Carrying over from Ask Wheebz....When I picked up the ingredients yesterday one of the brewers came out and asked if I had any questions and told me that it should finish @ 1.010 - 1.015. I assume he didn't give me any OG numbers because he, nor I, have any idea about my efficiency. If I put all the ingredients into beersmith and go through my process of brewing, I will then be able to figure out my efficiency? I realize I may not wind up with the beer that was intended, or hit the gravity that was intended, but for future brew I will then be able to figure a grain bill if I do want to hit a certain OG. Am I correct in believing this?
beer =[ GM's 1st 16x Batches, and/or 10 mo. Brewing ]=
- Thread starter grantmichaels
- Start date
tctenten said:
Techniques (BIAB vs fly sparging vs decoction vs batch sparging vs false bottom or not) all influence efficiency, as does the mill gap, the temperatures, the age and batch-specific details of that grain etc ...
So, like ... efficiency is a ball-park thing for homebrewers, more dialed in for pro's ... it's more critical to their bottom line that they get much higher efficiencies ...
I am going to guesstimate that your efficiency for full-volume BIAB (no sparge) for an 8.5% ABV viscosity wort of an IPA-type beer will be 62-65%, if you don't squeeze the shit out of the bag (which extracts tannins, don't do it) ...
The way it works, or at least how I did it, is that you brew now ... and you see how far off your gravities turn out to be ...
If you find that you are consistently overshooting your targeted gravity (I have the last two brews), increase your kettle efficiency FOR THAT TYPE OF BEER (ABV, amount of roasted/toasted grains) ...
You will narrow in on this over time ...
I know that my system, when cramped, and I'm asking it to recirc hot liquor that's half way to corn syrup it's so loaded w/ starches (mulberara, miyagi, and bhut), i have trouble even getting 55% efficiency ... because there's a lot of roasted toasted crap without no diastatic (lintner) power, and a lack of fresh water to rinse the grains (no sparge, full volume BIAB) ...
What's happened the last two, is that I didn't raise the efficiency enough for my session-normal beer's the last couple of brew day's ... they're more like 60-65% efficiency ...
Over time I'll know what efficiency to use for beers, from paying attention to how I'm over or undershooting my efficiency when making the recipe ...
In the brew, adding extract or boiling longer will increase gravity ... and adding water with decrease it ...
It's not all just haha cool I get a higher gravity if it puts you out of range of the style, the yeast etc ...
If you end up boiling longer to get gravity, it's worth considering whether the extra maillards will be kool and the gang in that style ... probably not as big of a deal for a dark beer, and probably a mistake on the pilsner end, I'm assuming ...
If you end up adding DME or LME, you want that going in w/ like 15 mins left in the boil, I think I've seen ... basically just enough time to ensure it gets handled in terms of critters/bugs, but probably also so that it's not overly stratified in the liquid matrix ... its worth noting that added extract will often darken your beer, and in the only batch of mine that got any - the Zorg - I was taken aback by how much a single pound of extra light DME darkened the wort ...
That should clear it all up =) ...
I think I get it. I am going to take more pics and better notes tomorrow and post it all. I do not do a full volume BIAB, I do sparge using a technique I saw.
I put all the grains in a bag, but then when the mash is done I put the whole bag on a flat stainless steel strainer on top of another pot and the wort is then hand ladled over the grains, and then the sparge water is hand ladled over the grains. Then I move on to the boil phase.
I will be using 1/4 lb of DME instead of the dextrose, do you know how I plug that into Beersmith? So I can make sure I get the right efficiency?
I put all the grains in a bag, but then when the mash is done I put the whole bag on a flat stainless steel strainer on top of another pot and the wort is then hand ladled over the grains, and then the sparge water is hand ladled over the grains. Then I move on to the boil phase.
I will be using 1/4 lb of DME instead of the dextrose, do you know how I plug that into Beersmith? So I can make sure I get the right efficiency?
I'm going to gather up some PTE stuff in my thread and we can all hash 'em out ...
This is a recipe RM posted for PTE (Pliny the Elder) that had good reviews, he said ...
This is an example of what Vinny provides to homebrewer's, but I saw online where a bunch of people said they would cut the hops and re-brew ...
Here's where Roguejim brewed a clone ...
fineexampl did one too, a long time ago ...
I have an email I sent to myself where I've been gathering up clues on the two Pliny's for months ...
I only have about a half dozen beers (that I know of) that I would literally try to clone ... and that's because I haven't had them ...
I think if you get to have a beer, that you are better off deciding something to target in a beer of your own, inspired by that aspect of the beer you had ...
For example ... I like the mouthfeel of Cigar City's base stout ... it's not the flavor, or the color, or the (lack of) head ... it's the texture, the weight, the feel ...
Wheebz gave me an approximation of that in his recipe for the batch I call Miyagi Stout ... now that whole schtick is over ...
Now I don't care about cloning Marshall Zhukov any longer ... and that's good, because if you poke around on the web and HBT, you'll find that Wayne Wambles doesn't think people should try to brew his beer, and isn't afraid to tell them plainly, LOL ...
Zorg was largely inspired by the Gumball Head that D3 sent, but I was more interested in trying Galaxy than Amarillo or whatever, and so I brewed a light color beer with some wheat and hopbursting to see if I could get a little taste of what makes GH cool ...
