First AG Brew Day

I just wrapped up my first AG Brew day. After reading a ton of forums and watching a Ton of Youtube videos on AG I decited to jump in and go for it. I did calculate my efficency at around 74% becuase I only got about 5.5 gallons of wort out of my mash. Needless to say I got some work to do.

I'm using a 5 gallon Rubbermaid Cooler. With 11.5 pounds of grain My preboil OG was 1.056 over 5.5 gallons of Wort. I found I ran out of space for a batch sparge and I couldn't fit all of the sparge water. That and I started using a new Blichman Burner and wow I've never had that kind of boil off.

After I cooled and moved to my fermenter I was sitting with 3.25 gallons of Wort and my extract roots kicked in so I topped off with 2 gallons of cold water and pitched yeast. Even after the top off of water to make up 5 gallons I my OG was still 1.054 I don't mind that for my OG but I do have questions.

Should I have batch sparged again into the cooler (I'm thinking this is what I should have done) for another 2 gallons to get the rest of the sugars and water into the boil kettle. Added 2 gallons of water into the boil after my sparge?

I was exercising RDWHAHB so I just added a bit more water pitched yeast and called her good.

Here's the question.. Did I hose my first AG Batch? Suggestions for using that cooler?

If you are sure you sparged with the correct amount of water and had the correct amount of pre-boil wort, then adding at the end is fine. Just my opinion but I think fly sparging gives better results/better efficiency.

I should add, you don't want to sparge too much/more than than it takes to get to the correct pre-boil volume because you can extract astringent compounds/too much tannins.

You're total water amount should equal pre-boil amount plus grain/equipment absorption. Try to keep sparging until you hit pre-boil volume if you can instead of topping off with water. As long as your sparge gravity stays above 1.010 you should be ok. If it starts to drop below that then you should stop run-off and use water..

I started all-grain with a 5gal Igloo mash tun. (Now I use it as a hot liquor tank for fly-sparge water.) But you shouldn’t run out of room with your sparge water, because you can just split it and batch sparge twice to rinse those grains. Or maybe you’re saying you ran out of boil kettle room with all that sparge water. If that’s the case, then you do have a problem (as I did) and you have to up it to at least a 30qt boil kettle for heavier 5 gal all-grain batches. But if you have a Blickman Burner, you should go ahead and get a 10gal boil kettle (or 15gal converted keg – you know – because you can!)

You boiled 5.5 gal down to 3.25? Wow. Was your recipe boil time 90min, and a post boil volume (batch size) supposed to be only 4 gal? Did you rack out of your boil kettle and leave a bunch of wort and hot/cold break behind with your chiller? (Like 1gal+ with the hops?) If that’s the case, you don’t want to add water to your 3.25 because you’ll dilute your batch. If you BOILED it down that much (I don’t know why, other than having too much fun with your new kick ass burner), then you would add water back to get back up to your desired batch size.

Your BeerSmith/ProMash/XLS/napkin recipe loss volume needs to mirror your pour vs. rack method from boil kettle to primary. If you pour into your primary using a strainer (or no strainer) you’re kettle loss is zero to cups (vs. like up to a gallon+)

Your recipe/process should stipulate pre-boil and post-boil volumes. As Tasty says, you should “drive” that.

It seems to me.

(Perhaps that's just a long winded version of what the other guys said ^.)

earwig said:

I should add, you don't want to sparge too much/more than than it takes to get to the correct pre-boil volume because you can extract astringent compounds/too much tannins.

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Since it takes the combination of high temperature (over 170F) and high pH (over 6) to extract tannins you should have sparged again to extract all possible sugars while getting your pre-boil volume. You can use water that is cooler to sparge with the second time but you may not get quite as much sugars out. With that in mind, by not sparging and adding top off water you got no sugars at all.

I did my first PM BIAB single infusion recently. Added water at start of boil to get volumen up and again to top off to my fermenter volume. Next time I plan to have sparte water heated up to avoid the preboil water addition. If Iam adding water preboil, I may as well send it through the grains first!!! Gotta find a better way to drain the grain bag. I'm thinking a grain spider and a bigger colander next time.

It was a combination of a few things. I Batched sparged with 3.5 gallons becuase I ran out of room in the Cooler. I have a few kegs and I'm going to be converting them soon.

I didn't leave any trub I strained it all out into the fermenter. That boil was nuts, maybe a bit too much heat but the boil was pretty fierce.

Lessons learned is keep sparging to keep getting sugars out of the grain and my volume. I do have a 8 gallon kettle and a 4 gallon kette (Frist one from extract brewing) so I think that I can keep it going with one burner and the two kettles. The cooler was a intermediate step to satisfy my want to go All Grain before I build up my Keg Situation. I was able to trade 4 old Pinlock Kegs+20 Bucks for Gaskets that I didn't need for 2 Sankey Kegs. I just need to get em converted. After brewing with the 5 Gallon cooler I understand a LOT more why people use the bigger coolers.. and/or Fly sparge with this one.

Thanks everyone. Hoepfully next brew day will be better!

william_shakes_beer said:

I did my first PM BIAB single infusion recently. Added water at start of boil to get volumen up and again to top off to my fermenter volume. Next time I plan to have sparge water heated up to avoid the preboil water addition. If Iam adding water preboil, I may as well send it through the grains first!!! Gotta find a better way to drain the grain bag. I'm thinking a grain spider and a bigger colander next time.

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You don't have to have hot water for your sparge. Someone on here suggested that you get nearly as much sugar out while using cold water when you BIAB since you don't depend on the wort being so fluid. With a cold water sparge I can really get my hands onto the bag to squeeze without burning them.

I had roughly the same problem and figured out a couple problems.

For one, my mash temp spiked for who knows how long. Wasn't paying attention while the mash was going, and inadvertently had heat on the bottom. Too high of a mash means less fermentable sugars being produced from the starch.

The biggest problem was I wasn't paying close enough attention to the amount of sparge water I was using. I ended up with not enough runnings. When I was done boiling, I had nowhere near enough wort.

I should have sparged with more water. Maybe another batch sparge.

Changing my brewery setup, and planning better for this Saturday! Got a 10 gal igloo with a braided screen at the bottom. Looking forward to the increased capacity!

RM-MN said:

Since it takes the combination of high temperature (over 170F) and high pH (over 6) to extract tannins you should have sparged again to extract all possible sugars while getting your pre-boil volume. You can use water that is cooler to sparge with the second time but you may not get quite as much sugars out. With that in mind, by not sparging and adding top off water you got no sugars at all.

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I have read in several places that high ph alone can cause excess tannin extraction. Check out this page http://homebrewandchemistry.blogspot.com/2007/11/tannins-and-icky-beer.html?m=1