That's great you dived in Clackers Congratulations

Some brewers fret about numbers before diving in and others dive in without a basic knowledge of numbers. These are the two sides of Number Respect and Disrespect - you need the balance.

You dived in Clackers but you also ask for help in getting the numbers right. This is excellent because it gives me an excuse to write a lot which is something I haven't had time to do here in a long while . Here you go...

Chasing Numbers

I haven't written the following for a while so it's probably due for a repeat... "Brewers who say they hit their numbers dead on every time are fooling themselves. It's just not possible." I'm not blaming or criticising them as it's completely understandable. I chased the numbers spat out by traditional brewing software for several years, each brew saying, "I probably would have got the predicted 75% 'brewhouse' efficiency, if I had remembered to measure that or adjusted for this." After many brews though I realised the numbers didn't add up. Now, a few billion man hours later, we know a lot more and, via the BIABacus, have a far more accurate way of estimating numbers.

Even with that new tool, it's still hard for home brewers (mainly because of what they read everywhere), to understand that hitting numbers is not realistic. Even large commercial breweries cannot do it without blending and adjustments. Think about that... they get a lot more info on their ingredients and have a lot more control over their processes. If they can't do it, how can a home brewer expect to?

There are many logical reasons (some quite obvious when we stop and think about it) as to why you can't hit numbers on every brew. Here's three quick ones: "sugar" content in malted grains varies from batch to batch (commercial brewers get those specs, we don't); water changes daily for most home brewers; and no one can predict evaporation for any one brew day.

versus Using Numbers

What we can do as home brewers is pre-determine the content of ingredients in, design our brew day so that pre-pitching, we are in a position where we can correct, via dilution, to end up with the strength of wort we desire. The BIABacus does this for us.

So, Clackers, what I'm going to do for the rest of this post is make a few corrections to your BIABacus and then add a few notes...

Before I do that, just quickly, quite a nice job on your BIABacus and, I can't emphasise enough, how hard 'batch sizes' like yours are to measure and brew. 'Normal size' batches of 23L VIF are hard enough!

Section C: You don't need the second 1.056 on the right.
Section D: Only fill in one of the first two lines. (Delete your 40 and see how the grams change on the right?) Use the first line in prefernce to the second.
Section W: Because you can't comfortably fit all your water into the mash, you should decide on how much you'll hold back and then type that into the appropriate fields of Section W.

Now some notes...

1. You mention that you topped up your kettle to 16.14L. That's chasing the numbers. (Won't go into it now but that can bite you.)
2. Evaporation rate being high (or EIK: basically VIB x GIB being high) is good because you can dilute. I'd like to see the variance between predicted evaporation a bit less though unless you were brewing outdoors on a very hot, dry day. Just keep your eye on that over a few brews and then over-ride the BIABacus default a bit if need be. Only over-ride it though to the point that you think reflects a cold, humid, calm day.
3. Always double-check your gravity and volume after the boil. (I can't see a recordings in Section M of GAW). When you do this, look at Section P and see if EIB and EAW are within 5%. If so, you can be confident to go ahead with your pre-pitching dilution. Remember, single readings at our scale of brewing are not that accurate.

4. The straining into the fermenter is something I understand on the batch size you are doing but, next time, don't strain. Chill your wort in your sink/tub and let it settle. Then just pour it slowly into your fermenter. Trying to filter it is going to cause you a lot of problems as you already found . (I've written on the "physics" of why it is a problem somewhere on this site.)

I think that's it?

Once again, congrats Clackers

Cheers Clackers and, you're not a slow learner, some things are hard to understand initially.

Section D: If you wanted to try and duplicate the recipe as best as possible, then you would just fill in the first line. In your recipe, it estimates 35.6 Tinseth IBU's. You stated that you wanted to increase the bitterness of the original recipe so you typed in 40 on the second line. That is correct

Section W versus Section N

The main purpose of Section W is for those brewers who cannot full-volume brew because their kettle is too small. Think of Section W as being what you plan to do and will do on brew day. You are good on your thinking when you question, in Section W, 'Water Added to Fermenter." Pre-planning adding water to the fermenter is not desirable as it almost certainly means you are stretching your kettle to or even beyond its limits. If, however, you did take that undesirable route, then that water has to be subtracted from the mash otherwise you would end up with watery wort as you would be using too much water at the start of the brewing process.

