Hi guys, a brief introduction so you understand my frustration - I used to brew in college using some highly questionable techniques but things always seemed to turn out just fine. Fast forward 10 years and I’ve been getting back into brewing but trying to be more precise and professional now that I can afford to put some more money into equipment. Through a series of trial and a lot of error I’ve unfortunately now had to throw out my last (are you sitting down?) five batches due to issues I’ve had.
My first few attempts back in the game came out too watery to drink. I thought I had fixed this problem by being more careful about my pre-boil volumes. This did the trick, or so I thought. The next problem I faced was a beer that was brewed to the perfect volume and using extremely accurate temperatures, however, when I pulled it out of the fermenter after two weeks it was disgustingly sour which I couldn’t fathom (an Oberon clone) and was undrinkable. I thought maybe something had gotten into it but I am very meticulous about keeping everything clean.
Brew number four came straight out of ‘brewing classic styles,’ Hoppiness is an IPA. Impossible to screw up. I hit my OG perfectly, temps were going as planned. Chilled to perfection with my fancy new wort chiller (didn’t have that in college!) I tossed my yeast in at precisely the right time and then… Nothing. Hardly any action was occurring. I thought perhaps it was because, being in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I was having some temperature issues. I promptly purchased a temp control unit and heating pad to wrap around my carboy. Nothing. Bottled it up anyway and let it sit. When drank it almost tastes like a syrup, super thick but not very flavorful. I went back through all my equipment and realized that I had been using a new thermometer this time around and it was off by something like 30 degrees if not more so I realized I had overdone my water temps. Not sure if that had an affect but I attributed it to my failure.
Fast forward to this morning. I got up all excited. I have a new burner in place, my heating pad is ready for optimal fermenting temps in the coldest of weather, I’ve upgraded my mash tun include a fancy new bazooka filter, my mash and strike volumes and temps are carefully laid out to hit a perfect 153 degrees. I bring my water up to temp, pour it into my new tun, let it sit for an hour, crack open the ball valve and… nothing… a stuck sparge? Oh no, I thought these bazooka filters were designed to avoid this! I carefully lift the grain with my spoon, lauter it clear, and reopen the valve. Nothing. I try this a few more times but can’t get much more out of it than a half a gallon or so. I’m feeling very frustrated but I have an idea. I have a grain bag I’ve used (not for boil in a bag but as a substitute for a false bottom) I carefully pour all of the grain and runnings into the bag which I’ve placed in another pot and what do I find? The grains have absorbed all of the water, there was no liquid left. it’s a 9.5lb recipe and I mashed in with just over four gallons of water, or 1.75 quarts per gallon.
Long story short, I’ve thrown my sparge water in and am going to ride it out. I still have no idea if my bazooka filter will work so I’m worried about that and I’m frankly getting tired of spending all the time any money to continue to fail, or as my girlfriend calls it ‘learning the hard way.’ I’ll end my rant but I felt like I needed to get it off my chest. Thank you all for all of the knowledge you’ve given on this forum that I seem woefully unable to replicate in my own home. If anyone has a tip on the grain absorption bit I’d be glad to hear it. I’m sure in a few weeks time I’ll be back at it again but man, it’s getting hard to get back on the horse.
A brief update, after batch sparging with an additional 4.5 gallons and taking a test - my OG is coming up as 1.000. I know the hydrometer works because the original, very small batch I was able to collect came out to 1.06. So I’m at my wits end here. Could I have missed the temps again? Would that have an effect? I was so careful, I even heated my grain up to 68 to make sure it was perfect. I’m really at a loss.
I did not do it myself. I had it homebrewsupply.com do it when I ordered it. I’ve never done it myself but I’ve ordered from three different suppliers over the course of time who have done it for me.
It would have to be completely uncrushed to have that kind of impact on your results. It’s hard to believe that it wouldn’t be crushed, so I think we can rule that out. Can you give us details on a batch or 2? Recipe, process, etc.?
