First All-Grain (BIAB) Recipe - SMaSH Pale Ale

Triskele said:
Error, my post boil SG was 1.010 HIGH, post boil volume was 4 qrts low.
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Being too high is an easy fix though. I usually shoot for too little water vs too much
 
Triskele said:
Error, my post boil SG was 1.010 HIGH, post boil volume was 4 qrts low.
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There will be variances in boil off rate. With propane for instance, you may boil more or less vigorously, difficult to control. There are also the variances in ambient air temperature and changes in humidity.
You were in the ball park though, you could simply have added water until your gravity came down to target.
 
Triskele said:
I did my first all-grain brewing a couple of days ago.
A couple of months ago I measured my boil off of my kettle by filling the kettle with a measured amount of water. Brought it up to a boil with the lid on. Removed the lid and boiled for one hour. At the end of the hour I turned off the gas and put the lid back on to the kettle. I allowed it to cool then measured the volume. Measured 5 qrts of boil off.
Armed with that information I calculated a preboil volume to be 24 qrts, allowing 1 qrt low to allow for adjustments.
As it turns out my post boil SG was 1.010 low and 4 qrts low of volume.
I added 4 qrts to the fermenter bringing my volume to 5 gal with my OG right on.
I was thinking about the cause of my boil off measurements.
For an accurate boil off measurement the measurement needs to include the total time before boiling and post boiling.
I didn't measure the time from collecting the wort from the mash tun to hot break (15 min?) But I measured time for completing of my 1 hour boil to cooling the wort to 70F to be 50 minutes.
About 1 hour of evaporation not accounted for.
So my boil off is not 5 qrts but 8 qrts. For future brewing I need to figure 7 gal preboil volume for a 5 gal batch.
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My boiloff (10 gal kettle on a propane burner) is about 5 quarts per hour. On a windy day I probably loose another quart. Strength of boil could also affect boiloff rate. So, take your first batch as a single data point. Adjust after each batch until you get it dialed in. And remember, getting close is close enough.
 
It seems that boil off rate measurement is too loosey-goosey to be a reliable measurement point only to get into the ball park except to use as a variable in calculating how much extra boil time to adjust gravity to increase gravity, then the 5qrt/hr rate would apply.
The biggest lesson I learned from my first all-grain brew is that it is much easier to aim low in the volume of wort going into the fermenter, take an initial gravity measurement then adjust the additional water required to hit my target OG.
 
Triskele said:
It seems that boil off rate measurement is too loosey-goosey to be a reliable measurement point only to get into the ball park except to use as a variable in calculating how much extra boil time to adjust gravity to increase gravity, then the 5qrt/hr rate would apply.
The biggest lesson I learned from my first all-grain brew is that it is much easier to aim low in the volume of wort going into the fermenter, take an initial gravity measurement then adjust the additional water required to hit my target OG.
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Yup, that is how i have been doing it for years.
 
Hi all,

I just wanted to update everyone that I bottled this beer today. It seemed to end at about 1.007, so this beer is about 4.59% if my og reading was correct, but I'm not too confident in that.

Either way, the beer had a really nice pale yellow color and tasted quite good, maybe a bit too hoppy, but mostly delicious. I'm excited to crack one in a couple of weeks and will keep you guys updated if you're interested.

Thanks again for all the help!
 
Minbari said:
The hoppy will fade a bit with age
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That's good to know. It was probably a bit too bitter and had a slightly lingering metallic taste to the bitterness, or maybe sharpness. It still tasted better than I thought it would so that was great. Thanks for all the advice btw. It was very helpful!
 
Great news!
And yes, please keep us updated
 
Welp, I'm not exactly sure what is going on with this beer, but I bottled it 20 days ago, and it doesn't seem to be carbed yet. I tried one at 14 days and it was slightly bubbly, but still a bit flat, and just tried one tonight after 20 days, and this one seemed even less bubbly, so I'm a bit concerned that I messed this up. I used the northern brewer calculator to figure out the amount of dextrose to add, like 60 grams, and diluted it in a cup of water. I poured it in the bottling bucket then siphoned the beer on top of it. I definitely forgot to mix it with a spoon afterwards and hoped it would mix together since I racked the beer on top. I also used all swing top bottles that I got on Amazon.

So, kind of bummed that I might have screwed this up, but it actually does taste pretty good, despite it being flat. Any thoughts if this could improve with another week or so? or anything I can do to save it?
 
No ideas, but I dose sugar per bottle for that reason.
And another thing comes to mind: if some bottles don't have enough sugar to carbonate then others will have too much....

What temperature are you carbinating at? Maybe it's just too cold?
 
