Help!
After a greatly-successful period brewing from kits, I read a book by Charie Papazian which gave me the confidence to try without the kit. So I headed down to a local brewery and got hold of hops, speciality grains, and a starter yeast, and got somemalt extract.
After 3 hours of careful measuring, boiling, straining, I finally had a wort in the barrel with the yeast.
Soon, I noticed a heavy sediment in the bottom of the barrel, which makes me think my straining let a lot of stuff through, and made me worry the yeast sedimentation will result in a deposit level at the bottom of the barrel which will be higher than the tap level.
The next day, everything was bubbling normally, but the smell in the brew cupboard was very different to normal.
The next day it hit me... I forgot to adjust the quantity of hops in the brew to account for the strength of my hops (I used super-alpha in the same quantity as the fuggles in the recipe). This means that effectively I have double-hopped my wort, and I have no idea what to do now.
Suggestions so far are:
1.Leave it and carry on, hope for the best
2. Add sugar!
3. Go through a process to take what's in one barrel as the basis for 2, by doubling the volume and just adding more malt.
My ingredients/process was:
1/2 lB crystal malt
1/4 Black malt
1/4 Caramalt
All slowly brought to boil, grains removed just prior to boiling (took about an hour)
Added 3kgs of malt extract
2ozs (instead of 1!) Super alpha hops
Boiled for 45minutes
Added 1/2 Oz D-saaz hops for aroma
Boiled for 5 minutes
Strained into barrel, pitched yeast at 24degrees.
So, what would you do?!
I am hoping not to have to throw it away and start again, but if it's definitely a disaster I don't want to go through all the bottling time for nothing.
Your advice greatly appreciated :)
After 3 hours of careful measuring, boiling, straining, I finally had a wort in the barrel with the yeast.
Soon, I noticed a heavy sediment in the bottom of the barrel, which makes me think my straining let a lot of stuff through, and made me worry the yeast sedimentation will result in a deposit level at the bottom of the barrel which will be higher than the tap level.
The next day, everything was bubbling normally, but the smell in the brew cupboard was very different to normal.
The next day it hit me... I forgot to adjust the quantity of hops in the brew to account for the strength of my hops (I used super-alpha in the same quantity as the fuggles in the recipe). This means that effectively I have double-hopped my wort, and I have no idea what to do now.
Suggestions so far are:
1.Leave it and carry on, hope for the best
2. Add sugar!
3. Go through a process to take what's in one barrel as the basis for 2, by doubling the volume and just adding more malt.
My ingredients/process was:
1/2 lB crystal malt
1/4 Black malt
1/4 Caramalt
All slowly brought to boil, grains removed just prior to boiling (took about an hour)
Added 3kgs of malt extract
2ozs (instead of 1!) Super alpha hops
Boiled for 45minutes
Added 1/2 Oz D-saaz hops for aroma
Boiled for 5 minutes
Strained into barrel, pitched yeast at 24degrees.
So, what would you do?!
I am hoping not to have to throw it away and start again, but if it's definitely a disaster I don't want to go through all the bottling time for nothing.
Your advice greatly appreciated :)
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by weevaa on
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I would get a copy of ProMash and put in all your values to work out exactly what your IBUs are. What was your OG? I personally leave it until it is finished fermenting, and then if you have a quick taste before bottling and decide its way too strong, add some water (again ProMash comes in handy).
Adding sugar is a bad idea, and doing anything to it after is has started fermenting is kind of asking for trouble with an infection etc.
But I am a novice so I am sure someone more experienced will tell you what to do :-)
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Permalink Reply by jt on
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I agree there - work out the IBU's
If you boiled the hops with all the 3 kg of malt in say 10 litres your extraction isn't going to be great and I reckon you'll be fine.
The balance between bittering hops and aroma hops may be out, but it'll be a cut & a half better than your last kit
It'll be different if you did a full volume boil, even so depends on the yeast, if it was to stop higher then you'd have plenty of sweetness to counter the hops
What were the volumes - and the yeast ?
