Happy accidents may not be accidents after all

When I made my orange wheat (which is turning out really well) my efficiency was really low and I thought it was something I was doing wrong.  The stout I made yesterday ran into the same problem so I am thinking it might not be me after all.  It could still be me but now that two batches in a row have ran into issues I have done some research.  I don't use mash tuns, since I brew one gallon batches, so using a strainer and sparging water over the grains could be it BUT I had a string of normal efficiency batches so I should look elsewhere.  The first issue to look at is the grain mill.  The mill might not be holding its size and needs adjusting.  I use the LHBS, or local home brewers store, as my grain mill location so now I have to look into how often, if at all, they adjust.  Hopefully it will help in solving the issue.  Low efficiency does not mean bad beer, but as someone who wants to keep up quality and consistency, it is important to keep the process at a top level.  Other problems could be water temperature, mash time and temperature, hydrometer.  Those, I do not believe, are so much the problem, so I will start with the grain mill.
I will report back tomorrow after I get my grains.  On deck for next week: Honey nut brown ale!

Happy accidents

Too bad not all accidents are happy ones but at least I can say mine was a happy one.  I made my orange wheat beer yesterday and had to adjust the grain bill.  Most wheat beer recipes call for 50% wheat malt at the most and I had 60%.  I added more 2-row, honey malt, and carapils and brought the wheat malt to 51%.  By increasing the other grains I bumped up my estimated ABV to 5% and I wanted to keep it just above 4% since I wanted a good summer drinking beer that was not strong.  Well, somewhere in my sparging I did not get the efficiency number and this will lower the alcohol level to probably just under 4%.
This accident is giving me the end result but at a cost.  I just hope that my next batch (vanilla bean stout) will hit the efficiency number and I am not doing something horribly wrong.

Happy Friday!

Back to Brewing!

Brewing every other week is nice since it does free up time to think of recipes and research but it is really slowing down my production.  Oh well.  Extract stout is moved to secondary but yeast was getting into the siphon and clogging it up.  It created air bubbles but hopefully not enough to really change the end product.  I am brewing a nut brown ale tomorrow and I am excited.  Why?  Well, not only am I finally brewing after two weeks BUT I am brewing another recipe from scratch that is not a stout!

I did learn something while I was milling my grains...pay attention to what grains you are measuring out!  I thought I was measuring out Maris Otter and needed 11 ounces but I was, in fact, measuring crystal 60 malt and I only needed an ounce.  Hopefully I fixed it well enough that it won't change anything but what a lesson to learn.

The first stout I attempted to make, stout v1.0, tastes fantastic despite it being a 3.2 beer.  It has a very espresso quality that I might exploit in future batches.

Cheers for now!