Malt Analysis and potential calculation

Wondering why you are getting that low mashing efficiency, even though you optimized your mash tun design and milling gap?
That can be caused by using the wrong malt potential, specially on the base malts that represent the big chunk on your grain bill.
So after having this same issue for a while, decided to do my homework and investigate the base grain malt analysis from manufactures like Briess and calculate the gravity potential myself.
That in fact correct my efficiency calculations and allowed me to do better OG predictions.
The basic numbers you need to get from the malt analysis sheet are two:
DBCG = Dry basis coarse grind
MC% = Moisture content

The potential in PPG, which is point per pound per gallon would be calculated as:
PPG=46.214*(DBCG/100-MC%/100-0.002)

Example:
Malt "Briess 2Row brewerrs Malt"
DBCG=79.5
MC%=4
PPG=35

How to use PPG?
If your PPG=35 from the example above, that means if you use 1 pound of this malt to produce 1 gallon of wort, you would get 1.035 gravity or OG if your mashing efficiency was 100%.
Your OG can be calculated as:
OG=1+(EF%/100)*(PPG*MW/BV)
where
MW = pounds of malt used
BV = Batch volume in gallons
EF% = Mashing efficiency

or

MW = 1000*(OG-1)*BV/(PPG*EF%/100)


New example:
You want your OG to be 1.050 on a 5gal batch and estimate your mashing efficiency at 70%, so the base malt weight your need is (for Briess 2Row brewers Malt) :

MW=1000*(1.050-1)*5/(35*70/100)
MW=10.2# of malt

I downloaded several spec sheets from Briess.com and calculated each malt PPG. I used mostly Briess malt so here's a table I use:

Click to see it bigger

Brewing a Summer lime Ale

Playing with my recipes here and decided to do a light ale and add some lime zest to see what happen.
Here's the recipe for this batch, which I called "Summer Wit", since it has quite some wheat malt to the grain bill.
-3# Briess Pilsen Malt (1.1L)
-4# Briess White Wheat Malt (2.5L)
-1# Briess Viena Malt (3.5L)
-1# Flaked Rice
-0.5oz Goldings USA for 60min
-0.5oz Goldings USA for 5min
-1 tsp irish moss for 20min
-1 pack Dry Yeast Safale S-04
-Zest from 2 limes, mixed with 1 cup of vodka. Added to Primary.

Mashed at 155F for 60min, here are the brew numbers:
OG=1.043
FG=1.008
ABV%=4.5
Color=4
IBU=10

Bottled at 5/16/10, tasted nice and not overpowered by the lime, at least at that point. Will have to wait all flavors to mellow down to taste it again, but feels it will be a very nice and refreshing beer.

Here's the fermentation profile for the S-04.



Click HERE for the review of this batch.

Using Dry Yeast

Have used mostly Wyeast smack packs until now and decided to test some dry yeast, mostly to keep some in stock and avoid a trip to the LHBS for every batch I brew, since I always like to get the freshest possible liqui yeast. Got the 11.5g dry yeast from Fermentis, Safale S-04, Safale US-05 and Safale S-33.
I must say I'm mostly not going back to liquid yeast, unless I need a special strain that I can't get in dry.
I got some cool direction on how to re-hydrate the dry yeast and it has worked for me every time, with Krausen formed after 6 to 8h.
The S-04 yeast is a beast, promoting a very fast and clean fermentation, not huge amounts of CO2 so no over spilling thru my airlock. The floculation after fermentation is awesome. The beer left is very clear and after few weeks in bottle conditioned, taste great!
The re-hydration process, which at first looked weird with the higher temperature, is listed below:
1)Once you have your wort ready to picth, at bout 70 to 75F, move to step 2
2)Boil 0.5l of tap water for 5min.
3)Remove from heat and cool to 103F
4)Add dry yeast and wisk to dissolve, for about 3min
5)Cool down further to pitching temp, 70 to 75F
6)Pitch to your wort

There are reasons behind not using sugar water or DME to re-hydrate the yeast, as well as for the high temperature. From what I read it has to do to the fact that the yeast cells do not have the hability to select what comes into the cell on the first seconds of re-hydration, so using sugar water would cause damage to the cells as good and bad thyings will get in. Also, once you get to step 5, the quick you pitch the better, so waiting to pitch actually works against you. The time from step 4 to picth should be about 5min.

