Lockdown brewing

[Andreas Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Andreas]

I brewed a plain no frills Smash pale ale (Lager malt and fuggles), mostly because I forgot to add the other grains when I was crushing the base malt and didn't want to make a mess after cleaning. only interesting thing is it is fermenting with Kveik Voss

[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

that could work yes if you have said cooler that could handle the grain + water (±2.5l per kg) Actually no need for the mashout ... after mash drain the liquid to boil kettle and the add you mashout/sparge water to rinse the grain (let it sit for 5-10min) and then also add that to the kettle to reach the correct boil volume .... and Bob's your uncle basically a "batch sparge" ... google if you not sure on the term

Yeah I read up about batch sparge before posting my post above, saw it here: http://brulosophy.com/methods/proces...atch-brew-day/ I see I missed the "collect first runnings" after the first 40 minutes, which makes sense. Exactly what I'm going to do then, thanks for the advice. My cooler should be big enough. It's a regular cooler box thing, those 50l or something like that ones.

I'm just wondering - what if I miss my target gravity too far? My brewhouse efficiency has been impossible to pinpoint - on one brew it was something like 75%, and the next it went down to 55%, and on the next brew it was a bit better at around 65%, etc. It's almost impossible to hit, and that's not only annoying, but also impacts my beers. The stout I'm planning will probably be fine with a lower than planned ABV (I'm hoping for a good double, perhaps triple), but I guess if it clocks in at around 5% that'll be OK as well, but I'm just wondering. I don't want to add dextrose if I can help it.

[JIGSAW Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JIGSAW]

Yeah I read up about batch sparge before posting my post above, saw it here: http://brulosophy.com/methods/proces...atch-brew-day/ I see I missed the "collect first runnings" after the first 40 minutes, which makes sense. Exactly what I'm going to do then, thanks for the advice. My cooler should be big enough. It's a regular cooler box thing, those 50l or something like that ones.

I'm just wondering - what if I miss my target gravity too far? My brewhouse efficiency has been impossible to pinpoint - on one brew it was something like 75%, and the next it went down to 55%, and on the next brew it was a bit better at around 65%, etc. It's almost impossible to hit, and that's not only annoying, but also impacts my beers. The stout I'm planning will probably be fine with a lower than planned ABV (I'm hoping for a good double, perhaps triple), but I guess if it clocks in at around 5% that'll be OK as well, but I'm just wondering. I don't want to add dextrose if I can help it.

Don't you have any DME at hand to compensate if the efficiency does come out lower?

I used this back in the day .....

Compensate lost OG with DME


1 pound (± 450 g) of DME contribute 45 point pounds per gallon ( ± 4L)
(Gravity points are the last two digits of a gravity reading)

Example:
5 gallons (± 19L) of wort at 1.040 and you wanted it at 1.055.
55-40 = 15 points short/gallon
15 points X 5 Gallons (± 19L) = 75 points need to be added.
75/45 = 1.67 lbs (± 760g) of DME to hit the proper gravity

[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

Don't you have any DME at hand to compensate if the efficiency does come out lower?

I used this back in the day .....

No, no DME on hand. To be honest, I never thought about keeping DME on hand, but I can see how that would be an amazing addition if OG is lacking. To date I've done one of two things:

1. Taken pre-boil gravity, and if it's too low, I use an online calculator and boil until I get my required volume, use that to calculate how much water is evaporated over time, do the math, add more water to compensate for 1 hour of boiling, bring to a boil, add hops, boil for an hour and then I'm sure of my OG. This is a time-consuming process, but it's worked well in the past. My aimed 3% lager I managed to get to 2.96% with this, and I am very happy with it now (too bitter, but it's a light IPA now, and turning into something really great after a few months).

2. Add dextrose to the desired OG.

For some stupid reason I never thought of DME. Dextrose has worked in the past to boost ABV, but in the latest tests I've done with it (like in ciders), I've found the flavour and "watery" addition it gives to the brew it's pretty much never worth it. I figured since I'm adding a pound of lactose, a bunch of CaraMunich I and oats I would be fine with a small addition of dextrose since the rich, thick mouthfeel would offset it a bit, but DME would still have been better.

Think I'm going to add a few bags of DME to my next order and just keep them on hand. For now though, I think I'll be happy with a bit lower ABV. The original recipe aims for 5.8% ABV (if I remember correctly), and I simply downscaled the base malt a little bit because I wanted to reduce the volume (I'm aiming for closer to 19l in the fermenter, not 21l like in the recipe) but kept the chocolate and other specialty malts in the same amount to boost flavour. I guess I can always just play with the final volume as well to get to my required ABV.

This is at least a stout. Pretty easy to hide mistakes and issues. I can't wait for this brew. Busy working the groceries out of my fermentation fridge now so I can get brewing. Soon...

[groenspookasem Banned Find all posts View Profile Close groenspookasem]

remember to adjust your hop rates if your sg is out, or you'll be sitting on bitter beer. dont do dextrose, not worth it

[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

remember to adjust your hop rates if your sg is out, or you'll be sitting on bitter beer. dont do dextrose, not worth it

Thanks for the reminder, yes, will have to adjust for this as well. I'm planning a slightly under-hopped beer on this one as I want a sweet finish, and definitely not overly bitter. I'm not a big fan of overly bitter stouts. I prefer them rich, creamy, sweet and chocolatey. The recipe calls for around 33 IBUs, but I'm going to be aiming (and compensating, because no-chill), for around 28. It seems the general guide is to use around 20 minute "boil time" for the hops if you're doing no-boil, but I have a question:

My hops are in a hop bag, in other words, they don't go into the cube. Do I adjust for the 20 minutes as well, considering they're removed, or not?