Mack and Jacks African Amber clone
deafcone wrote:
should my pre boil OG be the same as my OG before adding the yeast? Assuming 5 gallons pre boil and pre yeast?
was thinking if I wanted to do a 5 gallon batch all grain but only had 3 gallon boil ability I could use beer tools to determine amount of grain needed for 5 gallon bath then just change the batch size to 3 gallon leaving the grains the ingredients the same and the gravity reading I get would be my pre boil gravity with a 3 gallon boil and just top off to 5 gallons in carboy to get the original 5 gallon OG. would that work?
DC
Your gravity readings will change as you boil off water and the wort becomes more dense. So no, the pre-boil and fermenter gravity readings should be very different.
The rest of your post is a bit hard to understand... but I'll give it a go.
I think what your trying to do is a 5 gal batch with only a 3 gallon boil. I can only see one problem with that. Water needed for spargeing and mash conversion will both be near or over 3 gallons. If you can collect all the wort in a large container and then boil it 3 gallons at a time (putting all your additions in only one 3 gallon batch) you should be able to "marry" the batches together in your fermenter to reach you desired OG.
You can take a pre-boil reading of the wort while it's all in the large container.
I'd skip the whole converting back and forth to 5 and 3 gallon batches thing.
~Cheers
deafcone wrote:
I could use beer tools to determine amount of grain needed for 5 gallon bath then just change the batch size to 3 gallon leaving the grains the ingredients the same and the gravity reading I get would be my pre boil gravity
Do not make it complicated. Your OG will be the amount of sugar points in a fixed volume. That will not change. However if the volume changes, so of course will the gravity at the point.
In other words, figure out your recipe for a finished volume- not preboil, but postboil. Once that figure is determined, and your volume is determined, however you get there dosnt matter. (Keeeping in mind hop utilization and other factors like maillard formations in boil volume, but that would be miniscule).
JO is absolutely right, for you to collect enough sugar to make a wort, you will need to runoff a larger volume, and 3 gallons just would not cut it. NOW, it is technically very easy to do what you want to do, and that is to just capture the first runnings, and do a no sparge collection. If you were to run the tun dry and collect just that for your wort, it would be of a much higher gravity, thus allowing for later dilution with topoff water. Good solution?
Probably not. That is essentially a partigyle brew. If you were to just use these first runnings, you would be wasting the leftover second runnings, (which a true partigyle collects these for a second weaker batch) making for an expensive and inefficient process. With this wasted money it would be just as easy to buy a larger kettle and burner!
thirsty wrote:
deafcone wrote:
I could use beer tools to determine amount of grain needed for 5 gallon bath then just change the batch size to 3 gallon leaving the grains the ingredients the same and the gravity reading I get would be my pre boil gravity
Do not make it complicated. Your OG will be the amount of sugar points in a fixed volume. That will not change. However if the volume changes, so of course will the gravity at the point.
In other words, figure out your recipe for a finished volume- not preboil, but postboil. Once that figure is determined, and your volume is determined, however you get there dosnt matter. (Keeeping in mind hop utilization and other factors like maillard formations in boil volume, but that would be miniscule).
JO is absolutely right, for you to collect enough sugar to make a wort, you will need to runoff a larger volume, and 3 gallons just would not cut it. NOW, it is technically very easy to do what you want to do, and that is to just capture the first runnings, and do a no sparge collection. If you were to run the tun dry and collect just that for your wort, it would be of a much higher gravity, thus allowing for later dilution with topoff water. Good solution?
Probably not. That is essentially a partigyle brew. If you were to just use these first runnings, you would be wasting the leftover second runnings, (which a true partigyle collects these for a second weaker batch) making for an expensive and inefficient process. With this wasted money it would be just as easy to buy a larger kettle and burner!
Ok so need to be sure I have enough spattered water to get all I can from grains and will need two pits to boil. Not a problem. Want to make sure I have it down enough with all grain before investing in bigger out and burner.
DC
All I can say is WOW. 26 pages, took me a few days off and on to get through all of this.
I'm going to attempt the original one on the first page this weekend. Hopefully the LHBS has everything I need. I think I got it duplicated here http://hopville.com/recipe/1009069/amer … mber-clone
I keep forgetting orange peel though. I need to go there now and put it in. I've never actually had this brew but I'm looking forward to making something with the taste you all have described and making it my own. I'm keeping the irish moss in and I'm going to use Safale-04. I know the original is cloudy but I'd prefer one that is clear in appearance.
Again, I can't wait to try this out. I wish I had a bit bigger of a pot so I could do a full 5 gallon boil and maybe convert one of my coolers so I could do all grain. But oh well, at this point I'm not putting money into another pot until I get one I can do 10 gallon batches with.
I'll let you know how Brew Day goes this weekend!
pinion - You are going to like this beer, either extract or all grain it is great! Don't forget the orange peel, and if you have the hops, up the Cascade late addition to an ounce, and use an ounce to dry hop. You will be glad you did.
This beer does take a little patience though, it is good after a couple weeks in the bottle, but give it a month and it is great.
