JJL
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- Feb 16, 2010
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Before you start reading, I warn you this is a long story. However, I decided to share for a couple of reasons:
1) To demonstrate the true wealth of knowledge available on HBT.
2) To show that you can do a whole lot wrong and still have beer.
3) I just felt like sharing – so there!
So there I was about to embark on my first all grain brewing adventure. Let me just preface by saying that I decided to brew AG, not because I feel there is any deficiency in the extract brewing process. I simply like to challenge myself, and learn and try new things. Also, I like the idea of keeping my ingredient costs down and being able to have basic brewing ingredients on hand at all times. That said here’s my story.
I woke up yesterday morning not really intending to brew. I had a smack pack already swelled sitting in the fridge, but I was actually figuring that I would make a starter out of it sometime this week to use sometime in the near future. What started this whole thing was my grain mill, which I had never used to this point. I started tinkering with it, then looked at my 50lbs of pale malt I had sitting in my grain bin, and so the brew day began. I do have to preface by saying that pretty much my entire AG rig was untested to this point. The only thing that I had used prior to yesterday was my ring burner, which I had used only once before. In addition to being my first AG batch, this was also my first full boil as well.
I have a barley crusher mill, which I’ve determined is shipped with a detachable crank handle that is never intended to actually be used. I milled about 9lbs of grain “and boy were my arms tired.” But it does give a really good crush.
I then started heating my water. I actually logged onto HBT while the water was heating because I wasn’t sure what my strike temp needed to be, and I knew that I had seen a link to a calculator on here. Sure enough I found one. Strike at 162F. I also boiled about a gallon of water and preheated my mashtun (another tip I picked up here). This is when things went awry.
I was using a remote grilling thermometer. It has a little transmitter that sends the temp to a handheld unit you carry with you. Great little device. The strike water gets up to 162F. I dump the boiling water out of the MLT, toss the grain in, and start dumping the strike water into the MLT about 1 gallon at a time and mixing it with the grain. By the way, my mash consistency was about 1.25 qts/lb. At this point, I put the probe from my remote thermo into the mash, and it starts reading 180F. So, I start stirring and dumping in cold water. Still 180F. More water, more stirring. Still 180F. At this point, I finally realized that my thermo had wigged out on me. I’m guessing you’re not supposed to get it wet, but who knows. I pulled out my old dial thermo, stuck it in the mash – 140F. Just great. So, I took some of the boiling water I had on the stove, (another tip I learned here is you can never have too much hot water on hand when brewing) and mixed it into the mash until I got to my desired temp of 150F. But, by this time I’ve got about 6+ gallons of water and grain. Oh well, covered it up and let the conversion begin.
About 75 minutes later I recirculate and take my first runnings. This actual went rather smoothly. My MLT is a 10 gal round Rubbermaid cooler with a braided stainless supply line for a screen. Actually, built this from plans I found on HBT as well. Drains really well. No stuck mash. Yield is about 3.5 gals of wort. Hooray! Now I’m feeling confident. So, I heat my sparge water to about 180F. Keep in mind that I only want to sparge with 2.5-3 gals of water since my first runnings yielded way more wort than planned. I mixed the sparge water with my grain, again about 1 gal at a time. I put my dial read thermo into the mash. The dial slowly rolls up to 16……oh crap. I dropped the thermo into the mash. Too hot to fish it out. Oh well, I knew it was 160+, so I just took about a half gallon of hot water from the stove and dumped it into the MLT. I figured it would end up somewhere between 160F and 170F. Good enough. I covered it and let it sit for 10 minutes. Recirculate. Drain the MLT.
Since I had to add more sparge water than intended as well, my total yield to my brew pot was about 6.5 gals. More than I wanted, but not a total catastrophe. Time to boil. Since I’ve got more wort than I wanted, and I have no idea about the boil off rate of my rig, I just brought the water up to boil and threw in my bittering hops. Then, I just checked back every 15-20 minutes to check the amount of boil off I had. After about 75 minutes, I had boiled down to about 5.5 gals, Satisfied that I had boiled off enough liquid, I pitched in my flavor hops and irish moss. I also inserted my wort chiller (another tip I picked up here) and began counting down the last 15 minutes.
When it was time, I turned off the heat, moved the pot to an ice bath, and ran my wort chiller. It took about 20 minutes to cool. By the way, by this time I had retrieved my dial thermo from the MLT. Then, I whirlpooled the wort. Normally I don’t bother with this, but I figured I give it a try. “Boy were my arms tired” – again. Then I siphoned the wort into the primary bucket. Siphoning is another thing I normally don’t bother with, but I was curious to see how much break material I had. Of course, the hose fell out of the bucket as I was starting the siphon, so I lost a couple of ounces on the floor. All in all, I ended up with about 5.25 gals after my boil, and ended up transferring about 4.75 gals into the primary for about a half gal of break, which I would figure is about normal.
So, after all this, (about 7 hours later) I topped off the primary to 5 gals, took a gravity sample, pitched my yeast and sealed her up. I looked at my recipe and the gravity was supposed to be between 1.048 and 1.051. Lo and behold, I drop my hydro into my sample just hoping I had converted any sugars after this whole ordeal, and I hit 1.048. Adjusted for temp it ended up 1.050. And the true test, less than 12 hours later it is happily bubbling away.
