System alterations

[Bilsch]

Good luck hope all goes well for you.

[Crunk]

Brewday complete, small adjustments to be made, but a successful day, my greenhouse efficiency improved by 4 points, since I adapted so much to my system my water was off by .5 gallons but I will adjust that.

My ph from start to finish was in perfect range I'll add the specifics later.

The srm definitely without a doubt comes in nearly a whole point lower when under low oxygen conditions. Which in the end means nothing.

I did a infusion step mash,
Dough in at 133
145 for 30 minutes
162 for 40 minutes
169 for 15 minutes

Gelatination was noticeably more at the end of the mash.

Since I added a motor for mash agitation at 33 rpm, (best i could achieve), I only needed to recirculate for 10 minutes, the wort during slaughtering was noticeable clearer.

I need to perfect my whirlpool, maybe another pump, I'll be looking into that.

I'm 2 shots of crown royal and a 6 pack of munched hofbrau original into a really nice evening, so I'll leave you all with that. Please feel free to post questions and ill answer them after my hangover, and feel free to recommend adjustments.

[Crunk]

One last thing, I still had fun.

[Crunk]

The morning after,

My DO meter was reading 0.3 at the start of the brewday, I ended the brewday with a post boil reading of 0.7 so I must have a small leak somewhere, or I need to slow down part of the process.

I am going to invest in my own mill, as my efficiency jumped 4 points but is still low. I'm concerned about my ph as I used both test strips and my ph meter, the meter showed I stayed between 5.38 and 5.46, but the strips were showing much lower ph levels below 4.1

My target og was 1.048 I only hit 1.042, readings taken with both a refractometer, and a hydrometer matching readings.

I got to use my blichmann in line wort aerator it worked like a charm, I set it for 8 to 10 ppm no problems that I could interpret.

I pitched at 50°f, my starter was at 48°f 34/70 for 48 hours. It was a 1.75 litre starter. It should be just fine.

The srm is shocking, what was estimated to be 3.89, came out approximately 2.9 using the LODO process.

I started with distilled water, I'm sure I need some guidance on this topic, any help is appreciated, I will post a picture of my water chemistry with this post.

And my rest temperatures where only off by 1 degree from start to finish, confirmed by 3 different thermometers.

In a couple hours I will go check my fermentor for airlock activity but in the end, it's still a successful brewday, I learned more about my system and brewing in general, and I very much enjoyed the whole day. I can't think of any missing information, but feel free to run me through the grinder, I'll do my best to supply answers.

[Weizenberg]

The more intensely one mashes, the less important the quality of the grist becomes.

There exist several ways to overcome this.

1 - dough in lower (55 - 58C)
2 - give the grain more time to gelatinise and help release the starches. This can already be done by the lower dough-in, for a more difficult malt try using a stepped maltose rest.

[Crunk]

This was the recipe

[Techbrau]

I recognize Kai's helles recipe

That'll make a good beer. Nowadays my preference would be to add 4-5% carahell on top.

[Owenbräu]

Why did you choose CaSO4 over CaCl? Be prepared for a lot of residual sulfur.

[Crunk]

I can dough in at 122, then start heading into the 1st step mashing rest, should i increase the time of the first rest?

I can also recirculate, while mixing not that it will change the efficiency much.

And I need to add a little calcium.

@ancient Abbey, that would be my lack of knowledge.

@techbrau, I assume to add carahell, I need to make sure the 4 to 5% comes out of the pilsner malt.

[Weizenberg]

4 Ch + 10 vima is fine. 4/15 also works nicely. Up to you.