HELP!! Anyone have a bag of pilsner malt?

[prieff]

Hey all,

I was planning on brewing saturday or sunday. Have the yeast started, the hops ready, stopped by BIY to pick up the 50# bag of plisner malt I had talked to Joe about and they are CLOSED till tuesday.

I wondered if anyone has a 50# sack of pilsner or if I can get suggestions of where to buy or borrow one locally. Maybe Quinton could spare one? I don't know him personally and I don't have his number. Or maybe one of the other local breweries? I can buy it outright or replace it on Tuesday with a bag from BIY.

Any help would be appreciated.

I have a brew-boss electrical controller have brewed on it only 1 time. I have a 30 gallon kettle with a custom grain basket for a faux brew-in-a-bag single vessel electric 20 gallon setup. Planning on a step mash Czech Pilsener if I can source some malt. Most likely brewing Sunday. Anyone is welcome to come check it it out. Or Czech it out even.

Thanks for the help!! Call or text please!!
(319) Nine Eight One-4420

[andrewmaixner]

I have a sack of Rahr Premium Pilsner malt, south side of marion. 319-389-4864

You should sign up for the BIY email list so you can be alerted in advance when the owners plan to get married and close for a weekend

[prieff]

I thought I was on the list but I guess I haven't seen any emails in quite a while. Thanks a ton. Call you in a bit.

[whitedj]

Yeah. I missed the email and luckly stopped by Thursday to get my stuff.

Sometimes I forget the headache of shipping and yeast cultures when they weren't in town.

[prieff]

So, brewing tomorrow maybe starting around 11. 20 gallon czech pils on an electric brew boss single vessel faux brew in a bag (mesh basket) system. Come by if you are curious.

Quick question: I do 2 separate 2000ml starters for 20 gallons. I pitch 2 vials into each starter. Been about 2 years since I've done lagers, but 8 hours in and I don't see any activity from the wlp802. Is lager yeast usually this laggy or did I buy 4 unhealthy vials?

[andrewmaixner]

From what I have read about yeast starters, and the calculator numbers I've played with, the initial volume of yeast used has minimal impact on the resulting amount of yeast produced from the starter. I personally would have put half of a vial into each large starter and probably got the same result.
Also, there is currently some testing being done which indicates that you don't actually need to bother waiting for the yeast starter to ferment, and that it can be fully propagated and viable before visible signs of fermentation.

[prieff]

Most beers I do with wlp001. I've done each, half vial in each, one in each, and 2 in each. I can say from experience that it has increased the amount of slurry in proportion. Since lagers require much more of a cell count, I went with 2 in each. I know lager yeast isn't as aggressive as wlp001 but I expected some action by now. The vials didn't erupt like ale yeast does. Been a while since I've brewed a lager and I can't recall how the daters behaved. Keeping the fingers crossed.

[whitedj]

... by now it should be active.
What temp is your starter? I do lager starters at ale temperatures. The reaction is much slower at lower temparatures.

From what i recall if you pitched enough yeast into a low OG starter there may not be too much growth. When I need a lager pitch I usually go with a higher OG starter as opposed to more volume

[prieff]

So, thanks to Andrew for helping me with malt. The yeast was going good by the 24 hour mark and the sunday brew session is fermenting something fierce at 52F. I do starters at room temp as well. OG of starters were 1045 or so. All of that is the good news.

Bad news was: the amount of protein was insane. I attempted a 122F protein rest for 20min, 149F sach rest for 30min and 158F for 30 min. Trying to direct fire the electric element with all of the protein in the e-biab (stainless mesh basket) was difficult and required constant stirring. During the boil, the wort smelled different. Not bad, but more caramel. On edge of what might be called burnt. This was my first brew with my new setup, and now I realize that maybe a clean lager was a poor choice. After cooling the wort smelled much more normal. I sampled the preboil wort, and it tasted normal. I did not check the boiled wort yet. I may pull a sample tomorrow. Anywho.... when I drained into carboys, the element had quite a bit of protein globbed to it, and under that was some brown and black carbon. So clearly there was some scorching of the protein or wort. Upon research today I have a few suspicions. Some say to never try to direct fire a biab of any kind as the sugars are concentrated near the element with little circulation. I was recirculating the wort the entire time but the mesh basket was pretty plugged up with protein gunk and I was not getting a lot of flow... hence the stirring. I also read that people generally give the kettle a good stir after the mash and before turning the element to full blast for the boil to mix up the concentrated sugars at the bottom. There was about 2-3 inches of protein on the bottoms of the carboys. Never seen that much.

So any e-brewers out there with some advice? I hope its not all ruined although I have high suspicions that it may be. I will find out once the fermentation settles down a bit. I was excited by the prospect of a single vessel electric system but if the scorch risk is high, and I can't direct fire the element to maintain mash temp, I may go back to a 3 vessel system.

Any advice is welcomed and I would be very grateful for. If the Dr sees this, maybe we can chat on the phone or email? I want to figure this out. I have about 300 batches under my belt but only 2 batches doing electric. First electric batch was cooler mash tun and traditional and worked great. But now I am worried I wasted 8 hours and $120+ of ingredients.

[bf514921]

Don't give up yet. Awhile back I did an extract batch in my at setup. I have a 3 vessel system, but did the extract in my boil kettle. I had similar experience, but I don't think the film left behind was scorched. The beer turned out great, the film was easy enough to clean. I brew all electric.

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