I finally made a beer from scratch

BrewingWisdom

Brewing Date 27/10 /2022
Mash Bill :100% Malted Wheat 3kg
Hops:Hallartau Hersbucker Pellets
Yeast:CS31 Angels Ale Yeast
Batch Size 10 litres
Original Gravity:1.049
Final Gravity :1.000
Abv= 6.4%
Nose:-
Very estery,fruity aroma with citrus notes of hops. No hints of alcohol on nose.
Taste:-
Malty , very bitter (guess I used more hops than I should.
Appearance:
Kind of cloudy (I guess because it's 100% wheat) and the head was quite big.
The carbonation is very strong. The foam runs out when i opened my bottles.
I used jaggery as a priming sugar. Jaggery is basically a pure sugar cane juice in a solid concentrated form. Its used in the indian subcontinent.
BackGround
My journey of homebrewing a beer started in March this year. After lots of learning, reading online ,and spoiling three batches in a row I finally succeeded in my fourth attempt.
Oh and that waiting for months to get the required equipment from china.
Why I succeeded this time?
As a all grain brewer (that's the only option I have)initially I struggled with malting. But this time with enough and equal acrospire length of grains and drying the grain in the air (yea that's a wind malt) I finally succeeded. Previously I either got mold in my grain or destroyed it's diastatic potential by heating it too much in the oven during the drying and kilning stage.
My advise to the ones learning the malting process is to move your grains after every 2 hours , keep them moist by some kind of water spray device(I used the hand water sprayer) for the initial four days. Just dont get lazy after the initial soaking. And dry it under some wind. With too much heat you can end up destroying its diastatic potential.
I want to help everyone here but a
big thanks to @bracconiere and @IslandLizard both of you really helped me a lot.
Specially @bracconiere you were always there for me for answering my questions. Without your help and support this success was simply not possible.
I actually find my product better than all the super expensive commercial beers I bought from the black market.
I am drinking my delicious wheat beer with a glass in right hand and showing a big middle finger of a left hand to those who banned it

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Cheers

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bracconiere

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i SO need to brew to celebrate!

BrewingWisdom

Going to brew my recipe above? Or something else

bracconiere

no mine will be barley, and i don't remember what hops i have in the freezer..but i want to be a barley man again! drop this sugar water swill... personal problems and all.....  


after 20 years a brewin' every once in a while a little blue pill helps!

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BrewingWisdom

I am hopeful I will find a local grown barley that will sprout for malting purposes. In the meanwhile I plan to brew with sorghum, corn and rye. Or blending the speciality grains together with wheat and let's see what type of beer I get.

IslandLizard

When using raw, unmalted or non-heat-rolled/flaked grain types (such as raw/milled corn), check each of their respective gelatinization temperatures. Chances are you will need to pre-boil them, in order to pre-gelatinize their starches, so they can be converted to sugars in the subsequent mash (using barley or wheat malt).
Instead of pre-boiling you can cereal mash them with malted barley or wheat.
Rice and Corn, for example, have rather high gelatinization temps, well above typical mashing temps (146-158F). John Palmer's How to Brew is a good resource for what's what with gelatinization temps, cereal mashes, etc.
Also keep an eye on diastatic power (DP) of your grain mix. An average DP of your grist mix of 35-40°Lintner at minimum is recommended for speedy and thorough conversion of starches to sugars. A little higher is better to be sure, or mash longer when in doubt. You can perform a starch test with a drop of Iodine to check for complete conversion.
Barley and wheat's DP can be 80-160°L, depending on how it's malted and kilned. Unmalted, raw grain or cereals have a 0 DP.

BrewingWisdom

Thanks for the valuable info.
I am still a noob in calculating stuff like brewhouse efficiency. What's your comment after reading my first post as regards to my efficiency. 3 kg malted grain in a 11 liter water ended up with a OG of 1.049 is that good ?

Beekeeper

Batch size 10L with 3kg wheat - looks to be about 52%?

