Well that sucked!

Northern Brewer General
1

So I did my little 2 gallon test batch of a Rye IPA I made with beersmith. When I do these little batches I use my electric cooktop. When I do the sach rest, I turn the burner from high to low, and it holds the water at 150 or so as long as I want. This time however, I had to leave the pot for a few minutes, and when I went to lift the bag, I saw the bottom was scorched, and all my grain fell out. The thing that makes that a big deal is I have no tun.
So, I took the sieve liner of a pasta pot, lined it with another grain bag I had lying around, and put it on my bottling bucket. When the rest was over, I heaved the mess in there, then sparged. I did get impatient and just dumped the second batch of sparge water on it, which I feel is responsible for my 1.062 OG instead of the calculated 1.075. Oh well, I can live with it. I then boiled as usual with one difference: I used whirlfloc for the first time, adding 1/2 a tab 10 minutes before the end of boil. After cooling, I noticed everything stayed in suspension, nothing dropped out. I siphoned to my bottling bucket, pitched my harvested slurry of 1056 in the amount suggested by Mr.Malty, stirred, and filled my 2 gallon jugs. It has now been 26 hours, and I have two jugs half full of trub, one of which only just now started bubbling the airlock, the other is just starting to move water over to the other side of the lock. Wort temp is at 67F right now.

I pretty much know what is going on, but does whirlfloc hold things in suspension when you first add it? If I minimize aeration, can I strain this batch into a secondary when ferm is done? If I don’t I will lose half of the batch to trub, even if I cold crash.

Thanks,

Gonzo

2

Bummer.

Look around the stores for something to make a false bottom. Pie tin, wire cooling rack… Anything to keep the bag off the bottom of the pot.

3

I hope the scorching doesn’t flavor your beer!

4

I’ve since learned that the sieve fits my small brewpot perfectly.Aslo, i had an idea so simple I wonder why it did not occur before. Just throw the grain bag in a cooler, and dump your rest water in there. If you are batch sparging anyway…

And I tasted it after boil, and there is no scorch taste. I got some from tasting the wort, but that was the caramalized little bits floating around.

EDIT:

Just found this on line, and I think it is spot on. However, this guy says 1/2 a tab for 5 gallons, but the package said 1/2 for 2.5 gallons. As I was boiling 3.5 Gal. I used 1/2 a tab. Oh well, I will try straining when ferms done.

http://www.ianwhitney.com/hopwise/2012/03/25/i-blame-you-whirlfloc/

5

Yeah, I’d be more worried about the scorching than the trub. Trub will settle out, use an auto siphon to move to secondary. Everything else will settle out there. But if there’s a burnt, ashy flavor that won’t go away.

6

Nope, the wort tasted fine. They finally took off though, had a mini-blow off last night, but they calmed down now and are steadily bubbling away. This is only the second time I have used harvested slurry, and was surprised at how long it took the 1056 gen2 to get going compared to the Windsor Gen2 I did the first time.