So far, S-04 will be my primary yeast for general beers in substitution to Wyeast 1056. It promotes fully fermentation is 48h, has some bread taste while fermenting but it clears out within days.
The US-05 seems to produce fenolics that I don't like, so will probably stay away from it.
S-33 worked fine on my wit recipe and will mostly use it for wheat beers from now on.

Brewing a Bloody Ale - Part 2

Here are the results for this batch, which I may say turned out pretty good. A very refreshing light Ale, with an intriguing red color.

Beet flavor? Well, not really. The bottle I opened today is only 1 week old, so still a littlle green, but can't really taste any beet flavor. But it will definitely be a winner for this coming summer.

Here's how it looks like:



And here's the fermentation profile. Used Wyeast 1028 London Ale and it is a very quick and hungry yeast indeed!

Click HERE for the recipe.

Brewing a Pumpkin Ale

First time brewing this recipe and the idea of using real pumpkin seemed interesting.
Here's the recipe and actual brewing numbers:

Grain bill:
5# Briess Pilsen
1# Briess Aromatic Malt
1# Briess Vienna Malt
3# Cooked Pumpkin - steamed
1# Rice Hulls

Spices (boiled for 10min):
1 TBS - Pumpkin Pie allspice
5 Whole Cloves

Extras:
1.5# pilsen DME
1 tsp irish moss boiled for 20min
Wyeast 1028 London Ale



Hops:
0.5oz Goldings - East Kent -England for 60min
0.5oz Goldings - East Kent -England for 30min
1oz Crystal -USA for 5min


The DME extract had to be added to bring the OG closer to planned because the pumpkin did not add any sugars to the wort. The pumpkin was steam cooked, smashed and added to the mashing, which took 60min at 153F.

OG=1.043
FG=1.007
ABV%=4.6
IBU=17
Color=6


Here's the final beer after 1 week bottle conditioned. Looks and taste very light. Cinnamon flavor is predominant, but not overpowering.



And here's the fermentation profile. This yeast did its job in only 3 days!

Brewing a Bloody Ale

No, not a new style, just the name I'm using for this beer that will look very redish.
Had this crazy idea, which I later found not to be that crazy since this has already been done by others including commercial brewers, of using beet juice to provide a strong red color to a light ale.
Used a ligh color base malt from 2 row and Pilsen with some aromatic and Vienna malts.
Yeast is the Wyeast 1028 London Ale, now fermenting at 68F. Fermentation is very strong, one of the most active I had so far. Not much CO2 though, just circulation of the wort is very visible.
Here's the grain bill and brewing numbers:

4# Briess 2-Row Brewers Malt
3# Briess Pilsen
1# Briess Carapils Malt
1# Briess Vienna Malt
1# Briess Aromatic Malt

0.3oz Centennial -USA for 60min
0.5oz Hallertau - US for 30min
0.5oz Hallertau - US for 5 min
0.4oz Kent Golding for 5min
5 cups of Beet Juice. Blended 2 beets with 5 cups of water, stainned, then added to last 5 min of boil.

OG=1.048 (actual)
FG=1.012
ABV=4.7%
IBU=19
Color=6

Click HERE to see the review of this batch.

Brewing a Weizenbock - Part2

So, after two weeks in primary fermentation, it is finally done.
Bottled at 01/24/2010, tasted the first sample today and it is indeed a strong beer. As predicted, same color as the previous DunkelWeizen recipe, over 6% alcohol.
Here are the final numbers:

OG=1.065
FG=1.013
ABV=6.7%
Color=20
IBU=22

Fermentation took two weeks and I guess this is how the Weihenstephan Weizen yeast works, since my previous batch also took that long.

The taste starts with the alcohol, which gives that warm feeling, then some malt and sweetness.

Here's the fermentation profile.

Click HERE for the recipe.