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Issues with recent brew - not sure what went wrong?

Post #1 made 11 years ago
by do_you_realise
Hey,

Not sure whether this is the best place to troubleshoot a recipe - if not please let me know.

My most recent brew was a modified version of the "Amarillo Pale Ale" - basically I originally brewed this with purely Chinook hops as that's all I had at the time. I liked it so much (but do love Amarillo, and extra hoppy ales) that I decided to double up the hops and bought some Amarillo to do a Chinook/Amarillo Pale Ale.

I upgraded to a propane burner for this recipe and my main issue seems to have been the boil didn't boil off as much wort as the BIABacus said it should have. I was fairly sure my boil was vigorous enough (although I didn't see a "hot break" this time, similar to last time) but only afterwards when I got this into the fermenter did I realise I was off in terms of volume and gravity.

I messed up slightly by measuring my OG while the wort was still hot, adjusting for temperature it came out at 1.055 instead of 1.058 but I expect a bit of error here due to the temp correction calculation.

Volume into fermenter probably came to about 25L instead of the 23L mentioned in the spreadsheet.

The issue with the resulting beer is that it has come out a bit thin and dry tasting - probably due to the slightly thinner wort than last time?

Any advice on a) what might have gone wrong and b) how I can adjust for this next time within the BIABacus spreadsheet?

Thanks.
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Post #2 made 11 years ago
by Lumpy5oh
I am unable to look at your file at the moment; but I would point at the lower than expected boil off to be the culprit. Weather and humidity affect boil off and your next brew could hit your numbers dead on. I would suggest that you get some more brews under your belt and note the weather conditions if you can. If you consistently miss your target we can help you make adjustments to the biabacus.
In the meantime ; what I do is kill the heat and try to get a VFO reading. If you find you still have too much wort you can boil longer to achieve your target.
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Post #3 made 11 years ago
by PistolPatch
[Beat me Lumpy :). See end of post.]

Hi dyr,

Your evaporation will vary from brew to brew, especially if you brew outside, so don't expect your evaporation rate to be a constant. if you had the vigorous boil going then that is great.

Your numbers are fine and well within the ball-park. Once again, never expect to hit estimated numbers dead on. Even large commercial breweries have to make post-boil corrections*. Anyway, even if the temp correction was correct, a 3 point OG difference won't be the source of the thinness problem. It is much more likely to be due to the lower mash temperature. (Make sure you have a few thermometers as digital thermometers can play up.)

On the next brew, try and take a few extra volume and gravity readings throughout the brew day as this will give you a double-check on your numbers which can really help to discover a problem if there is one.

Good luck on the next one and well done on your explorations :peace:,
PP

* Lumpy, it's best to let your brew ride through as planned and make corrections after the boil has finished. For example, if you boil for longer, you'll lower your volume and increase your gravity so you might end up having to dilute after the boil. Also if you increase the boil, you bugger up your hop additions, especially the later ones. Also, if you increase the boil time, you are making a decision based on a single measurement and a single unconfirmed measurement can be very unreliable so...

Set your BIABacus up so that it is more likely that at the end of the brew you will have a lower volume of ambient wort but higher gravity (i.e. use the default kettle efficiency and/or set your evaporation rate to the lowest you have ever had.) Take a gravity and volume measurement into the boil and see what happens in Section P but do not adjust anything. After the boil measure your Kettle to Fermentor Loss and your Volume into Fermentor and your Gravity of Ambient Wort. See if typing in these numbers helps confirm the first line of Section P. If so, you can be fairly confident that you have taken a good gravity reading. Hopefully you will also now be in the position of having a wort that is a little too high in gravity. Dilute it with cooled, boiled water.

You are much better off ending up in a situation of diluting. Also following the above will most likely mean you end up with a little extra beer but it will be properly balanced, malt/hop-wise, as you have planned in your recipe.

