Adding another first AG brew thread

[jasonsbeer]

Did my first AG brew today. Overall, things went very well. I made up a 5 gal batch of Biermuncher's "Your WIT-ness" wit. I made a couple of changes, some by desire, some by necessity. I ended up boiling this in the garage. I had wanted to do it on the deck, but the rain had other plans.

I used WLP400 yeast. My stir bar hasn't arrived yet, so I needed to shake my starter occasionally. I let it "start" for about 13 hours before adding it to the wort.

I was able to hit ~152 for my strike temp, after some messing around. I was able to get 71.8% efficiency. So, other than forgetting to close the valve on the mash tun when dumping in the strike water, and that small burn involving the sparge, everything went well. My oldest boys (3 and 5) were very interested and I had to work hard to keep them back from the keggle while it was boiling.

What can I say, this smelled great during the boil. Kind of like a giant mug of orange tea. I was 2 points high on my gravity after boiling, so I added another 1/2 gallon of water to bring it down a tad. I can't wait to try it out.

Here's the starter

Catching the sparge water

Boiling the yumminess

Waiting to bottle

 

[Scut_Monkey]

Seems like you had a good first experience, I'm glad. Did you use a decanter for your starter. If so that's awesome!

 

[bob1852]

congrats! AG sure is fun isn't it? I always have the biggest s*** eating grin on my face when I'm brewing!

 

[cheezerman]

oh wow, a decanter for starting! GREAT idea. I'm going to have to steal that.

 

[jasonsbeer]

oh wow, a decanter for starting! GREAT idea. I'm going to have to steal that.

Thanks

I was trying to figure out what to use to hold my starter. I have already spent a bit of money to get into AG, so I was trying to find somewhere to cut a corner. I was digging around in the cupboard and came across this decanter that my dad gave me a couple of years ago. We're not big wine drinkers, so it mostly sat gathering dust. It worked great.

 

[jasonsbeer]

Seems like you had a good first experience, I'm glad.

I have spent a lot of time reading posts here and reading Palmer. There's no way it would have gone as well without the expert advice I've received.

I had a couple of issues related to inexperience with AG, but the next batch should be much better!

 

[Scut_Monkey]

The decanter for the starter is resourceful but also useful. The wide surface area would help aid with gas diffusion and therefore help with CO2 release and oxygen intake. Way to go!