Section N is about the "reality" of the brew. It's there because gravity and volume of our sweet liquor is unknown until we actually make it. (We can estimate volume and gravity before-hand but we can't know it as evaporation, water, grain specs etc vary from brew to brew.) Here's a pic of a spreadsheet I'll attach....

This shows some examples of possible outcomes from a brew day. And, it hopefully shows the problems that can result if a brewer uses software to try and get exact outcomes; they'll end up being in a bad situation (red) as often as they end up in a good situation (green). We've set various BIABacus defaults to ensure that the brewer is highly likely to end up in a green situation and this is what happened to you.

What to do when "in the green" (where you should be)

You asked, "Should I have topped up more until the gravity read the desired 1.056? I thought about doing this and thought extra beer, not a bad thing.
But then I had no real idea how it would affect the beer. Bring the bitterness to far down, or make the beer watery? So I left it at 1.060."

I think you made the right decision here but maybe not for the reasons you think.

When we are in the green, we are basically in a situation where our Gravity of Ambient Wort is either spot on or higher than our desired Original Gravity. If it's spot on, then nothing needs to be done of course. If it's higher (the more likely scenario if your brew plan is sensible/safe), then you need to add extra water (make sure it is "clean" water) to your fermenter.

When adding this extra water, it's not bitterness etc, that you should worry about; that's just like you putting one teaspoon of instant coffee and two teaspoons of sugar into half a cup of coffee. Taste that and then top the cup of coffee up with plain water, the essential balance doesn't change. (You'll see that in the B/G Ratio in Section O of the BIABacus).*

*[NOTE: I'm not sure if your file is corrupted or if it is a LibreOffice problem but you'll have to type in zero on the first line of Section N on your file to get Section O to fill correctly. Just had more of a fiddle and it seemed to correct itself so not sure?]

What is important when diluting, given our current limited knowledge, is not to go to extremes. In your case, a small size batch, you had  @ 1.062 and added  which made your wort then read 1.060. Two things to note here:

1. This shows the importance of really double-checking your gravity before dilution. In your case, if the wort was  @ 1.062 and you did dilute with  then your new gravity should have been 1.055/8 (round that to 1.056).

2. I like that you didn't exceed diluting the wort too much. 90% of what you pitched was pure sweet liquor. I don't like diluting more than that but I will go down to 80% on some styles if needs be. It's a question of judgement with style, top-up water quality and bravery all playing a role. I say bravery because there really isn't any quality information around on dilution.

Let me know if that helps Clackers and, let us know how it all turns out!


PP

I'll add my answers below. [What I've written below is hard stuff to understand so don't be worried if you don't get it. I imagine it could take an hour or more of study to "get" the below. Also, it is much easier to understand if you play around with Section W and see how Sections C (right-hand side total), Section K, Section M and P change when you type numbers into Section W.]

Re: "On Jamato`s thread you recommended not to sparge..." - Only if you can fit all the water for the brew in your mash because your kettle isn't big enough. If you can't, you have two choices, use the water you can't fit in the mash to sparge or just top up the boil (or a combo of these). Whatever choice you make though, you must make it before you start the brew day and type the amounts into Section W as it affects other things.

Re: "...in my case when I held water back from the mash, I then sparged to make up the extra water. Is sparging not required?" - Just looking at your spreadsheet in more detail. What happened is, even though you could have, you didn't use all your water in the mash and you obviously made a conscious decision to do that which is fine as it meant your mash volume wasn't too close to your kettle limits. Therefore, let's say you chose to hold back 3 L from the mash and then used that to sparge. You should have typed that into the second line of Section W. That way...

1. The BIABacus would have told you what mash volume to expect.
2. And, all you'd have to do would be sparge with 3 L.
3. It would also throw you warnings if holding back that much water would cause a problem.

(Note that to save the mucking around with sparging, you could have just topped the boil up with the 3L. If you had typed that into Section W 'Water added before the boil,' the BIABacus would have: given you warnings if your decision was likely to cause problems; told you to use 2,691 grams of grain instead of 2,561 grams; told you the mash volume to expect and all you would have to do is add that 3L to the boil - no mucking around with sparging.