You have to convert, but 5oz corn sugar works for 5 gallons. Table sugar is a different scale. I learned my lesson and measured by both using the 3/4 cup method in the measuring cup and the 5oz on the kitchen scale. It was my way of double checking. You DO NOT mix with a spoon after it is in the bucket. You DO mix it in the pot when boiling for 5 minutes. It is correct to pour the sugar mixed with 2 cups of water on the bottom of the bucket and rack on top after it has been boiled. If you use the proper amount of sugar, boil with 2 cups of water for 5 minutes, rack on top without mixing, and store your beer at normal fermentation temperatures (not cold temperatures) for two weeks, it will carbonate if you initially pitched your beer properly and you aren't doing anything big.
 
Are you sure the bottles are properly sealed? Maybe they carbed up just fine but the bottles are slowly leaking. That's why the first one seemed more carbonated than the second???
 
Zambi said:
No ideas, but I dose sugar per bottle for that reason.
And another thing comes to mind: if some bottles don't have enough sugar to carbonate then others will have too much....

What temperature are you carbinating at? Maybe it's just too cold?
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I fermented at 68F and once I bottled them, I kept them in a slightly warmer room that sits around 70-72F all day.
 
Sandy Feet said:
You have to convert, but 5oz corn sugar works for 5 gallons. Table sugar is a different scale. I learned my lesson and measured by both using the 3/4 cup method in the measuring cup and the 5oz on the kitchen scale. It was my way of double checking. You DO NOT mix with a spoon after it is in the bucket. You DO mix it in the pot when boiling for 5 minutes. It is correct to pour the sugar mixed with 2 cups of water on the bottom of the bucket and rack on top after it has been boiled. If you use the proper amount of sugar, boil with 2 cups of water for 5 minutes, rack on top without mixing, and store your beer at normal fermentation temperatures (not cold temperatures) for two weeks, it will carbonate if you initially pitched your beer properly and you aren't doing anything big.
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Yeah, this is basically the process I followed. I did a 2.5 gallon batch, so I mixed a bit over 60 grams of dextrose with a cup of water. Put it on the stove and mixed until it dissolved, cooled it a bit, then dumped it in the bottling bucket and racked the beer on top. The bottles have been sitting at about 72F for 20 days, and it should be a 4.5% beer, so I don't know where I went wrong.
 
Megary said:
Are you sure the bottles are properly sealed? Maybe they carbed up just fine but the bottles are slowly leaking. That's why the first one seemed more carbonated than the second???
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These are the bottles I bought. They seem to have good reviews:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B8N77N2...p=&crid=ELYAS8GUEZZP&amp=&sprefix=swing+top+t

This is my first time using them, so I'm not sure, but this thought occurred to me. The bottle I opened last night seemed particularly flat and there was no sucking noise, for lack of a better term, when I opened the bottle whatsoever, whereas the one at 15 days definitely made a sound when I opened it. They all have the orange plastic pieces intact, so I don't know. Are you supposed to do anything special with swing tops that I don't know about?

I did fill up like 4 bombers that are different than the swing tops I bought on Amazon, so maybe I'll try those soon. That could help figure out if this was the issue.
 
Brewer #430359 said:
Yeah, this is basically the process I followed. I did a 2.5 gallon batch, so I mixed a bit over 60 grams of dextrose with a cup of water. Put it on the stove and mixed until it dissolved, cooled it a bit, then dumped it in the bottling bucket and racked the beer on top. The bottles have been sitting at about 72F for 20 days, and it should be a 4.5% beer, so I don't know where I went wrong.
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Ran the numbers 60 grams = 2.12 oz
When I bottled, I used 5oz corn sugar for 5 gallons which is 141g. 1/2 of that would be 70 so you may be just a little low.
 
Sandy Feet said:
Ran the numbers 60 grams = 2.12 oz
When I bottled, I used 5oz corn sugar for 5 gallons which is 141g. 1/2 of that would be 70 so you may be just a little low
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Would that account for it being very flat though? The beer I opened yesterday had almost no carbonation after 20 days of bottling.

I ran the numbers in Northern Brewer again and they come up with basically the same result: 61.04 grams or 2.15 oz of dextrose for 2.5 gallons at 72F.

https://www.northernbrewer.com/pages/priming-sugar-calculator
 
I ran the numbers as well, and they are within what I use (6-8 gr table sugar per litre) but I now see that dextrose is used...
Don't know the "ground rule" for dextrose

Swingtops have always worked fine gor me. Mine were ex-grolsch bottles.

Another thing: for your next batch, also use a couple of pet-botles.
Fill as you do your glass bottles (same amount sugar per volume), squeeze bottle, screw on lid.
You can use those bottles to "follow" carbonation by squeezing
 
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