First AG:- not quite to plan:- suggestions please

[Deebee]

I have made a few malt extract kits before ( Santas winter warmer, Muntons nut brown, pilsner etc) but was persuaded to take part in a brew day by a guy down the road ( after around 4 pints or a rather nice IPA!!)

ANyway, the initial thought was to run a classic pale ale. They prepared all the equipment and there was one standing by me the entire time.

The Mash went to plan, the wort was clar and bright, and into the boiler it went. Target was added, and after a short while the suggestion was made to tap a little off in order to have a small taste.

Here came problem 1

They had not cleaned the boiler very well ( as they no longer make small batches of 25 litres) and there was a small amount of " mould taste" in the beer. Credit to the guys they fixed this and all looked to be well.

When the boil was finished we put in the wort cooler and started the process, only to find that there was a small leak in the connection and that there was about 2-3 liters of water that entered the brew. This obviously made the wort a little thinner than it should have been.

It fermented well and had a final OG of about 1045 i think ( Around 4% ABV??)

It was put into mini kegs and left to itself and i just bought ithome yesterday, where it is ot in the garage at a temperatre of around 10-12 degrees.

Although we tried various dried hopping ( all with fuggles but with various amounts) i am a little concerened about trying it.... I wonder if it might be a little thin. I kept one keg in " original state" with no dry hops as a control, but an rather aprehensive. Say it tastes thin and watery, is it just to chuck it away? I am really looking forward to the Ag brewing but the first one is the one that sits in your mind. The kits have all be a huge success and gone down very well ( and fast) amoungst friends.

What are your thoughts, if it is thin is there anything i can do do add some guts to it?

Thanks

[mac]

Dave,

Mold taste is not good and I don't know what they would do to make it well?

2 to 3 litres of water from an unsanitised pipe again is not good.

If you now have 4% ABV from a 1.045 wort, that would give you about 30 points gravity drop (from 45 to 15) so a final SG of 1.015 far from thin.

If you haven't got any contamination from the mold and the inside of the cooler hose you'll have quite the opposite. Give it a taste and let us know

[Deebee]

Basically they tipped the wort out, and changed boiler. There was a lot of air that went in so i am guessing there will be a little negative result on the final beer.

its now finished its secondary fermentation in the kegs and is sitting there conditioning. i intend to leave it another few weeks before haveing the guts to crack it.

The original ABV sould have ben around the 4.3% mark so it has dropped a little., Hopefully the dry hopping would have helpe some though

[Deebee]

Basically they tipped the wort out, and changed boiler. There was a lot of air that went in so i am guessing there will be a little negative result on the final beer.

its now finished its secondary fermentation in the kegs and is sitting there conditioning. i intend to leave it another few weeks before haveing the guts to crack it.

The original ABV sould have ben around the 4.3% mark so it has dropped a little., Hopefully the dry hopping would have helpe some though

[yashicamat]

It doesn't sound like the end of the world. If it seemed to taste OK once the boiler was changed then that's that sorted (although it still sounds like an odd situation). As for the chiller water, I suspect that if the chiller has been used a lot and is copper (which has antibacterial qualities of it's own), then you may well get away with the added water too.

If it makes you feel any better, before now I've increased the pressure into my chiller a bit too much and had some water squirt from the seal on the silicone tubing which takes the waste water away, resulting in some water being squirted into the cooling wort, with no ill effects.

[mac]

I don't understand. If you planned for a 4.3%, then threw the 1st half away because it was in a moldy boiler, the rest of the wort is going to be no more than about 1.020 surely. If that is fermented down to 1.006, that's going to give you about 2% ABV and late hoping isn't going to change the alcohol level.
I must be reading it totally wrong

[Deebee]

my mistake. They tapped some off and it proved the tap was mouldy so instead of putting into the FV from the boiler through the tap, it was tipped from the top of the boiling pan.

lost aout 1 liter in all... then added the rest wit the bad cooler connection.

[chris_reboot]

I can't see the extra water being too much of a drama.
if you reckon you're getting 4% abv, then it's not all tears.

as for the tap, that would be the only part that worries me.
the boil should have santised any nasties on the interior pipework, but any run through that tasted of mould would make me think twice.

what the heck, it's kegged now, so you've nothing to lose!
get it cracked open in a few weeks, and let us know what it came out like!

[mac]

If you had a OG of 1.045 and now have 4% ABV ,that means your fermentation stopped at 1.015 so that wouldn’t be a thin brew, it would be a full bodied one.

If you tasted the first runnings and detected mould from a badly cleaned tap, I shouldn’t be an infection issue because it was found pre boil.

The interior pipework of the chiller however would have leaked into your wort post boil.

I agree with chris_reboot;

what the heck, it's kegged now, so you've nothing to lose!

[Deebee]

Well, sampling time was last weekend.

It was one week after it had been primed in mini kegs ( although i think that the rate of 3 gram sugar pr liter in mini kegs is a little too little)

It came out clear as a bell, nice head, and the taste was as i would expect a pale ale to taste. No hint of mould, no hint of anything untoward, not quite the same aftertaste as the one the guys brewed before, but i guess it was .5 weaker than standard for their recipe.

The first keg never lasted the weekend.

Keg 2 is undergoing sampling now. This is dry hopped with 3 grams of fuggles pellets. Here i should definately have added more sugar because the volume in the keg was not more than 3.5 liters.

It too is tastey and there is no " home brew" taste.

i have 3kegs left. " dry hopped with 7 g fuggles and 1 with 9 g.

In all honesty though i think the simple pale on its own is excellent and the dry hopping is not needed.

I got lucky i guess.

[Mitchamitri]

Funny thing, I always sterilise everything, even my mash tun and boiler, post brew and then prebrew, and if there are taps I run the sterliser down them and up them. I know its not supposed to matter pre-boil but I'm quite supersticious, and with cider you sterlise after press and dont boil at all.

[J_P]

It came out clear as a bell, nice head, and the taste was as i would expect a pale ale to taste. No hint of mould, no hint of anything untoward, not quite the same aftertaste as the one the guys brewed before, but i guess it was .5 weaker than standard for their recipe.

It all seems to be much ado about nothing .

There is a lot of great information on here but it can be a bit off putting or daunting for the newbie, as long as your kit is clean and you sanitise anything cooled wort comes into contact with then you'll generally be fine. Beer wants to be made and you've got to try really hard to cock things up, my advice would be to relax and go with the flow and above all enjoy your brewing.

[Mitchamitri]

Agreed - there is a lot of waiting around and thinking while making beer - which can make you paranoid. The secret is to do something else in the gaps in between like listen to a "learn mandarin" cd or write an essay on "medical causes for priapism", rather than concentrating on the beer!!

[delboy]

Just another example of how forgiving the process is.