Who wants D-Saaz flavour anyway - Super Alpha's the way to go late in the boil I reckon - go NZ Hops Irish Red (Shabby Technique Brewery version anyway)
Anyway, you won't do that twice so I bet the next brew'll be a good one - what's planned ?
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Permalink Reply by integersmirk on
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Heh - a little too early to have planned the next one - still recovering from the first!
To answer the questions above, for my adventure I used 5litres in the boiling pot. The yeast was donated by the brewery, they ran off about 500mls of a stout they had in mid-fermentation. The SG after dilution in the barrel was about 1042 but I haven't adjusted this for temperature (it was 24degrees) because I don't know what temperature my hydrometer is calibrated for...
I don't know where to go for supplies generally so am restricted to what I picked up at the brewery until I find more suppliers. Where do people get specialty grains, yeasts, hops? I bet I could do better on the malt extract as well, this was from BinInn. There must be cheaper suppliers and/or more variety. I paid $4.95 per kilo for a basic "malt extract", the only choice they had.
It seemed a hell of a lot more effort than a kit so I am pleased you say the results will still be better.
Sounds like ProMash is a piece of software, is it expensive?
Cheers
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All 3kg of malt in the 5 litre boil, along with the liqour from the boil ? I reckin you'll be ok hop-wise.
Your $4.95 for extract is a great price - 1.5kg of Black Rock extract would cost you $12.50 or more. I don't know if it's good for brewing but I'm sure you'll find out soon enough !
And I'm sure that calling into a local brewery is a helluva lot better than calling into a brewcraft shop - make the most of it !
Promash ? Go to Promash.com and download the free trial version, buy the full version if you like it. Others might suggest beersmith or other tools ..
Start planning brew # 2, you'll be glad you did
cheers, jt
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Permalink Reply by vdog on
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I'm a novice myself, but in terms of ingredients Brewers Coop in Auckland seems to have a pretty strong line in mail-order stuff - particularly in terms of grain (crushed or whole) and they're a reasonable amount cheaper than the likes of Brewcraft. Give them a ring and see what they can do for you. NZHops would be the cheapest place I know of for hops.
But as JT says - if you're getting it straight from the brewery, keep doing it as long as they'll let you!
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Permalink Reply by denimglen on
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Don't worry about the sediment, it'll compact to under the level of the tap, if it doesn't just run off a bit (anywhere from 100mL - 1000mL and it should run clear).
I believe most hydrometers are calibrated at 20C, so 1.042 = 1.043 roughly.
Promash sucks, get beersmith :-P.
After I've checked my emails I'll throw those values into beersmith for you and let you know what you've got.
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I assume you used 5 L of water to steep the grains and then added the malt extract? I can't remember the volume of LME so I'll assume it's 2.5L for 3kg, so a total boil volume of 7.5L.
And I'll also assume a batch size of five gallons/19L?
I also don't know the AA of the hops so I'll just use what's in BeerSmith, 10.7% and 6% respectively.
This is what BeerSmith gave me as estimates:
OG - 1.048
IBU - 20 (or 18 if it was only a 5L boil)
Colour - 7.4 SRM
FG - 1.014
Looks like you're in the clear.
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You are a legend!
It was 2litres of malt extract, 5l of water, a batch size of 23litres.
The hops were 11.4 and 5.5 I think...
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Oh yup, in that case the numbers are -
1.040
1.010
17.9 SRM (should have been 17.4 SRM before not 7.4 haha)
27.5 IBU.
Still in the clear, should be make a good brown ale.
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Where abouts did you get your $4.95/kg malt from and what brand etc was it if you don't mind :-)
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It was BinnInn, just called "malt extract" - a liquid in a big tub that glooped out slowly. Previous reply suggested it might not be suitable for brewing but I will update on how this batch turns out!
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Permalink Reply by Dan on
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Its likely Maltexo, Im not sure what or if there are additives to it,
Maltexo make a food grade malt and a brewing grade malt, its likely to be the food grade one but there probably isnt much difference, check out their website.
I used it once or twice a couple of years ago with a kit instead of dextrose, and used to use it for starters too.
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