First AG report - lessons learned

Just reporting back in on my first AG experience - Guinness Clone recipe that I found discussed on this site. The guts of the recipe were 8 lb Pale, 3 lb flaked barley, (EDIT: Plus 1 lb roasted barley as well), 2 oz Goldings, 22 oz soured Guinness, Nottingham dry yeast. It went as good as I could expect but I learned some stuff - I'm posting what I learned and maybe can help someone else striking out into AG. If anyone sees any improvements I can make to this process, I'm all ears.

Lessons:
1) Initial mash temp was way low at 140 F even though I "tried" to preheat the mash tun (10 gal round cooler) with hot water. Maybe next time I'll get add the strike water to the mash tun first, make sure the volume is right and the temp has stabilized at what Beersmith says it should be, then add the grain. I had to heat water to boiling (I had extra that was at around 170F, so it was relatively quick though still 10-15 min) and add it to the mash bringing the temp to 154F and volume closer to 2qts/lb of grain (I was trying for 1.2 qt/lb).

2) Three stuck sparges (flaked barley was the culprit I'm guessing after reading about it again in Palmer) - maybe should have used some rice hulls, or a protein rest.

3) Tried to fly sparge using 1/2" high temp tubing to apply the sparge water to top of the grain bed - no sparge arm. Couldn't keep from disturbing the grain bed this way, even using a ladle to slow the flow of water to the top (the ladle was used in conjunction with the tubing). Also with the dark color of the mash liquid I couldn't even really see the depth of water I had over of the main body of the grain. Maybe I'll just batch sparge for now, figure out fly sparging later.

4) Used my boil pot as the HLT & draining the wort into a bucket for measuring the volume. Then transferred that back to the boil pot after the sparge. Introduced a lot of air I think transferring the wort - hopefully it didn't get hot-side oxidized. Maybe I'll just use a rectangular cooler for the HLT in the future, drain the wort directly into the kettle and use a marked stick to measure volume.

5) Took WAYYYY long to heat water... Need a better burner I think... it was 40F outside when I was brewing though - I'm sure that didn't help.

6) 82% efficiency. So happy about that! Now I'll have a 6.5% ABV Guinness clone? Dang it!

Frodo said:

Just reporting back in on my first AG experience - Guinness Clone recipe that I found discussed on this site. The guts of the recipe were 8 lb Pale, 3 lb flaked barley, 2 oz Goldings, 22 oz soured Guinness, Nottingham dry yeast. It went as good as I could expect but I learned some stuff - I'm posting what I learned and maybe can help someone else striking out into AG. If anyone sees any improvements I can make to this process, I'm all ears.

Lessons:
1) Initial mash temp was way low at 140 F even though I "tried" to preheat the mash tun (10 gal round cooler) with hot water. Maybe next time I'll get add the strike water to the mash tun first, make sure the volume is right and the temp has stabilized at what Beersmith says it should be, then add the grain. I had to heat water to boiling (I had extra that was at around 170F, so it was relatively quick though still 10-15 min) and add it to the mash bringing the temp to 154F and volume closer to 2qts/lb of grain (I was trying for 1.2 qt/lb).

2) Three stuck sparges (flaked barley was the culprit I'm guessing after reading about it again in Palmer) - maybe should have used some rice hulls, or a protein rest.

3) Tried to fly sparge using 1/2" high temp tubing to apply the sparge water to top of the grain bed - no sparge arm. Couldn't keep from disturbing the grain bed this way, even using a ladle to slow the flow of water to the top (the ladle was used in conjunction with the tubing). Also with the dark color of the mash liquid I couldn't even really see the depth of water I had over of the main body of the grain. Maybe I'll just batch sparge for now, figure out fly sparging later.

4) Used my boil pot as the HLT & draining the wort into a bucket for measuring the volume. Then transferred that back to the boil pot after the sparge. Introduced a lot of air I think transferring the wort - hopefully it didn't get hot-side oxidized. Maybe I'll just use a rectangular cooler for the HLT in the future, drain the wort directly into the kettle and use a marked stick to measure volume.

5) Took WAYYYY long to heat water... Need a better burner I think... it was 40F outside when I was brewing though - I'm sure that didn't help.

6) 82% efficiency. So happy about that! Now I'll have a 6.5% ABV Guinness clone? Dang it!

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I would not worry about the hot side aeration thing. I doubt there is a single person who can honestly say that they don't get air into their mash.

If you fly sparge, you are sprinkling water for a long time... lots of air in that water.

If you batch sparge, you give one big GUSH of water. Lots of air there, too.

I think hot side aeration is just a homebrewing boogyman.

Frodo If it makes you feel better, I had a few to many last week when I brewed a RIS test batch. I cleaned all of my equipment, except for my mash tun. Yep forgot to empty the grain out. WOW was that a treat today Man did it stink!!!!

wow... week old wet grain? that must have smelled wretched!

Walker that is being nice! Really had a sour smell to it. Won't be doing that again anytime soon!!! Thank goodness I checked my stuff today cause I am brewing a Blonde Ale in the morning. Figure I can brew and do some dry wall work (Long story remodeling bathroom, I will have to tell you over a few pints!!!)

I didn't make that mistake. Drinking too much for my first AG would have been catastrophic. Maybe next time!

Are you sure you used flaked barley? Not roast barley? 3 lbs of flaked barley would be an incredible amount. Plus, your Guinness clone would look like the palest pilsner.

82% sounds awesome considering you only hit 140*.

Sounds like a good day.

I think I need to add Guinness Clone to my line of upcoming beer.

I too just did my first AG batch today. 5 Gallons of American Wheat are in the fermenter. I too was a little low on my strike water / mash in. 3 degrees below the recipe. I only lost one degree on the 60 minutes though. My sparge water was right on, and my final OG was nuts with the recipe. Tastes great already, and I can't wait to crack one open in May / June.

I'd like to thank everyone here on these boards, even though I didn't ask any questions, I sure did a lot of reading and research here.

pkeeler said:

Are you sure you used flaked barley? Not roast barley? 3 lbs of flaked barley would be an incredible amount. Plus, your Guinness clone would look like the palest pilsner.

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It was 3 lbs flaked barley - and I forgot there was a pound of roasted barley in there too (I'm at work without the recipe in front of me). I'll edit that in my post above.

BigJason said:

I too just did my first AG batch today. 5 Gallons of American Wheat are in the fermenter. I too was a little low on my strike water / mash in. 3 degrees below the recipe. I only lost one degree on the 60 minutes though. My sparge water was right on, and my final OG was nuts with the recipe.

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I wish I'd have been that close after mashing in. I think I lost a lot more than that in the 60 min mash too. I quickly measured the temp before sparging and think it was around 148F or so. My 10 gallon round cooler MLT sure was making a lot of cracking and popping noises after I poured the strike water in. Anyone else who uses a 10 gallon round cooler have that happen? Is that just delamination of all the insulation inside the cooler? If so, does that matter in how well it's insulating?

Frodo said:

I wish I'd have been that close after mashing in. I think I lost a lot more than that in the 60 min mash too. I quickly measured the temp before sparging and think it was around 148F or so. My 10 gallon round cooler MLT sure was making a lot of cracking and popping noises after I poured the strike water in. Anyone else who uses a 10 gallon round cooler have that happen? Is that just delamination of all the insulation inside the cooler? If so, does that matter in how well it's insulating?

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My efficiency was 80% on the nose, so we seem to be starting out well. I didn't have any crackling on my MT, but did on my HLT when I put 5 gallons of 180 degree water in it. My Ice Cube MT is probably close to 10 years old, and the HLT is brand new.