Beer Batch #18 lessons
Bought myself an immersion chiller and burner for my birthday and the learning keeps on going.
First lesson, I need a bigger pot if I want to make bigger batches without changing approaches. Luckily, I was constrained by ingredients and with a bonus pack of DME I only figured I could go from 3 gallons to 4 on the recipe I was thinking of. The strike water alone (for my no sparge method) filled my pot basically to the brim.
I don't have an HLT and only one brew kettle. So my only real (pre-existing/documented) option for sparging is no sparge. Hence that decision. There are ways to mitigate this of course. Kettle top up amounts and even topping up at the end. These can push the limits further. A kettle top up would allow me to increase volume by my grain absorption amount and a final top up would allow me to increase again by my boil off amount.
Both have potential trade-offs of course. Kettle top ups increase my mash thickness which is a fairly crucial thing in a no sparge method. But, honestly, I think with the recipes I'm using, my mash is thin enough that this wouldn't hurt. I was over 3qt/lb :)
Topping up at the end impacts your boil gravity. This may mean needing to recalculate hop additions. This could mean the need to use more. But, it could also mean less.
Both tradeoffs are probably acceptable to some degree in most cases. Stealth option # 3 is add more water either during the mash or at the end. Still a no sparge variant I guess. If added earlier in the mash, then it will have more impact on conversion. Added at the end it will have less effect. Just heat water to your mash temperature and add.
If I feel the need to brew a 5 gallon batch I probably will employ these tactics. I think my sweet spot is actually a 3.5 gallon batch. I have a few reasons for this:
I like variety, and the difference between a 3 and 5 gallon batch is meaningful. It means I'm not spending ages trying to get through one batch just to free up bottles for another and I can brew more often.
I like fresh beer. Similar to the above. I use plastic bottles and I find there is a VERY short window where the beer is ideal and a moderate window where it is still good. But most of the hop flavor and aroma fades quickly and large batches just end up tasting quite generic and lame for the last bottles.
3 gallons tends to perfectly fill one case of 24x500ml bottles. But I like to both be sure I'll get at least that much and then enough to fill 4-6 bottles for testing to know when it is carbonated and then when it's ready to drink.
There are downsides to smaller batches. The smaller I go, the more losses to trub and when bottling impact output as a percentage. In other words. Cost per bottle goes up. But, I'd rather more expensive batches than beer I want to throw out or dread drinking. I could buy gear aimed at smaller volumes, but there is really nothing aimed at brewing for less than 5G batches, and below that it is mostly home cooking equipment which is drastically smaller.
Also, in the 3-4G range, I can count on a single pack of dry yeast to do the job just fine for just about any gravity batch without any need to rehydrate or use a starter. I'm lazy. I'm willing to spend a bit more or waste a bit to get my results quicker and more easily.
And now, more on making mistakes in brewing. I just decided to not bother with the little bubblers and I pretty much just start my batches right off with a tube running into a beer bottle of water. I found, even with 3-4G in a 5-6G fermenter, a vigorous fermentation would cause the water in the bubbler to bubble out of it and either onto the lid or back into the fermenter. This time around, though, it seems as though I forgot to make sure the tube was actually submerged in the water for 36 hours.
How bad is this? Well, probably not bad at all. Firstly, in the earliest phase of yeast development you actually want O2 available. This is why you aerate the wort initially. Also, at this stage the yeast aren't generating a lot of gasses, so it is plausible that oxygen got in during this phase and actually helped the yeast along. The benefit was probably negligible. It wouldn't have dissolved well into the wort. But, it also would have been more beneficial than harmful during this phase. Once fermentation begins though, then the yeast would produce CO2, which, being heavier than O2 should have gradually purged any remaining O2 anyway. It also would have purged O2 from the bottle the tube was in. And, it would be constantly generating more CO2 and pressure, keeping most, if not effectively all, oxygen from getting back in.
If primary fermentation had completed it could potentially be bad. Though, honestly, with the only access being through a tiny opening in a tube, little to no disturbances to the wort and a layer of CO2 blanketing the wort, even if left like this the entire time it is unlikely any notable amount of oxygen would penetrate the beer. Especially not compared to what it is exposed to during bottling. (Unless you purge your bottles before filling I suppose).
Modern beer making is a practice littered with redundant safeguards. Granted, the more you remove, the more variable the quality of your batches will be. But in most cases unless you're unsanitary or unlucky you'll still end up making beer. Just maybe not the beer you wanted.
End result of this adventure was learning that for my lazy man's approach 4 Gallons is probably my max right now. End volume will probably be more than I want though. But I could probably fix some of that by switching to glass bottles or kegging. Glass bottles still lose some volatile oils through the cap, but it is supposed to be less than the PET bottles and kegging would be ideal for maintaining freshness, but that is also the most expensive. Long term I certainly want to keg. But I don't think I'll so until winter when I can ferment without my current fridge. That will give me a few months where kegs can live in my current fermentation cooler and I can save up for a second fridge later.