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Congratulations on your brewing, and enjoy the reward!

BrewingWisdom

Well that's just an estimate. My FG ended at 1.000 it's because of the yeast I used.
52% is not good I think. If the above calculations are true.

IslandLizard

My pleasure!
Glad to hear you're brewing, learning, and getting better at it.
Homebrewing beer is awesome.
Brewer's Friend has many calculators.
This is one that will estimate your (brewhouse) efficiency:

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Brewhouse Efficiency Calculator - Brewer's Friend

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www.brewersfriend.com
Plugging in:
Volume: 11 liters
Gravity: 1.049
3kg "American" White Wheat 2.8°L (trying to approximate the wheat malt you made)
Results:
Weight: 3 kgs
Gravity at 100% Efficiency: 1.091 - max
Gravity at 75% Efficiency: 1.068
* Efficiency: 53.82%
Points / Pound / Gallon (ppg): 21.5
A brewhouse efficiency of 54% is considered a little low by our (western) standards. But for a first time home malted grain, it's a very, very good start, you must be doing many things right to get that! And your beer is delicious, so there's another bravo for you!
Ultimately, a BH eff. of 70-75% is a decent one to aim for, even 80-85% being very attainable for many lower gravity (< 1.050-1.055 OG brews). Now that's when using commercial malts, derived from specially cultivated grain, in high tech malt houses, by professionals.
We're very spoiled here in the West, having access to so many wonderful malts with nearly perfect extraction potential, with very little effort.
I usually hit 82% BH eff. for 1.060-1.066 beers, with everything as much tweaked for optimal efficiency. For that, I recover most wort created, none is wasted. But once in a while I'm coming up a bit short too... (sh)it just happens.  

Beekeeper

I am most likely missing something in the data entry, and your malt will be different too.

BrewingWisdom

Thanks for the motivating words Sir! .
Actually it's difficult when you have to start from the scratch and don't have easy access to everything .But there is a lot of learning here and you get connected with everything on a base level. For example I know from where my grain came from , in which type of area it's grown in.Our grains and their tastes differ depends on where they were grown and harvested.We can feel it when we eat our roti daily(flat bread here, our staple food). And I am sure those grains from different areas will produce kinds of beers. Now thats a huge interesting area to explore.

BrewingWisdom

Today I again opened the bottle for drinking but this time got no head at all. The beer is kinda changed in color and appearance. Is this a oxidation issue? Please see the image below and let me know. Thx

hout17

Regarding the head this could be the bottle not sealing properly. How did you mix in the priming sugar? I used to add beer to the priming sugar mixture in the bottling bucket but learned that I need to gently stir the beer with a sanitized spoon to mix properly (no splashing) or I get inconsistent carbonation.
The color change could be from oxidation or how the light in the room is hitting the glass.
Congratulations on your first from scratch brew!

bracconiere

no it's not  


next batch, i find with home malt, doing a second mash rest at 162f bumps the effec up about 10% points though....

BrewingWisdom

I added priming sugar solution in bottles prior to transfer beer in them. That was kind of a closed transfer and I am sure nothing went wrong during that stage. I opened and closed the bottle many times yesterday to put it in the drinking glass, so the remaining had gone bad.
Next time I will try to drink it all rather than leaving it in the bottle for the next day. Light exposure should not be a issue either as the bottles are in the dark cold place.

hout17

Sounds like there is nothing to worry about then. When I use flip top bottles I'll pour the whole bottle and drink it so it makes sense that you didn't get any head when you poured again from the same bottle.

Beermeister32

Sometimes glassware cleaned with detergents like Dawn can leave a head reducing effect if not rinsed well and hot.

BrewingWisdom

I am sure that's not the issue here. Probably got exposure to oxygen. Well glad not the whole batch is spoiled that was just one bottle. Still plenty of bottles left to enjoy. Will drink them after 2 weeks I have heard that after the secondary fermentation it takes some time for the beer to get rid of all the bad smells and taste.