:drink:
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Post #5 made 11 years ago
by celeryness
Hello do_you_realise,

Just to add to one of the things that PistolPatch said with regard to the low temperature. I found this BYO article about stout really helpful on this subject: https://byo.com/stories/item/572-dry-ir ... le-profile. I know you are brewing an Amarillo Pale Ale, but the author describes how certain sugars are released at given temperatures during the mash, and how the yeast will process those sugars. The dryness that you encountered seems to bear out what he says in the piece, and a higher mash temperature as least for a part of the mash might well fix something.

I'm not trying to present myself as an expert on the subject by any means, but this was a great excuse to post the above link for anybody who wants to dig a little deeper into what different mash temperatures might (or might not) do for your beer.
Last edited by celeryness on 26 Sep 2014, 11:12, edited 1 time in total.

Post #6 made 11 years ago
by HbgBill
This is an interesting topic. Considering we are all shooting for some level of consistency.. To my late dad's dismay, I have to admit I'm math challenged. Let's say we are doing a 90 minute boil.. Considering there is a difference from day to day from humidity and/or the strength of the boil (which is virtually subjective).. I'm thinking there must be a way to measure what has happened in the first 30 minutes. If the boil has not released enough liquid as steam, we could boil either more (or less) to hit that magic point.

If I were to do this, how would I take the measurement? Turn off the heat long enough for the wort to settle down enough to take a measurement? If so, how would YOU do this? We now have a hot liquid which has "grown" by a small percent; we have a liquid that also has a bag full of grain, which has presumably absorbed as much liquid as it can.

Again, how would YOU do this???
Bill
Hop Song Brewing-Santa Rosa, California

Issues with recent brew - not sure what went wrong?

Post #7 made 11 years ago
by Contrarian
For me personally I think it is about learning your own system by brewing on it a lot and brewing similar recipes again and again.

After about a year of brewing on the same system I seem to able to get things fairly close to where I would like them to be when brewing beers from 1.035 to 1.055. I rarely brew bigger beers but when I have there have always been problems.

The nature of home brewing is that it is not replicable in a scientific sense. There are way too many variable to control in a shed and far too many possible sources of error to adequately control enough of them to produce meaningful data.

This might sound like measuring is pointless, it isn't. It will act as a good guide for understanding your system and repeating things relatively closely from brew to brew. For example, scientifically speaking a difference in gravity at any point of the process of 2-3 points is significant but I would challenge even the most refined pallets to taste the difference in the finished product.

In a very long winded answer to a simple question the best way to get your volumes right is to brew a lot on your system, use the BIABacus as a guide and I would put money on the fact that within 6 months you will be hitting your gravity and volume on a fairly consistent basis that you are happy with!

Post #8 made 11 years ago
by mally
I have to agree with Contrarian, there is nothing better than knowing your own system.

HbgBill - There is a way you could do it, it isn't what I would do as I tend to accept whatever I get.
HbgBill wrote:If I were to do this, how would I take the measurement? Turn off the heat long enough for the wort to settle down enough to take a measurement? If so, how would YOU do this? We now have a hot liquid which has "grown" by a small percent; we have a liquid that also has a bag full of grain, which has presumably absorbed as much liquid as it can.
This sounds like you boil with the bag & grain in-situ! :lol:

The Biabacus tells you what your VOM (volume of mash) is lets say 36L
When you remove the bag and drain it, it will tell you your VIB (volume into boil) lets say 30L
The BIABacus calculates the boil off rate lets say 4 L/Hr, 90 mins thats 6L lost. Your VFO (volume at flame out) is now 24L (this VFO is a "hot" liquid volume), your VAW (volume of ambient wort) will be around about 1L less lets say 23L rounded out.
At all these times VOM, VIB, VFO, and VAW you can take a headspace measurement and compare to predicted values.

If you are 30 minutes or even half way into your boil. You "could" turn the flame/heat off and take a measurement if you wanted to.
In the above example, if your boil off rate was following the correct rate of 4 L/Hr. At 30 minutes you should have a volume of 28L, 45m = 27L etc.

