Bit of a 'mare

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Oneflewover

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It had to happen sooner or later. 5th all grain brew today (3rd on bulldog brewer), a beer roughly based on G Hughes' American Rye:

3kg pale malt
1kg Rye malt
1kg Vienna
0.25kg Light Crystal

Tried a beta glucanase rest at 40 deg for 20 mins then stepped mash temp up to 65 deg for an hour. 3.5l / kg.

20g Chinook whole hop at start of boil
50g Amarillo pellet hop turn off (plan to dry hop 50g Amarillo too)

Crossmyloof pale us yeast

Probably got a bit complacent having had previous brews go swimmingly. Tried to do several other things whilst brewing and was using a malt I was unfamiliar with. Issues :

- BB seemed unable to hold 65 deg and temp reading was all over the place. I had to use quite high wattage and have it switch on and off regularly to maintain temp. ? Grain bed gummed up with rye? 2nd element on the blink?
- pump on the BB stopped working towards the end of the mash. This is a replacement pump after the last one stopped working. Am I doing something wrong? Think it was gummed up (have cleaned it and is working again). Maybe due to the rye?
- lauter took ages. Again, wonder if rye was a contributing factor.
- had my first boil over. Made a mess :-(
- took an age to cool in relatively hot weather. May have to invest in a more efficient cooler.
- trouble draining wort to fv. Put whole hops in boiler and pellet in newly purchased hop spider. Thought this might solve my problems, but the bazooka repeatedly got blocked.
- used too much liquor and had to dispose of 2 or 3 litres with 23 in the (25l) fv. :oops: was aiming for 20l
- efficiency was, perhaps due above, frankly, **** poor. I calculated it at about 66%.
- inadvertently pitched yeast too warm (at 27 deg) and brew fridge is struggling to get it down (currently at 22, wanted 19.5).
- the beer was climbing out of the fv at 6pm having been pitched at 12:30. Wish I'd made a blow off tube.

Would appreciate any pointers
Oh well, hopefully it'll turn out alright! :thumb:
 
First things first. That is WAY to much rye for a malt bill of that size. I think the rye could be a bit overpowering in the final beer. And also you will be suffering no end of gummed up mash type issues because of the masses of rye. That will be the source of your pump issues, lautering. I would even say your mash recirculation and mash temp control issue would have been down to the rye to.

It's a tricky ingredient to get right that rye malt.


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First things first. That is WAY to much rye for a malt bill of that size. I think the rye could be a bit overpowering in the final beer.


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Thanks. It's interesting you say that. The G Hughes recipe was (from memory) over 50% rye, which I thought way too much. I did a bit of reading around and most people were saying 10%, but more is ok (if you like rye) if you use a beta glucanase rest. Probably fluffed that up!

I think you are right though, and I even suspect that my overshooting volume was due to my inexperience in using rye: because the lauter was so slow I added too much water in haste. Put the grain basket in my stock pot and kept adding the running that kept coming out - oh so slowly - back into the boil.

Every day is a school day as they say, and maybe I need to get the basics nailed before being too ambitious :doh:
 
Bummer. Sounds like the rye was being a pain in the ass as per usual. I did a rye beer on the BB, also with 1kg rye, and got 65% brewhouse efficiency. I wanted to add some rice hulls to help with the lautering but didn't have any to hand, so was paranoid about it clogging up. Consequently, I crushed the barley a bit more coarsely (1.25mm) to help with the permeability of the grain bed, and I didn't bother with the glucan rest just in case it did gum up and I couldn't recirculate up to an evenly spread saccrification temperature. Instead I struck at saccrification temp, turned re-circulation off and gave it a couple of stirs during the mash. Lautering was ok in the end, possibly because of the coarser crush but also because I had a bit more non-rye in the grist compared to your recipe so perhaps that helped.