By not putting that 3L into Section W before you brewed is that you were forced into a position where you had to sparge until either you reached you reached the Volume into Boil of 16.14 L or topped up until your Gravity into Boil was 1.040. This is a problem for quite a few reasons: it's bloody hard to measure "hot" volumes accurately; it's bloody hard to measure "hot" gravity accurately and quickly; and, possibly, you would be more likely to end up in a "red" situation, rather than "green" pre-pitching.

Re: "This extra sparge water would contribute to my OG being higher predicted." - Not really and this is another reason to fill out Section W before your brewing as it makes things easier to follow. In your case, as mentioned above, you had to top up because you hadn't used all your water to begin with. We don't know your actual "pre-sparging" numbers but here is a likely scenario....

Prior to Sparging (with say 3 L): Your volume might have been say 13.1L and your gravity might have been 1.050 (about 83.4% EIB)
After Sparging (with 3 L): Your volume would be 16.8L and your gravity 1.042 (about 85.7% EIB)

Here is what to note...

1. Your gravity has actually gone down but, of course, your volume has gone up.
2. Your "sugar points" have increased a bit. (13.1 x 50 = 655 whereas 16.8 x 42 = 706).

"Sugar Points" reflect your efficiency ("efficiency into boil" in this case). If I did some maths on the above, based on your grain bill (and also experience), it would translate to 83.4% EIB before sparging and 85.7% EIB after sparging. The reason for this increase is because that extra water means the grain could be washed a little better.

But, but, but!!! If you had simply put all the water in to begin with, you still would have scored the 83.4%. So, it's not the sparging that makes a difference, it is the amount of water that touches the grain.

As I probably mentioned somewhere in this thread, the BIABacus is designed to default so as you end up with a bit higher kettle efficiency (eg efficiency into boil) than estimated so you end up in a "green" position. For example, if you had just added the 3 L to the boil (not sparged it) you would have ended up with...

16.1 L @ 1.040/6 SG (16.1 * 40.6 = 655)

You might think, "Great! That's the 'correct' Volume into Boil" and the gravity is a bit higher than I need - 1.040/6 versus 1.040/0 but, if you were brewing on a calm, still humid day, at the end of the boil you might, at the end of the boil, end up with 12.3 L @ 1.053/3 (655 / 12.3 = 53.3) whereas your desired OG is 1.056/0.

If, however, you had put 3L into Section W under 'Water added before the boil' you wouldn't be in that spot as the BIABacus would have asked you to use a bit more grain to begin with (the 2691 versus 2561 grams I mentioned above) and you would have ended up with 1.056. (In reality, the BIABacus, actually aims for you to end up having to dilute a bit to get the desired OG and ending up with a bit more 'Volume of Ambient Wort' than estimated).

....

I usually only write that much when I'm having a beer! I have to head off to work now

Clackers wrote: ↑

7 years ago

...I washed and harvested the yeast (first time) went well, I think. I don't have a stir plate or anything...

Good on you Clackers

Okay, with yeast washing, that is another area that isn't really well defined in both terminology or method. Probably a few more things now I think on it? It actually probably needs a whole new thread. For example, there is acid washing and just washing. Then, if we narrow that down to just washing, what is the method? And then, if we go further, what yeasts can be successfully washed?

Sorry Clackers, I'm just flat out of time atm. I think, but am not entirely sure, I may have written here on how I have washed one type of yeast before for well over a year. There is also another thing I'm certain I have written on this here but can't think of a "keyword" to search for; it's a small thing, but, if true, a critical thing - something I have only ever heard from one person so it may be total garbage. From memory, he said that some commercial yeasts were blends of two or more yeasts so, if you washed them, the more vigorous yeast would drown out the other/s....

Yep, that was it.

His comment struck me as a logical refutation (or explanation) of why we hear of "yeast" mutating after generation/s.

Definitely made sense to me. I know who told me this so will chase them up on it.

Until then, post what you are washing and how you are washing it so as we know you have the procedure right. (One critical thing is time between your brews)

Clackers,

PP is correct in that many commercial brews are made from two or more yeasts.

