Where did the
> recipe come from?
>
>
> John.
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Date: 31 Jul 2006 14:55:14
From: John 'Shaggy' Kolesar
Subject: Re: First All Grain.
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On 31 Jul 2006 07:49:38 -0700, <MGarshick@gmail.com > wrote:
> I actually just got it off line as I was trying to do a Hoegaarden
> clone. I know the recipe sounds a bit weird with so much flaked wheat.
> Also, is 9 plus lbs of grain common for 5 gallon recipes because it
> was hard to sparge in my 5 gallon gott cooler.
9 lbs of grain isn't unusual. The high percentage of flaked wheat may
be a problem, but I'm not 100% sure.
John.
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Date: 31 Jul 2006 07:17:34
From: Baron218
Subject: Re: First All Grain.
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John 'Shaggy' Kolesar wrote:
> On 31 Jul 2006 06:19:07 -0700, <MGarshick@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I did my first all grain batch on Saturday and I ran into a few
> > problems that I was hoping people would have insight on. I did a
> > witbier with about 9 lbs of grain.
> > 1) My gravity at the end of fly sparging was 1.014. I had about 6
> > gallons, added hops at the right time and boiled it down to a little
> > under 5. My final gravity was 1.022. It should have been around
> > 1.045, did I screw up some place.
>
> What was the recipe and batch size?
>
>
> John.
here is the recipe:
lbs. White Wheat Malt info
2 lbs. Belgian Pils info
.5 lbs. Munich Malt info
4.75 lbs. Wheat Flaked info
.25 lbs. Oats Flaked info
.5 oz. East Kent Goldings (Pellets, 5.00 %AA) boiled 60 min. info
.5 oz. East Kent Goldings (Pellets, 5.00 %AA) boiled 15 min. info
.5 oz. Czech Saaz (Pellets, 5.00 %AA) boiled 5 min. info
3/4 ounces Bitter Orange Peel (not included in calculations)
1 1/4 teaspoons Crushed Corriander seeds (not included in
calculations)
1 pounds Rice Hulls (not included in calculations)
Yeast : White Labs WLP400 Belgian Wit Ale info
Had about 6 gallons pre-boil and a bit under 5 after boil. I also used
all hop pellets.
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Date: 31 Jul 2006 14:34:37
From: John 'Shaggy' Kolesar
Subject: Re: First All Grain.
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On 31 Jul 2006 07:17:34 -0700, <MGarshick@gmail.com > wrote:
>
> John 'Shaggy' Kolesar wrote:
>> On 31 Jul 2006 06:19:07 -0700, <MGarshick@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I did my first all grain batch on Saturday and I ran into a few
>> > problems that I was hoping people would have insight on. I did a
>> > witbier with about 9 lbs of grain.
>> > 1) My gravity at the end of fly sparging was 1.014. I had about 6
>> > gallons, added hops at the right time and boiled it down to a little
>> > under 5. My final gravity was 1.022. It should have been around
>> > 1.045, did I screw up some place.
>>
>> What was the recipe and batch size?
>>
>>
>> John.
>
> here is the recipe:
> lbs. White Wheat Malt info
> 2 lbs. Belgian Pils info
> .5 lbs. Munich Malt info
> 4.75 lbs. Wheat Flaked info
> .25 lbs. Oats Flaked info
I haven't used flaked wheat, but did some quick googling on the groups
archives and see several posts about it not being able to convert itself.
With the flaked wheat being >50% of the grain, I wonder if you had
conversion problems that caused your unusually low OG. Where did the
recipe come from?
John.
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Date: 31 Jul 2006 14:00:25
From: John 'Shaggy' Kolesar
Subject: Re: First All Grain.
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On 31 Jul 2006 06:19:07 -0700, <MGarshick@gmail.com > wrote:
> I did my first all grain batch on Saturday and I ran into a few
> problems that I was hoping people would have insight on. I did a
> witbier with about 9 lbs of grain.
> 1) My gravity at the end of fly sparging was 1.014. I had about 6
> gallons, added hops at the right time and boiled it down to a little
> under 5. My final gravity was 1.022. It should have been around
> 1.045, did I screw up some place.
What was the recipe and batch size?
John.
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Date: 31 Jul 2006 08:55:51
From: Wayne
Subject: Re: First All Grain.
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Baron218 wrote:
> I did my first all grain batch on Saturday and I ran into a few
> problems that I was hoping people would have insight on. I did a
> witbier with about 9 lbs of grain.
> 1) My gravity at the end of fly sparging was 1.014. I had about 6
> gallons, added hops at the right time and boiled it down to a little
> under 5. My final gravity was 1.022. It should have been around
> 1.045, did I screw up some place.
> 2) I boiled in a 13 gallon keg, and used a homemade counterflow
> chiller. I got a very bad wort flow through the chiller and couldn't
> even start my siphon.
>
1) Sounds like you had a problem with channeling during your fly
sparge. The wort may have been bypassing most of your grain, leaving
most of the sugars behind. Doing some reverse calculation, your preboil
OG would have been about 1.018. You had terrible mash efficiency. Two
things you should look at are your manifold and how you add the water to
the top of your mash during the sparge. A poorly designed manifold will
drain only from small areas of the grain bed (channeling). If you just
pour your sparge water into a small area of the top of the grain bed,
you will also encourage the same problem. Gently pouring the water onto
a layer of perferated alum. foil laid on top the grain will solve this
part of the problem. Also, in fly sparging, if you do your sparge too
fast you will lose efficiency. The sparge should take at least 45
minutes. I avoid all this by batch sparging.