Anyway, you got beer. The way this hobby turns out it might end up being the best beer you've brewed. :lol:
 
Anyway, you got beer. The way this hobby turns out it might end up being the best beer you've brewed. :lol:

I certainly hope so! :thumb:

If nothing else it was a learning experience and is part of my brewing journey :thumb:
 
I had a mare last week. Ended up pitching at 37 and spent the best part of three days at about 28. Got down to 20 in the end. Gravity is fine and tastes fine so I reckon you'll be ok. If not just tell everyone it's nice and tell them it's too good to share. Always works for me.
 
If not just tell everyone it's nice and tell them it's too good to share. Always works for me.

I like your style! :grin:

Woke up this morning to find beer filling the fv lid and the airlock clogged up. I have to say that the CML has been pretty impressive on both occasions I have used it so far.

on the plus side the beer smelled lovely!:thumb:
 
Just taken a gravity reading and this has gone from 1042 to 1009. I make it around 4.3%. I had a bigger beer planned, but hey ho that's poor efficiency for you. :whistle:

Sample was very promising indeed, and I have high hopes for the finished beer. I couldn't perceive any off flavour as a result of the high initial temp.

I think it's finished (in fact I think it did nearly all of its fermenting in the first 2 days!), so I'll drop the temp and dry hop with 50g Amarillo. Hopefully bottle next weekend :thumb:
 
Well this has been in the bottle for a week and has turned out very nicely indeed. The amarillo works very well with the spiciness of the rye. Neither dominates. I have over-carbed a little for my tastes, and this is an area I really need to brush up on. Was aiming for 2.5 ish volumes ( followed style guidelines for American Amber Ale ), but it seems too fizzy for the beer.

I'm planning a citra 'saison' next, based on a Brewing By Numbers clone recipe. Bit concerned about whether the citra will work with the yeast I plan to use - MJ M41 (only because I have a sachet in the fridge! ). I know it's not a saison yeast, but I should get the right level of attenuation I hope, and should give me some spice. Any thoughts?
 
I was looking at the gh rye beer recipe...is it too much at nearly 50%.
Putting the malt volumes through the calculator for ag and part mash the abv comes out much higher than the recipe in the book....6.3 against 5.6..
 
I was only just back in the UK so I didn't read the first Post. Sorry, but it all sounded like a pretty normal Brew Day to me! :whistle:

I regularly go from one cock-up to the other and I am duly amazed when the brew turns out to be not only drinkable but palatable as well.

The problem is when I finish up with an "I wish I could that again." brew. :thumb:

In that case it's hard to remember just why it tastes so good! :doh:
 
I've had problems with the BB pump too. When you've finished a brewday you absolutely HAVE to run a decent amount of warm water through it to clean it out or the wort will gum it up. I've also had issues with mould growing in it when I didn't rinse it out well. If it does seem to have failed try a squirt of WD40 in the motor spindle and that should free it up.
 
I was looking at the gh rye beer recipe...is it too much at nearly 50%.
Putting the malt volumes through the calculator for ag and part mash the abv comes out much higher than the recipe in the book....6.3 against 5.6..

I thought it would be too much, so reduced it down to about 20%. Even then, as you can see, I had problems with it gumming up. Had another couple of the beers last night, and I definitely don't think 20% is too much, really nice drink :thumb:
 
I was only just back in the UK so I didn't read the first Post. Sorry, but it all sounded like a pretty normal Brew Day to me! :whistle:

I regularly go from one cock-up to the other and I am duly amazed when the brew turns out to be not only drinkable but palatable as well.

The problem is when I finish up with an "I wish I could that again." brew. :thumb:

In that case it's hard to remember just why it tastes so good! :doh:

:lol:

At the end of it I got a good beer, just not quite the beer I was hoping for:doh:
 
I've had problems with the BB pump too. When you've finished a brewday you absolutely HAVE to run a decent amount of warm water through it to clean it out or the wort will gum it up. I've also had issues with mould growing in it when I didn't rinse it out well. If it does seem to have failed try a squirt of WD40 in the motor spindle and that should free it up.

Thanks :thumb:. Have you ever had it gum up during a mash? Happened to me twice now....
 
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