The Homebrew Thread

[Chicken_Hunter]

apparently if the wort isnt stirred prior to taking your hyrdo reading when you are making your brew the sugars can settle towards the bottom and when you take your reading you get a false high reading.

Obviously if you take your reading just when the boil starts, the boiling water is stirring the wort. When you take your reading during fermentation, the yeasties are moving the wort around.

 

[Chicken_Hunter]

Ok I have been doing a bit more reading, and its becoming more and more evident that my efficiency issues are Mash PH. Looking back over all my previous brews, they have all been fairly pale style beers and efficiency has been at around 50%. The only darker beer I have made, being the Amber ale, hit 60% as the darker malt increases acidity. If my oatmeal stout efficiency comes in even higher than 60% i am on the money.

I might get a PH tester as well just to check where it's at. I am thinking my water alkalinity should work a treat for my oatmeal stout with no need to add anything to the mash to adjust PH.

If that all goes well then ill add some gypsum to my next pale beer or incorporate an acid rest to see how that goes.

 

[Chicken_Hunter]

Also, your water profile alkalinity is around 75mg/l , whereas mine in ipswich it is listed as around 120. This is apparently the major issue with efficiency. Dark beers like a higher alkalinity, light beers like it lower.

Also explains how you can achieve 60-65% efficiency compared to my 50 odd %. Your water is better for lighter beers than mine.

 

[Frank_Grimes]

Here is the water report for my area (Palm Beach)

Magnesium - 1.49mg/L
Calcium - 17.15mg/L
Potassium - 1.27mg/L
Sodium - 11.17mg/L
Chloride - 17mg/L
Alkalinity - 45mg/L
Hardness - 48.95mg/L

 

[TiggaPlease]

I'm thinking about installing a pickup tube on my urn so I start with a lower volume of mash water as I think big losses are contributing to my lowish efficiency. I'd say there would be at least a couple of litres of clear wort below the line of the valve.

Currently I collect 22L which = 65%
If i collect 23L - 69%
24 - 71.9%
25 - 74.9%

So I figure if I start with a lower volume and pick up the deadspace wort instead I should have a higher OG.

 

[Chicken_Hunter]

Here is the water report for my area (Palm Beach)

Magnesium - 1.49mg/L
Calcium - 17.15mg/L
Potassium - 1.27mg/L
Sodium - 11.17mg/L
Chloride - 17mg/L
Alkalinity - 45mg/L
Hardness - 48.95mg/L

wow my hardness is 2.5 times more than yours. Your water profile looks pretty good for pale beers. Calcium might be a bit on the low side??

Have you ever made a stout? and did you need to increase the PH?

 

[Chicken_Hunter]

I'm thinking about installing a pickup tube on my urn so I start with a lower volume of mash water as I think big losses are contributing to my lowish efficiency. I'd say there would be at least a couple of litres of clear wort below the line of the valve.

Currently I collect 22L which = 65%
If i collect 23L - 69%
24 - 71.9%
25 - 74.9%

So I figure if I start with a lower volume and pick up the deadspace wort instead I should have a higher OG.

thats interesting. What does this pickup tube do? I always felt that the dead space in the robobrew was way too big.

 

[TiggaPlease]

thats interesting. What does this pickup tube do? I always felt that the dead space in the robobrew was way too big.

It is basically just an elbow so you can collect the wort from below the valve. Should be a pretty easy mod.

 

[Frank_Grimes]

wow my hardness is 2.5 times more than yours. Your water profile looks pretty good for pale beers. Calcium might be a bit on the low side??

Have you ever made a stout? and did you need to increase the PH?

The closest I've ever come to a stout is the big red rye I did at Easter, but I've never done anything about mash PH.

 

[TiggaPlease]

Hey Chicken_Hunter,

What mash PH are you targeting for your light beers? I think the last two I brewed would have been in the 5.4 range, however it looks like a lot of people go much lower, closer to 5.2.