First lesson, I need a bigger pot if I want to make bigger batches without changing approaches. Luckily, I was constrained by ingredients and with a bonus pack of DME I only figured I could go from 3 gallons to 4 on the recipe I was thinking of. The strike water alone (for my no sparge method) filled my pot basically to the brim.
I don't have an HLT and only one brew kettle. So my only real (pre-existing/documented) option for sparging is no sparge. Hence that decision. There are ways to mitigate this of course. Kettle top up amounts and even topping up at the end. These can push the limits further. A kettle top up would allow me to increase volume by my grain absorption amount and a final top up would allow me to increase again by my boil off amount.
Both have potential trade-offs of course. Kettle top ups increase my mash thickness which is a fairly crucial thing in a no sparge method. But, honestly, I think with the recipes I'm using, my mash is thin enough that this wouldn't hurt. I was over 3qt/lb :)
Topping up at the end impacts your boil gravity. This may mean needing to recalculate hop additions. This could mean the need to use more. But, it could also mean less.
Both tradeoffs are probably acceptable to some degree in most cases. Stealth option # 3 is add more water either during the mash or at the end. Still a no sparge variant I guess. If added earlier in the mash, then it will have more impact on conversion. Added at the end it will have less effect. Just heat water to your mash temperature and add.
If I feel the need to brew a 5 gallon batch I probably will employ these tactics. I think my sweet spot is actually a 3.5 gallon batch. I have a few reasons for this:
I like variety, and the difference between a 3 and 5 gallon batch is meaningful. It means I'm not spending ages trying to get through one batch just to free up bottles for another and I can brew more often.
I like fresh beer. Similar to the above. I use plastic bottles and I find there is a VERY short window where the beer is ideal and a moderate window where it is still good. But most of the hop flavor and aroma fades quickly and large batches just end up tasting quite generic and lame for the last bottles.
3 gallons tends to perfectly fill one case of 24x500ml bottles. But I like to both be sure I'll get at least that much and then enough to fill 4-6 bottles for testing to know when it is carbonated and then when it's ready to drink.
There are downsides to smaller batches. The smaller I go, the more losses to trub and when bottling impact output as a percentage. In other words. Cost per bottle goes up. But, I'd rather more expensive batches than beer I want to throw out or dread drinking. I could buy gear aimed at smaller volumes, but there is really nothing aimed at brewing for less than 5G batches, and below that it is mostly home cooking equipment which is drastically smaller.
Also, in the 3-4G range, I can count on a single pack of dry yeast to do the job just fine for just about any gravity batch without any need to rehydrate or use a starter. I'm lazy. I'm willing to spend a bit more or waste a bit to get my results quicker and more easily.
And now, more on making mistakes in brewing. I just decided to not bother with the little bubblers and I pretty much just start my batches right off with a tube running into a beer bottle of water. I found, even with 3-4G in a 5-6G fermenter, a vigorous fermentation would cause the water in the bubbler to bubble out of it and either onto the lid or back into the fermenter. This time around, though, it seems as though I forgot to make sure the tube was actually submerged in the water for 36 hours.
How bad is this? Well, probably not bad at all. Firstly, in the earliest phase of yeast development you actually want O2 available. This is why you aerate the wort initially. Also, at this stage the yeast aren't generating a lot of gasses, so it is plausible that oxygen got in during this phase and actually helped the yeast along. The benefit was probably negligible. It wouldn't have dissolved well into the wort. But, it also would have been more beneficial than harmful during this phase. Once fermentation begins though, then the yeast would produce CO2, which, being heavier than O2 should have gradually purged any remaining O2 anyway. It also would have purged O2 from the bottle the tube was in. And, it would be constantly generating more CO2 and pressure, keeping most, if not effectively all, oxygen from getting back in.
If primary fermentation had completed it could potentially be bad. Though, honestly, with the only access being through a tiny opening in a tube, little to no disturbances to the wort and a layer of CO2 blanketing the wort, even if left like this the entire time it is unlikely any notable amount of oxygen would penetrate the beer. Especially not compared to what it is exposed to during bottling. (Unless you purge your bottles before filling I suppose).
Modern beer making is a practice littered with redundant safeguards. Granted, the more you remove, the more variable the quality of your batches will be. But in most cases unless you're unsanitary or unlucky you'll still end up making beer. Just maybe not the beer you wanted.
End result of this adventure was learning that for my lazy man's approach 4 Gallons is probably my max right now. End volume will probably be more than I want though. But I could probably fix some of that by switching to glass bottles or kegging. Glass bottles still lose some volatile oils through the cap, but it is supposed to be less than the PET bottles and kegging would be ideal for maintaining freshness, but that is also the most expensive. Long term I certainly want to keg. But I don't think I'll so until winter when I can ferment without my current fridge. That will give me a few months where kegs can live in my current fermentation cooler and I can save up for a second fridge later.
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