First "Real" All-Grain brew going real well so far [knock on wood]

**DRoyLenz** · 02-14-2010, 10:39 PM

I've done about 6-7 stove top all-grain brews with my extract brewing equipment. I've decided to make the jump, and bought a 60 quart Igloo "Ice Cube" cooler and made myself a manifold.

Well, I just finished the sparge on my first "real" all-grain brew. So far, everything looks and smells great. My MLT only lost 1-2 degrees in the 1 hour mash, and the CPVC manifold I built in my MLT seems to have done a superb job of lautering all the wort.

I'll report back (in the off-chance anyone cares) as to how the rest of the brew day goes. I'm just praying that my gas stove-top will be able to bring 7-7.5 gallons to a boil.

The recipe is a Cascadian Dark Ale BTW...

boo boo · 02-14-2010, 10:44 PM

You're home free now you are this far with it. Congrats.

You can always split the boil into 2 seperate pots to boil keeping in mind the hop additions would have to be divided according to volume in each pot.

**DRoyLenz** · 02-14-2010, 11:53 PM

I kept that in mind, but I was able to achieve a boil (I LOVE the power boil setting). It's not a rigorous as I would like, but its rolling enough to boil off the DMS and volume.

About 45 minutes into a 2 hour boil, hops are going in soon. I can't wait for that beautiful aroma to fill my apartment...

**DRoyLenz** · 02-15-2010, 02:49 AM

Ugh, AG brewing is a lot of work. Who would of thought that 5.5 gallons of very hot water and 17.5 pounds of grain would be so difficult! :P

Clean up was much harder too, but it was a fun day for sure. Everything went well, but I'm nervous that my yeast starter was infected, we'll see.

Got just below 70% efficiency, not too bad I suppose for my first shot.

My back is soar, and everything is clean enough, so I'm calling it a day. Just have to go say goodnight to the fermenter... who would've thought a white plastic bucket would be the closest thing I would have to a Valentine...

mordantly · 02-15-2010, 02:58 AM

the smell of the grains, mashing grains, boiling wort, fermenting wort all smell sooooooo damn good! makes me want to crawl inside the boil kettle and never come out. i wish i lived closer than 30 miles to a brewery...