This water stuff is doing my head in a bit. I just hope it makes some improvements to my beers!

 

[Chicken_Hunter]

I have never targeted a mash ph, I'd be happy with anything around 5.2-5.4. I'm
Gonna get some test strips just to get a ball park figure.

 

[Frank_Grimes]

From what I've been reading lately you don't really need to target a mash pH per se rather you need to know your water profile and what needs additions or subtractions, with calcium and bicarbonates being the main areas of concern. Making sure these are in the ideal ranges should get you to an ideal pH. I found the article below very handy:

https://byo.com/hops/item/1493-the-power-of-ph

 

[Chicken_Hunter]

Makes sense. Ipswich water has a hardness of like 110 and alkalinity of around 75 and calcium around 25.

Going by that article, calcium needs to be at 50-150 and hardness and alkalinity around 50.

On the other hand it also says that if hardness is higher than alkalinity then that is good for brewing??

I would imagine you are in the same sort of range with your water.

My understanding is that we need to boil the mash water for about 30 minutes before mashing to remove carbonates and add a teaspoon of gypsum to the mash to increase our calcium levels to around about 75.

This should get us close to where we need to be.

Also sparge water run off needs to be below ph6, not sure if we need to adjust this, our water ph is around 7.7, I would imagine the run off should be below 6?

 

[Frank_Grimes]

I think I'll try adjusting my calcium levels on the next mash by adding some gypsum. If I get an improvement in efficiency with this change, as well as altering my water measurements I'll know I'm on the right track. I alsoo remember coming very close to Target Gravity on the Big Red Rye (which had some roasted barley in it) which would suggest that the darker malt is adding acidity and improving efficiency. Unfortunately I wasn't calculating brewhouse efficiency back then.

BTW I achieved 60% efficiency on the Raspberry Blonde brew last weekend, with 84% mash efficiency. I still came up with more wort than target so I think the standard Robobrew water numbers below don't suit my system:

Target Volume: 20L

Mash Water: 20L

Sparge Water
Dead Space: 3.5L
Grain Absorption: 1L/kg
Boil off (1hr Boil): 3.5L

I'm either not boiling off as much as 3.5L/hr or the grain is not absorbing as much. I'm leaning more towards boil off rate. Unfortunately I used my fermenter without volume markings for this one so wasn't able to tell how much more wort I had collected.

I have finally purchased Beersmith though so I'll design my own System Profile based on measurements.

 

[TiggaPlease]

You're gonna love beersmith, it's an amazing program.

If you join the cellar dweller forum there is a equipment profile available for the robobrew.

I bought the bits and pieces I need to make a pickup tube, just waiting for it to arrive from ebay now. Set up will look like this:

I'll also drop the starting mash water volume as I reckon I'm chucking at least a couple of litres of good wort out at the end of the boil. I've been starting with 32.5 litres, will drop this down a litre in the next brew, and then possibly another litre in the brew following that.

 

[Chicken_Hunter]

Yeah robobrew boil off is more like 2L an hour.

 

[Frank_Grimes]

I've signed up to Cellar Dwellers but haven't been activated by Gash yet. I think his profile includes 3.5L boil off. Anyway I'll grab that profile and then make adjustments based on my system recordings.

Toast Ale!

https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/3432-toast-ale

Might have to give this a try. I love different and quirky ways of brewing.

 

[TiggaPlease]

How many watt is the robobrew? My urn is about 3.3l an hour at 2400w

 

[Chicken_Hunter]

How many watt is the robobrew? My urn is about 3.3l an hour at 2400w

There is a 1900w element and a 500w element. Obviously you can have both on for 2400w

 

[Frank_Grimes]

There is a 1900w element and a 500w element. Obviously you can have both on for 2400w

I've been running both elements to keep a nice strong rolling boil during hop additions and when I put in the immersion chiller. I have heard of people using just the 1900w element once the boil gets rolling.