Disastrous Firslt All Grain Attempt

[RopenutS]

It was actually going pretty good until I went to run my immersion chiller. I turned it on and it was running fine until the hose burst at the connection to the inlet. Sprayed hot water everywhere and all over me. Don't know how much went into the beer, hopefully only a few drops. So I tried to salvage it by running the bath and cooling it that way, taking a long time to get to pitching temp, almost an hour now..... I was going for 23 litres and got 21. and a hell of alot of trub went into the fermentor. And it looks like the cloudiest stuff i have ever seen. This didnt go well at all

[Reviled]

lol, all part of the fun mate ;) 

 

Sorry to hear you had a bit of a problem, and while its not ideal - relax, dont worry, have a home brew :)

 

Im guessing the wort is now in the fermenter? which is in the cold bath? If its all sealed up, it will take ages, like, overnight to get to pitching temp, which is OK, again its not ideal, but doing this is effectively no-chilling which I and many other brewers have done many a time!! 

 

About the trub, and the cloudy wort - again, dont worry, the trub gets eaten up by the yeast. With regards to the cloudy wort did you use kettle finings or anything? Are you bIab or batch spargy or fly or what? 

[JackoNZ]

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself! A few if not most of us have fucked up the immersion chiller on the first attempt. Get some hose clips on if not already and easy with the water to start with, the hose goes very soft with boiling wort going through it. Volumes you'll get right after a couple of brews and you learn your system, everyone has to go through that and it takes 3-4 brews to start getting accurate. I lost water from the mains half way through my boil so it took me about 4 hours until I could get my chiller on today, an hour to pitch is nothing! Did you whirlpool and how did you transfer wort to fermenter? Leaving it an hour after whirlpooling and siphon from the top will help get clearer wort into fermenter. Remember to account for hops soaking up wort too, a big hoppy beer will require bigger volumes because of bigger losses from hops. I use about 1l loss per 100g of hop in a recipe. That's on top of kettle losses, cooling etc..

[RopenutS]

Cheers guys. @Reviled. Haha yeah its all a learning thing. The fermentor is sealed up and in the temp controlled fridge at the moment. Hopefully bring it down to pitching temp faster. I did use koppafloc, I did biab and used your technique of doing a sparge step, took the bag out and and ran about 3.5 litres of water at 78 degrees through and recirculated twice.

@JackoNZ I think that was the problem the hose went quite soft i didnt really pay too much attention to it but obviously i should have haha. I thought the volume was too much with in the end but thats another thing I'll have to learn i guess.Nah i didnt whirlpool, and to only way i had to transfer to the fermentor was by tipping it in. I think I'll invest in a siphon. I';ll keep that in mind about the losses to hops. Thanks. i just hope it ends up being drinkable haha

[Reviled]

Ahh sweet, so BIAB is why your wort will be cloudly! Again, dont worry about it too much at this stage, theres things you can adjust later down the track to get clear wort with biab, such as adjusting the mash ph. You will never get truely clear wort like some of the 3v or batch spargers, but if you take a few small steps you can get truely clear beer :o) 

 

Id say for a first brew, yours was rather successful, this will be backed up by how it tastes ;) Say goodbye to extract my friend lol

[Ralph]

Yeh I have put plenty of cloudy/trubby wort into fermentors and have got clear tasty beer out the other end. brew it and see what happens!

 

For a siphon see if you can get something called an autosiphon. They are about $20 from homebrew shops. Has a one way valve and plunger so you can start by hand pumping. Much much easier than using a piece of hose!!

[Reviled]

"Yeh I have put plenty of cloudy/trubby wort into fermentors and have got clear tasty beer out the other end"

 

It's quite funny too, because I have also seen crystal clear beer go into a fermenter, only to come out looking like milk!! So it can change either way - which made me figure it doesnt matter too much about what the wort looks like going in...

[Michael]

I would not be worried if any of the hot water got in there. People use tap water for their extract tins all of the time, and very few end up with infections if everything else is sanitised well.

[mattd2]

Is that hops lose 1 litre per 100 grams of pellets or cone or doesn't matter?

[JackoNZ]

Always pellets for me. Not sure on cones sorry but I think it might be even higher with those.

[mattd2]

Thats what I thought, got to nail down my losses. Cheers mate.

[Tim Stewart]

Mate it took me 12hrs to get my first dozen brews down to pitching temp b4 I invested in a plate chiller so I wouldnt worry also trub will drop and you can always secondary it that clears it ,my first all grain brew was chaos too and it ended up good

[Chad Keven]

all fun and games!