J
jcole
Hello,
I brewed a dry stout recipe yesterday based on a modified Partial Mash recipe from my LHBS. The original PM recipe was my second home brew and had turned out nicely. However, it was a little on the strong side in terms of ABV (approx 5.3% - 5.4%), as I was hoping for more of a session dry stout at around 4.2%.
So I set the recipe up in BeerSmith and reduced the Dark LME from 5 lbs. to 3.5 lbs. which got it down to around 4.3% ABV in the software's calculations.
Another objective in brewing yesterday was to get more comfortable with 'Countertop Partial Mashing' as described in the following article: BYO - Countertop Partial Mashing. For this I used a 2 gallon beverage cooler for mashing as described in the article.
I created a brew sheet with all of this in mind and followed the instructions as carefully as possible along with those described in the "Countertop Partial Mashing' article.
One deviation from the brew sheet I should note is that after drawing the first and second wort, I sparged with 2 separate 5 quart infusions of 168 F water (instead of the the 4.67 gal of 168 F as indicated on the brew sheet).
So, here is what happened. Everything seemed to go well and I appeared to be getting a lot of extraction from the grains (probably a lot more than I did before when I brewed the original recipe from the LHBS which called for just soaking the grains in 155 F water for 45 min.).
I added the 3.5 lbs. of Dark Liquid Malt Extract at the end (15 min.) of the boil as described in the brew sheet and article, but ended up with an OG reading of over 1.070 instead of the expected 1.044 as stated on the brew sheet.
I was pretty surprised and was concerned with such a high OG in terms of fermentability and ABV. I wasn't sure what to do to salvage the brew, so I made an on the spot decision to remove enough of the wort, diluting with filtered water to get the OG down into the desired range.
I'm not sure whether this was the right thing to do or not and what the possible repercussions of it would be, but I didn't want a stalled fermentation or a dry stout with over 7% ABV.
Looking back now, I think that the Counter Top Partial mashing approach was probably much more effective at extracting the sugars etc. than what the instructions in the original recipe would result in.
So, I have a lot of questions now:
Should I have reduced the amount of LME in the recipe even further down from the original 5 lbs. that was called for? Ie. 2lbs. instead of the 3.5 lbs. that I used?
Why didn't BeerSmith report a higher estimated OG based on these ingredients? Is it because of the Countertop Partial Mashing method? If so, how do I account for that in the software? And is that method even necessary with a recipe like this?
What is going to happen to my beer? What are the ramifications of diluting the wort the way I did?
Is there anything else I could have or should have done different with the recipe or mash method?
Any input would be much appreciated. I'm feeling pretty bummed about messing this one up and want to learn from any mistakes.
Thanks,
John
I brewed a dry stout recipe yesterday based on a modified Partial Mash recipe from my LHBS. The original PM recipe was my second home brew and had turned out nicely. However, it was a little on the strong side in terms of ABV (approx 5.3% - 5.4%), as I was hoping for more of a session dry stout at around 4.2%.
So I set the recipe up in BeerSmith and reduced the Dark LME from 5 lbs. to 3.5 lbs. which got it down to around 4.3% ABV in the software's calculations.
Another objective in brewing yesterday was to get more comfortable with 'Countertop Partial Mashing' as described in the following article: BYO - Countertop Partial Mashing. For this I used a 2 gallon beverage cooler for mashing as described in the article.
I created a brew sheet with all of this in mind and followed the instructions as carefully as possible along with those described in the "Countertop Partial Mashing' article.
One deviation from the brew sheet I should note is that after drawing the first and second wort, I sparged with 2 separate 5 quart infusions of 168 F water (instead of the the 4.67 gal of 168 F as indicated on the brew sheet).
So, here is what happened. Everything seemed to go well and I appeared to be getting a lot of extraction from the grains (probably a lot more than I did before when I brewed the original recipe from the LHBS which called for just soaking the grains in 155 F water for 45 min.).
I added the 3.5 lbs. of Dark Liquid Malt Extract at the end (15 min.) of the boil as described in the brew sheet and article, but ended up with an OG reading of over 1.070 instead of the expected 1.044 as stated on the brew sheet.
I was pretty surprised and was concerned with such a high OG in terms of fermentability and ABV. I wasn't sure what to do to salvage the brew, so I made an on the spot decision to remove enough of the wort, diluting with filtered water to get the OG down into the desired range.
I'm not sure whether this was the right thing to do or not and what the possible repercussions of it would be, but I didn't want a stalled fermentation or a dry stout with over 7% ABV.
Looking back now, I think that the Counter Top Partial mashing approach was probably much more effective at extracting the sugars etc. than what the instructions in the original recipe would result in.
So, I have a lot of questions now:
Should I have reduced the amount of LME in the recipe even further down from the original 5 lbs. that was called for? Ie. 2lbs. instead of the 3.5 lbs. that I used?
Why didn't BeerSmith report a higher estimated OG based on these ingredients? Is it because of the Countertop Partial Mashing method? If so, how do I account for that in the software? And is that method even necessary with a recipe like this?
What is going to happen to my beer? What are the ramifications of diluting the wort the way I did?
Is there anything else I could have or should have done different with the recipe or mash method?
Any input would be much appreciated. I'm feeling pretty bummed about messing this one up and want to learn from any mistakes.
Thanks,
John