First All Grain - Boddington

It's brewday! I've been planning this all too long and now it is upon me. I'm very excited, I must say

First thing I will do is adjust my water by doing what Bobby_M advised. I'll be adjusting the mash water but not the sparge water (w/the exception of salt but that doesn't matter really).

My CA = 25 I will take the mash to 130 but final water after sparge will be 57
Mg = 13 taking mash to 33 final will be 19 after sparge
Na = 8 taking it to 49 final will be 31
Cl = 1 taking it to 166 final will be 67
SO4 = 3 taking it to 203 final will be 63
Alk = 130
TH spreadsheet shows 1.05 balanced with this and to achieve this I'm adding 2g of CaSO4, 2g of CaCl2, 2g of MgSo4, and 1.8g of NaCl to 2.5 gal of mash water.

My boil volume is 7.28 trying to hit 5.25 at 1.040 ... Set my evap to 18% because I have a very wide 10 kettle and it is cold out with a slight wind. I'll monitor the SG and stop when I need too...

I have the brewhouse efficency set for 70% which could be high. I had these grand plans to fly sparge but after experimenting half the night I just can't see where I can keep the sparge water hot enough in an igloo to get me through the entire process so I'm sticking to Orphy's mash routine. Empty the tun after the mash, no mash out btw, and then 2 rounds of batch sparging. I have scaled my recipe down with beersmith to my kettle and for a 5.25 gal. final volume. The original recipe was for just over 6 gal. So not much adjustment needed. Also scaled the grain bill for a slightly lower eff since it's my first all grain. We will see how it goes, as I said I'll monitor the SG and stop when I hit 1.040 and know more then

Ok, I'm off to prep the H2O... Oh, I should mention I'm going to be using my LaMotte testing equipment to see if I have reached my goal water with the calculated adjustments... all based on TH's spreadsheets - see the brew science section at HBT...





<center><img src='http://blogs.homebrewtalk.com/Thumbnails/923582brewchill.jpg'><br>Keep it Cool!</center>
<center><img src='http://blogs.homebrewtalk.com/Thumbnails/188543dirtytun.jpg'><br>The Proof!</center>


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Back now, 14 hours later... whew... finished my first AG... It was a very long day but I tell ya what, the color of that brew as it left my kettle cooled to a crisp 68F and went down the clear tube into the fermenter was unbelievable. It was so clear golden copper I almost cried - and I don't cry too often.

So, let me rewind back to the H2O prep. I tested my water after I adjusted it and most things were pretty close to being on, what wasn't exact was the Ca and I'm not really sure why but hey what can ya do. Well so I hope tweeking my water helped my RA get where it was supposed to go. My mash pH didn't get below 6, it was right at 6.05 - 6.1 the whole hour. I did a quick experiment with 5.2 and in a little sub mash it didn't move it from 6.05 at all.. I did an experiment and put it in my brew water alone and got 6.1... so I will maybe hold at around 6 but it will not bring your mash down into the 5's... I'm sure lactic acid or acid malt will but live and learn. I think by bringing my RA down with small amounts of salts I hopefully achieved a good mash even though the pH was over 6.

Now the good news, I planned on a brewhouse eff. of 70 and I hit it exactly, was scary actually, my preboil was 1.033 and my postboil was 1.040, dead on. I was doing the happy dance at that time. Then I siphoned off the wort from the kettle and realized I wasn't going to get my 5.25 gallons... Note to self: AG brewing leaves just a tad more trub that extract brewing does... ahem, my normal 1/2 g. of trub turned into about 1 gal of trub which even though I was tempted I left it behind... so I ended up with 4.8ish gallons of Boddington's Bitter ... I won't get fooled again and have adjusted the brewpot accordingly.

Sigh, so, was it worth it? Hell Yeah! I'm gonna do it again next weekend! I tell ya what though, the weather today, for a late December day was incredible... was perfect sky, 55F, only a slight wind, enough to make the steam off the wort form spiraling columns of wasted liquid into air. The last of 20ish inches of snow is hardly apparent after a Friday and Saturday of drenching rain. Today we came out of it with high pressure perfection.

Oh, I shouldn't forget to mention that I got a stir plate for the holidays and used Wyeast 1028 for this brew which I started the day before. I pitched at 5pm and I started bubblin' at about 7:30, 2.5 hours until blub blub... I think I like starters

Until next brew!

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