Oh No I Suck Again!

The first all-grain batch is awful - totally undrinkable. It's the exact same problem I have had a few times before. So depressing. Crap. Crappity-crap-crap!

However, there is an upside. I believe that we have finally figured out what is causing these every-once-in-a-while bad batches.

At first I thought might be a problem with one of my kegs. There was no way to prove this because I don't keep records of which beer ends up in which keg, but the frequency of the problem seemed about right. I had already started stripping down my empty kegs and soaking the poppet valves, etc.

However, when I tasted this new Hefe and found the same problem I knew it must be something else. (BTW don't ask why I didn't notice the problem when I sampled the beer. I actually did notice it, but I think my brain refused to believe it). This 10 gallon batch of Hefe was split between two primary buckets, two secondary carboys, and two kegs yet both halves of the batch tasted exactly the same.

This is a big clue. A random poorly rinsed keg or carboy would only have effected half the batch. It had to be something in the boil or ingredients.

I was talking this through with Jess and my dad and that's when it hit me. The yeast. For all the Hefe's I've been using yeast that I harvested from batch #8 and every one of them has been bad. Another bad batch I had was the second Kolsch I brewed on top of a used yeast cake.

The more I dig in to my (crappy) records, the more I am sure about this. I actually stopped harvesting yeast quite a while ago, but the 3333 used for the Hefe was harvested and, I think, is bad and producing nasty flavors. It seems obvious now, which is even more depressing. I have some theories as to why the yeast is bad, but I wont bore you with them. They are probably incorrect anyway.

So, along with several gallons of bad beer, I'll be dumping all of my stored yeast as all of it is suspect.

Luckily, only one of the other batches currently brewing is not using a freshly purchased yeast. However, that yeast was not harvested from a batch of beer, but rather saved from a large starter. I'm not (too) worried about that one.

So lesson learned I guess. Especially now that we are doing 10 -20 gallon batches it is simply not worth the risk using old yeast just to save a few bucks.

Out With the Old...

In with the New Year! We've got some people coming over tonight and we'll be tapping the very first all-grain batch - the Hefeweizen. It is a *bit* young (I had a sample last night), but it will have to do.

The whole all-grain endeavor is moving along nicely. The big problem right now is scheduling. We have to make sure we have the right vessels (primaries, secondaries, kegs) when we need them. We screwed up a bit recently when we brewed two 10 gallon batches only 7 days apart and now we'll be forced to move one of the batches to kegs earlier than normal. This is not a big deal, but I don't know what I was thinking when we brewed that second batch...

Brew Day!

What a day it was. Overall it was an exciting experience and went OK, but it had its moments of panic for sure.

First of all everyone in the house was sick. I was just feeling run down, but Jess and Mia were both down for the count. In addition my brew-partner Shawn was also sick and could not make it. I was on my own and dragging ass. It was also freezing out and raining.

Near Major Disaster #1 - My digital thermometer is full of hate and lies. It nearly had me attempting to mash at 110 instead of 152 degrees. New thermometers are a must-buy before the next session. Update: Done!

Near Major Disaster #2 - Stuck Lauter. I'm not sure what happened, but I think our braided wire filter in the mash/lauter tun collapsed. Or floated to the top. Or both. I don't know. I got the wort out eventually after much shenanigans. We'll try the big MLT next time and see if that works better. Update: The FOAM guys say that when mashing a recipe that includes wheat malt, rice hulls should be added to the MLT to help prevent stuck mashes. We will try this on the next batch.

Near Major Disaster #3 - Too much boil-off. Even with my awesome homemade lid (tin foil over plywood, yeah!) we lost too much wort during the hour boil I suppose due to the massive surface area of the liquid. Need a better lid and probably need to adjust recipes to allow for more boil-off. Update: Shawn is working on an awesome lid!

Near Major Disaster #4 - Wort chiller full of water when I dropped it into the boiling wort to sanitize it. It was full of cold water so it instantly stopped the boil. Oops. I cranked up the heat and recovered in about 8 minutes.

Near Major Disaster #5 - Not using a hop-bag when planning to siphon out of a very wide pot. I lost at least a gallon of wort and got tons of hop matter in my primary buckets. Hops in the primary is not a big deal but loosing a gallon of beer is.

I ended up with about 8 gallons of wort split between two primaries instead of the planned 10. Possible major disaster #6 - the airlocks are not bubbling yet... Update: Everything is fine!

On the upside our mash efficiency was above 80% which is awesome.

Also Shawn's wort chiller was incredible taking about 9 gallons of boiling wort to 80 degrees in 12 minutes and down to 65 in 20 minutes. The thing is a monster!

I'm not going to bother posting a brew sheet for this batch. Even if the beer comes out great I could never reproduce the parade of missteps that made it happen.