I just finished a "almost perfect" brew day. Three gallon biab kit from Northern Brewer, (Oatmeal Cookie Brown Ale). (Almost the last of these kits. Very soon, I'll only use the recipes from Brewing Classic Styles, as Scott had recommended several times).

After I had done my mash by the book, hovering around the kettle, I realized that my thermometer was flaky and had been reporting that the mash was 10 degrees (Farenheit) hotter than it really was, therefore, it was 10 degrees cooler than it should have been. Get this: my OG weighed in at 1.080!! I'm pretty much at a loss of what I'm going to wind up with. Maybe I can use it for fuel in my lawn mower.

I hydrated one package of Nottingham. I'm wondering how much it'll do before it flocks out. There should be enough cells since it's a 3 gallon batch.

I'm kind of afraid of the beer, It gowled at me when I walked into the room.

Greg

Lol, 'it growled at me'...

Well, the good news is it will be beer

What was the OG supposed to be? And what was the actual mash temp do you think? You obviously got good conversion, beer might be a touch dry though...

goulaigan wrote: ↑

7 years ago

Lol, 'it growled at me'...

Well, the good news is it will be beer

What was the OG supposed to be? And what was the actual mash temp do you think? You obviously got good conversion, beer might be a touch dry though...

Hi,
The OG was supposed to be 1.066.
The mash temp was supposed to be.around 154 degrees F. I think it was around 144ish

This A.M., it is happily bubbling away. Grrrrrrr. My dog's hiding in her kennel.

Greg

Jamato wrote: ↑

7 years ago

hang on, that will be rocket fuel

The good thing is that I have thirsty friends.

Interesting, seems odd to me that you would get that high an OG just because of temp mishap.

I mean you would be converting starch at either temp, just that the higher end would be less fermentable and lower end more fermentable... Did your volumes come out as expected? Seems like there is perhaps another factor here...

In any case, with some aging I'm sure it will be fine, perhaps a little dry for an oatmeal stout but perhaps the oatmeal will help with that. Interested to hear how it turns out...

goulaigan wrote: ↑

7 years ago

Interesting, seems odd to me that you would get that high an OG just because of temp mishap.

I mean you would be converting starch at either temp, just that the higher end would be less fermentable and lower end more fermentable... Did your volumes come out as expected? Seems like there is perhaps another factor here...

I came in about a quarter of a gallon shy of the 3 gallon mark.

Either way, I'll report to y'all the results.

Do you think Nottingham yeast will be able to handle the high alcohol?

Jamato wrote: ↑

7 years ago

my experience with nottingham is that it is very aggressive and leaves less residual sugars than normal London yeast
I have used it for some medium strong brews, up to about 7.5%. and it chewed right through it.
Now over that, I usually finish off a brew with champagne yeast, such as my Heavy Scotch or Imperial Stout. ( an idea I read about in a old brewing book years ago) some call that cheating But I feel I am getting the benefit of the beer yeast in flavors and just chewing through the other sugars with the champagne yeast. That limits my knowledge of where nottingham finishes off at, but it gives you a idea for if your yeast drops out before you want it too.

Hi Jamato,

It's so happens that I do have a packet of champagne yeast that I did not put into a wine that I made. This beer is going to be absurdly high. My pre-boil gravity was where my original gravity was supposed to be: 1.064.

According to SeanTerrel.com. Which has a marvelous refractometer calculator, my estimated alcohol by volume should be around 15.7

Maybe I'll use it as a paint stripper. :-)

I don't think you will be hitting 15% abv starting out at 1.08... even if it comes down to 1.0 you would be just over 10. My guess is you end up around the 8% mark, but I don't have much experience with Notty...

Do you have a hydrometer?

goulaigan wrote: ↑

7 years ago

I don't think you will be hitting 15% abv starting out at 1.08... even if it comes down to 1.0 you would be just over 10. My guess is you end up around the 8% mark, but I don't have much experience with Notty...

Do you have a hydrometer?

Yes I do. I use it along with the refractometer
I just figure the more data the better. So we shall see. I'll keep you posted.

Greg - have you pitched Yeast yet? Just reading this. If you wound up too high gravity and had low volume, culprit is likely excessive evaporation. An easy fix by adding water to dilute. The BIABacus has fields for dilution.