The moral of the story – Even a blind squirrel finds a nut!
1) To demonstrate the true wealth of knowledge available on HBT.
2) To show that you can do a whole lot wrong and still have beer.
3) I just felt like sharing – so there!
So there I was about to embark on my first all grain brewing adventure. Let me just preface by saying that I decided to brew AG, not because I feel there is any deficiency in the extract brewing process. I simply like to challenge myself, and learn and try new things. Also, I like the idea of keeping my ingredient costs down and being able to have basic brewing ingredients on hand at all times. That said here’s my story.
I woke up yesterday morning not really intending to brew. I had a smack pack already swelled sitting in the fridge, but I was actually figuring that I would make a starter out of it sometime this week to use sometime in the near future. What started this whole thing was my grain mill, which I had never used to this point. I started tinkering with it, then looked at my 50lbs of pale malt I had sitting in my grain bin, and so the brew day began. I do have to preface by saying that pretty much my entire AG rig was untested to this point. The only thing that I had used prior to yesterday was my ring burner, which I had used only once before. In addition to being my first AG batch, this was also my first full boil as well.
I have a barley crusher mill, which I’ve determined is shipped with a detachable crank handle that is never intended to actually be used. I milled about 9lbs of grain “and boy were my arms tired.” But it does give a really good crush.
I then started heating my water. I actually logged onto HBT while the water was heating because I wasn’t sure what my strike temp needed to be, and I knew that I had seen a link to a calculator on here. Sure enough I found one. Strike at 162F. I also boiled about a gallon of water and preheated my mashtun (another tip I picked up here). This is when things went awry.
I was using a remote grilling thermometer. It has a little transmitter that sends the temp to a handheld unit you carry with you. Great little device. The strike water gets up to 162F. I dump the boiling water out of the MLT, toss the grain in, and start dumping the strike water into the MLT about 1 gallon at a time and mixing it with the grain. By the way, my mash consistency was about 1.25 qts/lb. At this point, I put the probe from my remote thermo into the mash, and it starts reading 180F. So, I start stirring and dumping in cold water. Still 180F. More water, more stirring. Still 180F. At this point, I finally realized that my thermo had wigged out on me. I’m guessing you’re not supposed to get it wet, but who knows. I pulled out my old dial thermo, stuck it in the mash – 140F. Just great. So, I took some of the boiling water I had on the stove, (another tip I learned here is you can never have too much hot water on hand when brewing) and mixed it into the mash until I got to my desired temp of 150F. But, by this time I’ve got about 6+ gallons of water and grain. Oh well, covered it up and let the conversion begin.
About 75 minutes later I recirculate and take my first runnings. This actual went rather smoothly. My MLT is a 10 gal round Rubbermaid cooler with a braided stainless supply line for a screen. Actually, built this from plans I found on HBT as well. Drains really well. No stuck mash. Yield is about 3.5 gals of wort. Hooray! Now I’m feeling confident. So, I heat my sparge water to about 180F. Keep in mind that I only want to sparge with 2.5-3 gals of water since my first runnings yielded way more wort than planned. I mixed the sparge water with my grain, again about 1 gal at a time. I put my dial read thermo into the mash. The dial slowly rolls up to 16……oh crap. I dropped the thermo into the mash. Too hot to fish it out. Oh well, I knew it was 160+, so I just took about a half gallon of hot water from the stove and dumped it into the MLT. I figured it would end up somewhere between 160F and 170F. Good enough. I covered it and let it sit for 10 minutes. Recirculate. Drain the MLT.
Since I had to add more sparge water than intended as well, my total yield to my brew pot was about 6.5 gals. More than I wanted, but not a total catastrophe. Time to boil. Since I’ve got more wort than I wanted, and I have no idea about the boil off rate of my rig, I just brought the water up to boil and threw in my bittering hops. Then, I just checked back every 15-20 minutes to check the amount of boil off I had. After about 75 minutes, I had boiled down to about 5.5 gals, Satisfied that I had boiled off enough liquid, I pitched in my flavor hops and irish moss. I also inserted my wort chiller (another tip I picked up here) and began counting down the last 15 minutes.
When it was time, I turned off the heat, moved the pot to an ice bath, and ran my wort chiller. It took about 20 minutes to cool. By the way, by this time I had retrieved my dial thermo from the MLT. Then, I whirlpooled the wort. Normally I don’t bother with this, but I figured I give it a try. “Boy were my arms tired” – again. Then I siphoned the wort into the primary bucket. Siphoning is another thing I normally don’t bother with, but I was curious to see how much break material I had. Of course, the hose fell out of the bucket as I was starting the siphon, so I lost a couple of ounces on the floor. All in all, I ended up with about 5.25 gals after my boil, and ended up transferring about 4.75 gals into the primary for about a half gal of break, which I would figure is about normal.
So, after all this, (about 7 hours later) I topped off the primary to 5 gals, took a gravity sample, pitched my yeast and sealed her up. I looked at my recipe and the gravity was supposed to be between 1.048 and 1.051. Lo and behold, I drop my hydro into my sample just hoping I had converted any sugars after this whole ordeal, and I hit 1.048. Adjusted for temp it ended up 1.050. And the true test, less than 12 hours later it is happily bubbling away.
The moral of the story – Even a blind squirrel finds a nut!