Does any of the above help?
Last edited by mally on 26 Sep 2014, 15:06, edited 2 times in total.
G B
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Post #9 made 11 years ago
by HbgBill
Sure does make sense. Thanks. I wonder if I may not have expressed myself properly. Without a doubt, knowing your system is key. I think picking up as many data points as possible are notches in that key. Soon you will have a key that works. I wonder if we could use an anal-ogy of a theoretical high precision lock. If the lock is truly high precision, either the key will expand by picking up body heat or the lock, sitting in the sun will have parts that grow (or shrink in the cold). You might have to wiggle the key to make it work. Not very high precision if you can wiggle the key, eh? :lol:

My point of taking a measurement at, say 30 minutes, if I do this for every brew, the key might suggest that I need to increase or decrease my flame for the rest of the boil due to external conditions that effect the expected results of the key in the lock 9temperature or humidity or whatever variable causes a change in the expected boil off.)

Someone, (sorry I don't recall who at the moment) suggested I take a measurement doing a 'dry run' by filling the kettle with the approximate amount of water, along with the basket and the bag.. That would go a long way to facilitating this. You guys have a lot more experience behind you for predictability. You can do a better job of predicting what will happen.. I'm probably making mountains out of 'mole hills'.

I think the only reason I'd want to be a bit anal about this is because I always 'fret' about having too much wort in the pot at the end of the boil, thus causing my expected gravity to be lower than expected. Sure, I can lengthen the boil.. but, if I'm shooting for an expected effect with all my hop additions, it seems I could be way off by that boil increase. ???
Last edited by HbgBill on 26 Sep 2014, 21:22, edited 2 times in total.
Bill
Hop Song Brewing-Santa Rosa, California

Post #10 made 11 years ago
by PistolPatch
[See end of post re the lock analogy.]

Bill, this might be a bit before your time but we used to have a mantra here and we probably need to start saying it again, "You cannot trust a single measurement on a single brew."

Taking a volume reading 30 minutes into the boil is not going to be reliable and it is simply unnecessary.

Please re-read my last post in this thread carefully before reading further...

Forget those brewers who can miraculously achieve the same evaporation rate on every brew given winter, summer, in still weather or windy weather. You simply can't do it. Trying to judge it on a single brew day by taking one measurement 30 minutes into the boil is not the way to go. Forget about trying to predict your evaporation accurately on any one brew day. It is not a big deal.

Instead, get comfortable with correcting the brew post-boil. Most of us experienced brewers drinking the beer for their personal enjoyment, will either aim to be "over-budget" and just dilute with a bit of cooled, boiled water. Personally I also do this even if entering a comp beer because I know that a bit of dilution with quality water post-boil is perfectly fine.

;)
PP

[Lock Analogy: Bill, I love analogies :drink:. The lock one is certainly a very beautiful one. For me, it doesn't apply in this scenario though because it makes brewing a beer sound mysterious and that once you have the notches you will be able to brew the perfect beer over and over again easily and effortlessly. I am sure though that the lock analogy has a place somewhere in brewing though. Very nice!]

We really need an essay on why we shouldn't expect a batch to be replicable, what advantages commercial brewers have that we don't, what advantages we have that commercials don't. how commercials adjust each batch, and how we should adjust each batch.
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Post #11 made 10 years ago
by Scott
Add BOILED tap water when diluting wort after the boil. And add until your VIF is to proper level (or until your Original Gravity is where you want it if gravity still too high...)? I will guess more volume into fermenter but a little bit of both are factors to consider; OG "shouldn't" be too high by big margin unless grain mismeasured. Does anyone have different thoughts?

Seems like in the past with extracts and slightly smaller batches with 5 gal fermenter I've always added regular cold tap water to the fermenter to get up to the wanted fermenter volume. This is before doing BIAB and I've only 2 batches of BIAB so far.
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Post #12 made 10 years ago
by joshua
Scott, unless you have the ability to Monitor the Volume and Gravity as you boil, and stop the boil at the point the Volume and gravity are Correct, What you stated about post-Boil Adjustment is Correct.

