So I just finished brewing the Dry Dock Urca Vanilla All Grain kit. Everything seemed to go well right up until I took a gravity reading before pitching. I ended up with 1.045 and the target OG for the kit is 1.061.
Then when i went to siphon from my kettle to my fermenter I was having trouble getting the siphon going. Eventually I got the wort transferred and I noticed that a lot of malt / grain came along with the wort into the fermenter. I’m wondering if I didn’t recirculate enough and get a good rinse of the grain?
Not really sure what the hell went wrong. Any suggestions / advice would be appreciated.
Did you measure your volumes? into boiler/into fermenter … You should be fine - all the heavy stuff falls to the bottom quickly. You may want to plan a secondary. On the gravity it’s conveniant but I miss the OG on kits quite often but when designing my own recipe I come much closer. I don’t think kits take into account for losses correctly.
[quote=“mbg”]Did you measure your volumes? into boiler/into fermenter … You should be fine - all the heavy stuff falls to the bottom quickly. You may want to plan a secondary. On the gravity it’s conveniant but I miss the OG on kits quite often but when designing my own recipe I come much closer. I don’t think kits take into account for losses correctly.
Mike[/quote]
yeah, I measured into the boil kettle and fermenter and we hit the volume marks.
Sorry for the out of focus pictures. But you can see where there’s sh*t-load of grain that is both floating on the top and has settled down to the bottom. Is my false bottom not doing what it’s supposed to? Is this normal for an AG batch?
The foam on top may be from starsan and subsequent aeration. I’m more concerned about A. The excessive grain in the fermenter. and B. The fact that I completely missed my target OG.
How did I mash?.. I heated my strike water to 168, poured it in the MLT then slowly added in the grist, stirred and covered it. Then I let it rest for 60 min. Mashed out to 170, recirculated and then fly sparged.
I’m wondering if there’s something wrong with my false bottom that it’s letting grain through.
I don’t see a big issue with grain in the fermenter. It looks pretty normal to me. Maybe I’m not able to see something in the photos, but from what I see, no red flags.
Missing OG is an issue, but can be expected as you dial in your process. When I started AG I always missed, and I kept DME handy to make up the difference.
The question is, Why didn’t you get thte extract from your grain? Sparge too fast is my first guess. But I do batch sparge so this is outside my knowledge.
If missing OG is all that went wrong, the beer will still taste good. It won’t be what the recipie had in mind, but don’t give up on it.
[quote=“ALSS”]I’m no expert, but 2 things I notice:
I don’t see a big issue with grain in the fermenter. It looks pretty normal to me. Maybe I’m not able to see something in the photos, but from what I see, no red flags.
Missing OG is an issue, but can be expected as you dial in your process. When I started AG I always missed, and I kept DME handy to make up the difference.
The question is, Why didn’t you get thte extract from your grain? Sparge too fast is my first guess. But I do batch sparge so this is outside my knowledge.
If missing OG is all that went wrong, the beer will still taste good. It won’t be what the recipie had in mind, but don’t give up on it.[/quote]
I think you may be right. In a video Palmer stated that Sparging should take about an hour. I think it took me about 30 mins.
How do I avoid siphoning the grain out of my primary into the secondary? If it siphoned from the kettle it very well may get siphoned again. Thanks
I think you cn easily address this concern. The grain will settle and then yeast will settle on top of it. Give it some time in primary to settle. When you rack to secondary, keep your siphoning off the bottom and stop siphoning before it sucks off the bottom.
Of greater concern is if the hops and flavorings may be a bit too much for this lower gravity beer that you brewed. If it has not yet staerted fermenting, you can boil some DME, cool it and add.
I think you cn easily address this concern. The grain will settle and then yeast will settle on top of it. Give it some time in primary to settle. When you rack to secondary, keep your siphoning off the bottom and stop siphoning before it sucks off the bottom.
Of greater concern is if the hops and flavorings may be a bit too much for this lower gravity beer that you brewed. If it has not yet staerted fermenting, you can boil some DME, cool it and add.[/quote]
I’m getting some bubbling in the air lock. So I think my fermentation has started. Hold off on the DME?