Red-Eye was largely inspired by Deviant Dale's ... I wanted to brew a reddish/copper IPA w/ assloads of Columbus for all phases of hopping, but was all hyped about Citra, so I did my own malty backbone and added Citra, but stuck to leveraging a clean-fermenting ale yeast because it's pretty widely known that OB uses WLP001 for like, most everything where they can ...
Why do I mention all of this? ... because I don't think tctenten's kit is going to come out like PTE ... but I bet it'll be good ...
Later on, I'll collate my emailed-to-myself notes on Pliny and I'll make a recipe to post here to enter into the mix ...
Anyone else who has one, or has found one they like, feel free to post it up here too ...
Looks like we're going to brew some Pliny ... and maybe even get a hold of a couple to compare with!
:CHEERS:
This is a recipe RM posted for PTE (Pliny the Elder) that had good reviews, he said ...
RocketMan said:
This is an example of what Vinny provides to homebrewer's, but I saw online where a bunch of people said they would cut the hops and re-brew ...
Jobu said:
Here's where Roguejim brewed a clone ...
Roguejim said:Russian River's, Pliny the Elder. A lot of the IPAs I'm seeing here are actually imperial IPAs. There is a difference. Pliny is an imperial IPA.
Here is a minutes ago photo of an IPA I'm fermenting right now. It got away from me.
fineexampl did one too, a long time ago ...
fineexampl said:
I have an email I sent to myself where I've been gathering up clues on the two Pliny's for months ...
I only have about a half dozen beers (that I know of) that I would literally try to clone ... and that's because I haven't had them ...
I think if you get to have a beer, that you are better off deciding something to target in a beer of your own, inspired by that aspect of the beer you had ...
For example ... I like the mouthfeel of Cigar City's base stout ... it's not the flavor, or the color, or the (lack of) head ... it's the texture, the weight, the feel ...
Wheebz gave me an approximation of that in his recipe for the batch I call Miyagi Stout ... now that whole schtick is over ...
Now I don't care about cloning Marshall Zhukov any longer ... and that's good, because if you poke around on the web and HBT, you'll find that Wayne Wambles doesn't think people should try to brew his beer, and isn't afraid to tell them plainly, LOL ...
Zorg was largely inspired by the Gumball Head that D3 sent, but I was more interested in trying Galaxy than Amarillo or whatever, and so I brewed a light color beer with some wheat and hopbursting to see if I could get a little taste of what makes GH cool ...
Red-Eye was largely inspired by Deviant Dale's ... I wanted to brew a reddish/copper IPA w/ assloads of Columbus for all phases of hopping, but was all hyped about Citra, so I did my own malty backbone and added Citra, but stuck to leveraging a clean-fermenting ale yeast because it's pretty widely known that OB uses WLP001 for like, most everything where they can ...
Why do I mention all of this? ... because I don't think tctenten's kit is going to come out like PTE ... but I bet it'll be good ...
Later on, I'll collate my emailed-to-myself notes on Pliny and I'll make a recipe to post here to enter into the mix ...
Anyone else who has one, or has found one they like, feel free to post it up here too ...
Looks like we're going to brew some Pliny ... and maybe even get a hold of a couple to compare with!
:CHEERS:
tctenten said:
In Beersmith, you go to Add Grain, and start typing either "extract" and it'll pop up ...
There are add-on's for Beersmith which contain more hops, more styles, more grains, more yeast etc ... it's under File -> Add On's ...
And yes, that's the technique from BBS, which I also do for stove-top ...
If you reserve fresh 168F water to sparge with after the mash, that's pretty much sparging ...
If you are doing full-volume BIAB and only recirculating back through the grain bed in the strainer to filter your hot liquor of debris, that's not really sparging ... it's more filtering ...
Sparging is largely defined by the rinse w/ the hot plain water, which is a good solvent for the starches, or at least - much better than the liquor itself, which is not heated, and is already with starches ...
tctenten said:
Looks good, but don't use dark extract in a light beer ... hopefully you actually have pilsner or extra light or whatever in actuality? ...
As for the recipe, it looks like a nice DIPA with plenty of hops to me, that's reasonable now ... brew it up!
You were going to lose all of your wort w/ the quantity of hops you had before ...
Would have been like a gallon left ... promise ...
Yup ... they come lighter, but that's orders of magnitude more appropriate than dark - certainly!
Try to get Wheebz's as a priority over mine, but I'm happy to have one ...
Look forward to seeing this one. I'll probably give it a shot at some point. I can't wait until my citra imp IPA is done. Just having the empty hops packs open in my trash can makes the whole room smell amazing lol.
When this IPA is ready, I'm going to bottle it as well as some of those sour beers and send them to Wheebz. Then I'll brace myself lol.grantmichaels said:
Wheebz talked me out Citra in my latest so I get a bead on the Nelson =(
In other news, I might make a pair of one-gallon Red-Eye grain mixes in the near future, one to brew, one for JHP ...
In other news, I might make a pair of one-gallon Red-Eye grain mixes in the near future, one to brew, one for JHP ...
wheebz said:
someone better be careful, because we all know that i do not sleep!
lol ...
in other news, Amazon did manage to get me some unbroken beer bottles this week ...
I'm surprised how cheap and I guess how literally thin they are compared to commercial bottles ...
I'm surprised how cheap and I guess how literally thin they are compared to commercial bottles ...