This was today’s attempt. Just this week I built a tun out of a 10 gallon igloo cooler with a bazooka filter. Calculating using 1.75 quarts per pound and double checking with the recipe details, brought my water up to temp, 164ish shooting for a 154 final temp. Heated my tun with another gallon of boiling water which I did not calculate into my final volume (dumped it out once the tun was hot), added my 9.5lbs of grain to the tun. Poured the water into it, stirred out all clumps, hit my temp and let it sit for an hour. When I went to drain it into my boil kettle the fiasco above occurred and I discovered that all the water had been absorbed. The half gallon or so I did collect was right on the OG. Everything else was amiss. Batch sparged at 174 with about 4.5 gallons for as long as it took me to type my original post, though at this point I didn’t have high hopes.
OG of the final product was 1.000. I’m wondering if something is still off with my temps even with the new thermometer? I’ll test it against a few others to make sure, it’s the only thing I can think of but even so could it completely kill the conversion process?
As an aside: to test a theory, I poured all the grain directly back into the cooler to test the clog vs no liquid (this was post brew failure, just testing the equipment) and it still wouldn’t drain out so I think I’m going back to my grain bag method.
You are definitely doing something wrong because I mash-in with 1.25 quarts of strike liquor per pound of grain and the grist does not absorb all of the strike liquor. Do you have anyone local who could serve as your mentor until you have the kinks worked out?
I do know a few people I could go watch. It’s more frustrating than anything to fix one problem only to encounter another. Feels like I’m moving backward.
Ironically enough I somehow managed to get ordained online as an off-the-cuff joke right about the same time we were having so much success brewing in our college garage… Correlation? Hmm…
If you added 1.75 Quarts per pound of grain for 9.5 lbs of grain, you would have added a little over 4 gallons of water. There is no way that 9.5 lbs of grain can absorb 4 gallons of water. Are you sure you added that much strike water?
Truly bizarre. Is your mash tun leaking somehow? If you’re using 1.75 qt per lb, there is no way the grist is absorbing all of it. Typically, grist will absorb about 0.5 qt per lb. The loss of liquid is not temperature related.
I would guess theres a leak in the mash tun/bulkhead-or the wrong measurement was used for the water volume. it might be worth posting a pic of the milled grain and pic of the mash too. also, acidity of mash if you have something to check. good idea to get a water test from wardlab.
Hello to everyone who has been working with me through this time, you’ve all provided some great feedback. I wanted to provide an update to you. I took some time to lick my wounds but ultimately couldn’t let the despair of defeat overwhelm me. I went back and reordered my grain bill and set to work yesterday. Volumes were checked in triplicate, temperatures diligently monitored, and that damn bazooka screen was removed from my mash tun. Everything went off positively without a hitch right up until my post-boil. You didn’t think I would post an update without having something to add to my prior ludicrous displays, did you?
I had put my wort chiller into my boil pot ten minutes prior to flame-out to sanitize it. I then took the whole assembly over to my sink to begin chilling. I have an in-line hose attachment under my sink that I added just for the chiller so I have to reach all the way back to the cold-water line to turn on the chiller. Once I had done so I noticed a slight leak where the rubber hose was clamped to the copper tubing, never have I had this issue. While it is obviously concerning to have something added to the pot post-boil I really didn’t have another option and so held on as tight as I could and reduced the leak. This worked for a while until I noticed more and more water coming from the leak. Something had to be done. I reached up to shut off the water and in doing so pulled the drain end of the chiller from the sink, causing water to spray all over my kitchen. Panicking, I grabbed the drain hose and attempted to stick it back in the drain, in doing so I let go of the entry hose and it broke free from the copper wort chiller. Now water was spray out of that end as well. Absolute Looney-Tunes comedy.
I finally managed to get the water off and took a minute to assess the damage. No water had really gotten into the wort, just all over everything else. My next move was to grab a screwdriver to tighten the clamp that holds the rubber hose to the copper piper. This went well until the clamp snapped off as I was tightening it. What a pickle. There weren’t a whole lot of options at this point so I jammed the rubber hose onto the copper pipe as best I could and prayed. Luckily the beer gods were with me as the leak had seemed to fix itself and I proceeded to chill as usual.
My OG hit perfectly, my volume is statistically accurate, and my yeast is chugging along beautifully today. I wanted to share my story and I hope you all got a few laughs out of it along the way. I appreciate you all stepping in to keep me encouraged. My luck may not have changed but hopefully sheer force of will will be enough to overcome it. Prost!