2) The bad wort flow problem sounds like hops clogging things up. If
you whirlpool the wort (give it a real good stir) before beginning to
drain the wort you can avoid some of this problem. Be sure to let it
sit for about 10 minutes to allow the cone of hops that will form to
settle. You should then be able to drain or siphon from the edge of the
pot without problems. I use a stainless steel scrubbie stuck onto the
end of my autosiphon to act as a filter to also help keep the hops out.
This works better than a cloth or nylon filter because it has much
greater surface area for the wort to flow through. The cloth/nylon ones
filter through a much smaller area and clog quickly.
A little late to help this beer. All you could really do at this point
would be to put it back on to boil longer. An additional 2 hours would
bring your gravity up to 1.036 (at only 3 gallons). A little more
practical solution would be to warm it up and add dme to bring the
gravity up. Then boil it long enough for hot break to form again. If
you did an aroma hop addition, you will want to repeat that addition.
Hope this helps a little.
Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company
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Date: 31 Jul 2006 22:48:12
From: David M. Taylor
Subject: Re: First All Grain.
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"Baron218" <MGarshick@gmail.com > wrote in message
news:1154351947.696761.42550@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>I did my first all grain batch on Saturday and I ran into a few
> problems that I was hoping people would have insight on. I did a
> witbier with about 9 lbs of grain.
> 1) My gravity at the end of fly sparging was 1.014. I had about 6
> gallons, added hops at the right time and boiled it down to a little
> under 5. My final gravity was 1.022. It should have been around
> 1.045, did I screw up some place.
You must have gotten less than desirable efficiency. Either you didn't
crush well enough, didn't mash long enough, or didn't control the mash temps
around ~150 F. Another possibility (though less likely) is that you might
have overheated the grains and destroyed the enzymes before they had a
chance to convert starches to sugars. Don't worry.... all of this comes
with practice, and your next batch will hopefully end up with better
efficiency, especially if you can figure out which of these factors came
into play.
> 2) I boiled in a 13 gallon keg, and used a homemade counterflow
> chiller. I got a very bad wort flow through the chiller and couldn't
> even start my siphon. The spigot I think is too high in the keg at
> about 2 inches from the bottom, and once the keg cooled enough I
> eventually lifted it way up into the air so I don't think gravity was
> the problem either. Also, when I run regular water through the
> counterflow chiller, it runs through just fine.
I don't know a darn thing about chillers, I use either a snowbank in winter
or an icewater bath otherwise. In either case, the wort is usually cooled
to 80-90 F within about 20 minutes, not too shabby.
--
Dave
"Just a drink, a little drink, and I'll be feeling GOOooOOooOOooD!" --
Genesis, 1973-ish
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Date: 31 Jul 2006 13:19:01
From: (East Bay) Phil
Subject: Re: First All Grain.
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With that proportion of wheat, I'd think you'd want rice hulls in order
to prevent runoff being stuck. If you didn't, and did get rapid runoff,
I'd think you almost certainly had channeling.
Fly-sparging in general isn't very efficient. I did it for 2 years and
lucked into someone else's brew setup on craigslist. I started using
his copper manifold and saw my efficiency jump 10%. Absolutely worth
making one for the cost savings and convenience.
P
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Date: 10 Aug 2006 11:40:43
From: Baron218
Subject: Re: First All Grain.
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Here's the recipe, although i wouldn't recommend it...
http://www.beertools.com/html/recipe.php?view=3019
on further reading, and acting on a tip from above, I found out that
you get bad conversions if you use wheat as the primary grain in the
recipe.
Also, make sure you aerate a lot, I used to just dump cold water on my
concentrated wort to cool + get up to 5.5 gallons and didn't need to
aerate that much. Now since I did a full boil my fermentation is
stuck/bad.
TheGist wrote:
> Baron218 wrote:
> > I did my first all grain batch on Saturday
> I am looking to do my first all grain batch myself.
> What recipe did you use? Would you care to post it?
> Thanks!
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Date: 10 Aug 2006 18:53:16
From: John 'Shaggy' Kolesar
Subject: Re: First All Grain.
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On 10 Aug 2006 11:40:43 -0700, <MGarshick@gmail.com > wrote:
> Here's the recipe, although i wouldn't recommend it...
> http://www.beertools.com/html/recipe.php?view=3019
>
> on further reading, and acting on a tip from above, I found out that
> you get bad conversions if you use wheat as the primary grain in the
> recipe.
BTW, from what I could tell it's just flaked wheat (IE unmalted wheat) that
has that problem. If the recipe had called for a different kind of wheat as
the primary grain, it should have worked fine. I know you can even make a
100% wheat beer if you want to, just use malted wheat instead.
John.
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Date: 10 Aug 2006 13:52:35
From: TheGist
Subject: Re: First All Grain.
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Baron218 wrote:
> I did my first all grain batch on Saturday
I am looking to do my first all grain batch myself.
What recipe did you use? Would you care to post it?
Thanks!
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