EDIT - Here is a link that can help with the mechanics of dilution:
http://www.biabrewer.info/viewtopic.php ... git#p54559
And there are many other links that can help, if searching the site for dilute or dilution. I believe with dilution and adding water prior to pitching, it ends up lowering the IBU as well.?.?. Not sure how that happens if it is low on water due to evaporation but that is what I see in the BIABacus software with making dilutions to my beer. Perhaps Pat could comment on that...? No doubt there is a reason, not quite obvious to me right now.

Crap, I just lost my reply. That'll teach me not to use my phone. ;-)

Hi Scott,

I'll bet a dollar for donuts that the culprit was evaporation (along with too low a mash temperature). I looked at the link that you posted and I'll view it a number of times more for sure. It'll take a while to sink in.

Unfortunately, I pitch already, but I did a load of wrong things, including checking my gravity after I pitched (forgot to do so beforehand).

Oh well, lessons well learned. I'm not sweating this as long as I learn something. Thanks again for weighing in.

Greg

RedWino wrote: ↑

7 years ago

That'a massive boil-off rate...

I'f I'm not looking at the wrong instructions ten that kit recommends starting with 5.5 gallons of water - and a 60 min boil time.

Everyone's setup is different, with variations over the seasons, but I get a boil-off rate of ~1.3 gal / hour.

Maybe you started with less water - or boiled for longer?

Hi, that's it, I boiled for 90 minutes. Oh well live and learn

gvhorwitz wrote: ↑

7 years ago

Jamato wrote: ↑

7 years ago

my experience with nottingham is that it is very aggressive and leaves less residual sugars than normal London yeast
I have used it for some medium strong brews, up to about 7.5%. and it chewed right through it.
Now over that, I usually finish off a brew with champagne yeast, such as my Heavy Scotch or Imperial Stout. ( an idea I read about in a old brewing book years ago) some call that cheating But I feel I am getting the benefit of the beer yeast in flavors and just chewing through the other sugars with the champagne yeast. That limits my knowledge of where nottingham finishes off at, but it gives you a idea for if your yeast drops out before you want it too.

Hi Jamato,

It's so happens that I do have a packet of champagne yeast that I did not put into a wine that I made. This beer is going to be absurdly high. My pre-boil gravity was where my original gravity was supposed to be: 1.064.

According to SeanTerrel.com. Which has a marvelous refractometer calculator, my estimated alcohol by volume should be around 15.7

Maybe I'll use it as a paint stripper. :-)

I just couldn't let this go without mentioning this. I too used to use ST dot com refractometer calculator, BUT NOT ANY MORE! Please read this thread >>> linked below <<<, especially the most recent ones from a year ago. This calculator does not give you good SG reading. I am glad you also use a hydro.

http://biabrewer.info/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=1489

MS

Got some good laughs reading the above . Nottingham is scary!

I've only read the above through once so if I get something wrong, let me know.

If you used the directions given with the kit, you'll end up with a high OG for sure because, without doubt, the kit will be based on a "generic" kettle efficiency and that will be lower than reality. In other words, you should get more volume than the kit suggests. Use the BIABacus to get much closer to reality, check your gravity at pitching at two different times (eg, cool an end of boil sample and then take another sample after chilling). Gravity should always be double-checked before making your pre-pitching corrections (hopefully a dilution).

Don't use a refractometer. This post in the thread that MS linked shows some of the problems. (Only time I use a refractometer now is for a high gravity brew that requires a very long boil time. The refracto, in this case, is used only to tell me the rate of gravity change, not the gravity itself. I won't go into the reasons why, or the complete method, as it's a rare situation.)

Scott mentioned dilutions and IBU's. On nearly all brews you should be diluting. Why? Because you can't accurately predict your evaporation rate - it changes from brew day to brew day depending on weather. Your aim should be to be using the lowest evaporation rate in your calculations (eg that for a a calm, humid day). This way you always end up with a stronger wort that can be corrected with dilution rather than a weak wort that is much harder to correct.

The IBU's are not a worry in dilution because, if the wort is too strong, the IBU's will be equally stronger too. Diluting fixes both.

Keep up the comedy Greg