Happy Brewing
Finished this one up Saturday. I changed a few things as you can see here:
http://hopville.com/recipe/1013450/amer … 26-version
Basically I added some flavoring hops. .5 ounce of cascade for 30 minutes and I upped the DME I used to a pound since LHBS doesn't sell by half pound. I also used Safale 04 and just pitched the dry yeast on top after aerating my wort by going from pot to bucket twice. The guy at the LHBS suggested not worrying about reconstituting the yeast in warm water and said that he never does and always just pitches on top. I didn't see any signs of fermenting last night but I've also had trouble in the past with a loose lid. Maybe I'll check tonight and if nothing I'll take off the bung to look in there.
I've never had this brew and probably never will. I love hops so I'm thinking my additions will still make this beer turn out very very good. I'm excited to try it!
Pinion,
Looks like a good recipe.
Are you dry hopping in the primary or secondary?
I think your hop additions are good. You want to be careful hopping M&J's.
One of the wonderful little things about it is the complex combination of the orange peel and cascade hops.
You don't want to be too heavy on either. If you don't know what's in there, it can be a real mystery.
This is one on my staples, if it's not on draft, it's in primary or on the schedule.
Prost !!
I haven't really decided if I'm going to secondary or not. If I do I will dry hop there. Otherwise I'm just going to wait until ferment is done and dry hop in the primary.
It's really making me nervous because I don't have visible signs of fermentation. I took the bung off to peak and it looks like there is some activity but not as much as I would like.
It's not a problem, S-04 is a ripper, and will take off like a rocket even at 60F. You should really hydrate dry yeast though, it takes off so much quicker. Using S-04 on my last IPA, it took off in 4 hours. In all beers, your trying to get your yeast to start fermentation as quick as possible. I'm sure you know this, and took it into consideration, but what did you save? It takes 5 minutes to put the yeast into a glass with water in it, and you save 6 hours on the other end. It might actually be done with the maine fermentation I've had S-04 finish up in 2 days before, fantastic stuff.
Give this stuff a full month in the bottle, and it's fantastic. I had my last batch come out flat tasting, not bad, just no flavor, very strange, even after 2 weeks at room temp in the keg. Then it changed, and became the right flavor, and all the flavors came together.
I know I want the ferment to start as quick as possible. I'm used to using the smack packs. I asked the guy how to rehydrate the yeast and he said he always just sprinkles his on. I think I'm probably fine, I think the guy was just trying to save me from contaminating anything but I'm meticulous when it comes to cleaning and sanitation so I don't think I have to worry there. I really just need to figure out the best way for me to be able to create starters.
I'm planning on kegging. Would you recommend dry hopping in the primary when my fermentation is done or in a secondary, and for how many days on the dry hop? Or would you recommend going from primary to keg and tying a muslin bag with some fishing line to the inside of my keg? It sound like you recommend letting it condition in the keg for at least 2 weeks? And I also assume you hit it with some c02 to get the oxygen out of the head space while letting it sit out? Wow that's a lot of questions, maybe you can just tell me your process from brew pot to pint glass? 
No secondary, and no bottling for me. With no secondary, I don't have the opportunity to dry hop then, but I also don't have the added risk of handling my beer another time when infections can jump into my process. I simply add a muslin bag of hops to each keg as I transfer after about two weeks in primary. I don't weight the bag or tie it in with a string. When I do pop the top off a keg that is being dry hopped this way, it takes a few seconds before the bag floats to the surface. When pressurized, the bag seems to equalizes anyway and sinks down in to the brew. It seems to give me adequate contact so as to insure the full utilization of dry hop flavors in my brews.
Bruguru, this is a great brew and a long standing staple in my brewing and drinking, since I found this thread and read through the whole thing several years back. Been a loyal BKB'r ever since. (That makes it your fault when you read my postings 
) Typically my winter and spring brews, frankly no matter what specific recipe, have a bunch more complexity and interesting flavors, some of which I attribute to inadvertent "modifications" I may have in process, but most of which I think come from the change in how the hops impact the beers. I posted on this a week or so back, and didn't get much interest. However, the change in the hops, no matter how well stored (vac packed in good quality O2 shielded plastic, and then frozen in my case), seems to be the primary difference in the differing tastes. Summer brews have a significantly less interesting complexity from almost year old hops as compared to fall brews that use fresh off the vine hops. I sure am glad that the new hops are now in my beer. Everything tastes so good, especially the Bruguru M&J African Amber.
I'm planning on kegging. Would you recommend dry hopping in the primary when my fermentation is done or in a secondary, and for how many days on the dry hop?
What I do now is just throw the hops in my primary after about 7 days, then leave them for another 7days, then drop into my keg. I've done the hop bag right in the keg, not really sure if i'm still going to do that though, not that it doesn't work, but my LHBS rarely has whole hops. No need to use fishing line, just a 30 cent hop bag with a knot works fine, the bags fall out no problem.
Sounds great! That's what I'm doing now. I was worried about the ferment but it looks like my SG is 1.018. I added my hops (pellet) into the primary with a bag and I'll let it sit for a week.
I thought maybe something had gone wrong when I tasted it last night because it seemed very fruity, or something. I'm wondering if maybe that is just the Safale-04?
what temp was the fermenter? s-04 should throw some esters at warmer temps.
Hogarthe wrote:
what temp was the fermenter? s-04 should throw some esters at warmer temps.
About 68 degrees. I don't know off hand but I know I got it to 70 or under before pitching. And I'm fairly positive it was about 68 in the basement if not a bit lower during the whole fermentation.
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