Well stated and Done, Sir
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Post #13 made 10 years ago
by PistolPatch
Scott wrote:Add BOILED tap water when diluting wort after the boil. And add until your VIF is to proper level (or until your Original Gravity is where you want it if gravity still too high...)? I will guess more volume into fermenter but a little bit of both are factors to consider; OG "shouldn't" be too high by big margin unless grain mismeasured.
Scott wrote: Does anyone have different thoughts?
Yeah. me of course Scott :),

Above you mentioned about how in the past, with extracts, you simply topped up to the required volume into the fermentor. This may or may not have given you the right volume at the right gravity. If it was a simple hopped extract, it would have been spot on. If it was an unhopped extract and you added your own hops, things become a bit more complicated. In all-grain, it becomes more complicated again because unlike in extract, a teaspoon of sugar might not equal a teaspoon of sugar.

So, on an all-grain brew, a skilled brewer will know that they will never be able to get the same volumes and gravities ('weight') on every brew. Even on the same recipe, one day we brew it the wort will end up sweeter than on another day because we cannot control everything, let alone quite basic things. Even if we could control weighing, evaporation rates, measuring and so on, no brew should ever be the same because grain yields change on each and every bag.

Evaporation rates deserve a special mention as these vary wildly. If you drink coffee from a large mug with two heaped teaspoons every morning, would you ask for two heaped teaspoons if you saw a petite cup and saucer in front of you?

...

Even on an identical recipe, on the same system, a batch I brew this week will be either stronger or weaker than the one I brew next week mainly due to evaporation. A skilled home or craft brewer will (and the BIABacus makes this the default for nearly all scenarios) plan their brew so that they have always have a little more strength than is needed. This way, the usual outcome is that we add a bit of water to dilute the gravity. In other words, we end up with a bit more beer than we planned for but at the gravity we planned for.

This is the most sensible and practical approach.
PP

P.S. Not sure if the above is very well written/easy. Feel free to fix it.
Last edited by PistolPatch on 02 Feb 2015, 20:59, edited 2 times in total.
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Post #14 made 10 years ago
by Scott
Thanks PP and Joshua.

With malt extract - never used prehopped anything. All hops added to boil. Starting in December 1990, used 2.5 gallon pot and then when started brewing again a couple years ago bought 5 gallon stainless steel pot. Boiled biggest wort possible for 5 gallon glass fermenter then topped with tap water in fermenter. Followed Charlie Papazian's advice..."Don't worry, have a homebrew." But with more recent brewing, really tried hard to measure very accurately to get as good a brew possible, and as repeatable as possible. Very excited about doing BIAB now.

PP - appreciate the additional insight. I forgot about grain yields...in terms of quality nutrients or energy per kernel. That's not exactly what you said but I think it's what you meant. So expect to have gravity possibly a little high and then expect to add boiled tap water to dilute in the fermenter, and re measure to get gravity where you want it. And have the goal more about diluting thicker wort to hit your gravity rather than worrying about VIF. If some doesn't end up in the Corny - fine... Let me know if this is incorrect. And thanks for the insight!
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Post #15 made 10 years ago
by PistolPatch
Good stuff Scot. As for measuring accurately and repeatability of brews, that is an illusion which I need to write more on. On some home brewing forums you are lead to believe that a brew is repeatable but they are not. Commercial brewers do a lot of blending so as week to week changes are not noticed. Craft breweries have a harder deal as their hop schedule is often their signature. You will notice on the craft brews that every batch is different, some markedly so.

The above breweries have a lot more resources, accurate measuring equipment etc, etc available to them but even they can't do consistent brews without fiddling. Even, after fiddling, a craft brewer's beer will usually vary noticeably.

Gotta race sorry,
PP
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