I sense a rabbit hole here. Yeast collecting, washing and propagation is a world unto its own. It can be divided and subdivided into too many categories.
A member of my LHBC harvested solids from the bottom of a can of Heady Topper and, using a microscope, identified two different yeasts. He made a rough estimate as to relative population amounts, but could not be sure what it meant due to flocculation unknowns. Then he used some lab tricks to separate the yeasts and grew each separately. One was much more robust than the other. After days and days of effort he had to decide which one was first in order of addition to wort, then how long before adding the second, temperatures for each time period, and more. At some point, it becomes easier to drive to Vermont to buy the beer.
As for the “more vigorous yeast drowning out the other(s),” it was not me who brought this up earlier. See http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 4/abstract and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC203249/ for just two papers that say it happens. The second abstract indicates that sugar concentration and air also play a role in which yeast wins.
I know from my sourdough bread starters that the yeast changes over time. In my experience, the local airborne yeast will win in about a year. The bread is still good, but different.

Marcus - no intent to scare you at all. What you have done will work, even with interruptions. Keep going.
Experimenting is part of the learning process. You get some advice on what to do and give it a try. If you let us know how it turns out in the beer, that would be great. I'd be interested in trying what you report on that one kind of commercial yeast.
Point of clarification, when you said, "2 litres of water let it cool to room temp. dumped into fermentor," you meant that you had removed the beer from the fermenter and had pale tan solids (mostly yeast) on the bottom of the fermenter, right? The fresh 2 litres of water then slurried was what you subdivided into several jars for settling/washing. That makes sense.
Keep it up!

Are you a BIABacus user? If so, post it up here. Include your actuals, then we can begin to answer your bitterness question and you will have a nice visual as to why.

Good stuff Clacks

Glad to read the yeast harvesting is going well. Main thing is to always smell the harvested yeast before pitching and, if there is a bit of water above the harvested yeast, pour a bit off and taste it. Those two things will protect you from pitching harvested yeast that has gone bad.

Clackers wrote: ↑

6 years ago

Question my volume was short into the fermenter, would this concentrate the bitterness?

Yes and No.

Before I get to explaining the yes and no answer, just a quick clarification... the critical volume is your Volume of Ambient Wort (Volume at Flame-Out once cooled), not your Volume into Fermenter. Assuming no dilutions or other pre-pitching corrections, nothing changes in the composition of the wort between VAW and VIF.

I'm going to assume that you did mean VAW instead of VIF. In other words, your evaporation rate was higher than anticipated so you ended up with less VAW (and therefore, most likely, less VIF too) than estimated. The other thing I'm going to assume is that you ended up with a higher OG than expected. (We don't know this though and that is why Mad_Scientist suggested posting up your BIABacus with actual numbers.)

Assuming the above, you'll have ended up with a more concentrated wort than you expected. This is generally what you want as this allows you to use some "nice" water to dilute that wort to the correct gravity before you pitch. Once again, I'm assuming that you didn't dilute and this would mean...

Yes - The Beer Will Be More Bitter
No - The Beer Will Not Be More Bitter

What?

What I'm saying here is that, if you measured the IBU's of the beer in a laboratory, yes, it would be more bitter but, in reality, the perceived IBU's (what you taste) won't be.

Look at it this way... Make two mugs of coffee. Put 1 teaspoon of coffee and one teaspoon of sugar in both mugs. Fill one up but only half fill the other. The half full one will be more sugary but it also will be more bitter - the balance hasn't really changed, everything is just more concentrated.

It's the same with your beer. Yes, your bitterness has gone up but so have all the other things (alcohol, sweetness, flavour etc).

The trick is to plan your brew so as you always end up a bit more concentrated than you want (the auto-defaults in the BIABacus do this) and then use "nice" water to dilute down to your desired OG which, in turn, also dilutes bitterness etc, etc.

....

Carbonation will accentuate bitterness initially (carbolic acid from CO2 and other factors) however, often the initial bitterness will then quickly subside a little.


PP

I had a chance to get on a regular computer today. I re-read post #1 and pulled up your file. ... and your actuals are there.

Everything looks good there. After your dilution in the fermentor, looks like that brought you down to OG 1.060. Nice efficiencies. One thing that would increase the bitterness, as you said, is the 10 mins. hops additions went in at 60 mins..

That's all I can see, regarding that.

MS