Hi everyone!
I am new to the community and also new to brewing in general. My friend and I have brewed about 5 times now at this point using all grain brewing and what I am noticing is a few things.
1. We always miss our OG and it is always on the high side. For example, yesterday we brewed with a grain bill of 11lbs of 2 row and 2lbs of 40L crystal. Our estimated OG was 1.067 but we achieved 1.079. Our pre-boil volume was 6.25 gallons so I didn't want to add any more water to dilute it. Not sure how to get that down.
2. I am having a little trouble with yeast as well. When is a starter appropriate? I have been using them for the past 3 batches because the OG was supposed to be about 1.050 or higher, but all 3 of these beers are coming out to around 8% or higher which is not what I want.
3. The next thing I noticed is that our beers are turning out very sweet. We made a beer that we thought would be really strong in hop aromas because we added about 5 oz of hops over the course of the brew and dry hopping. Now looking at beersmith it shows it on the sweeter side, but I was wondering if the 40L crystal malt would overpower the hops and make it more sweet.
So I guess to sum this up, we are having trouble with consistency. Any thoughts and advice would be beneficial. Thanks for reading this. Cheers!
I am new to the community and also new to brewing in general. My friend and I have brewed about 5 times now at this point using all grain brewing and what I am noticing is a few things.
1. We always miss our OG and it is always on the high side. For example, yesterday we brewed with a grain bill of 11lbs of 2 row and 2lbs of 40L crystal. Our estimated OG was 1.067 but we achieved 1.079. Our pre-boil volume was 6.25 gallons so I didn't want to add any more water to dilute it. Not sure how to get that down.
2. I am having a little trouble with yeast as well. When is a starter appropriate? I have been using them for the past 3 batches because the OG was supposed to be about 1.050 or higher, but all 3 of these beers are coming out to around 8% or higher which is not what I want.
3. The next thing I noticed is that our beers are turning out very sweet. We made a beer that we thought would be really strong in hop aromas because we added about 5 oz of hops over the course of the brew and dry hopping. Now looking at beersmith it shows it on the sweeter side, but I was wondering if the 40L crystal malt would overpower the hops and make it more sweet.
So I guess to sum this up, we are having trouble with consistency. Any thoughts and advice would be beneficial. Thanks for reading this. Cheers!