First All Grain

Doing my first all grain and coming to a boil right now. Not sure what to expect just did this as an experiment to see what would come of it.

here's the recipe.

10 pouds muntons 2 row pale
1 pound muntons crystal 2 row 50L
1 pound Breiss Victory 2 row 25L

1.25 oz Kent Goldings 1 hour
.75 oz Kent Goldings 45 min
.5 oz German Hallertau 15 min
.5 oz German Hallertau for 3 min
And irish moss for clarity

White Labs East Coast Ale WLP008

And dry hopping with 1 oz U.S. Hallertau 4 days before bottling

What do you guys think?
I mashed with 4 gallons water and spaged with 5 gallons my boil volume is about 6.5 gallons reducing to 5
Does this sound good?

Cool recipe. It's like a bitter with a dry hop twist. I'm interested to how that wlp008 turns out too, I've never tried it. 6.5 gallons would boil down way below 5 for me but if it worked on your system- right on! Yeah for AG!

Still not down to 5 boiling away still now it is 2:28 am eastern time this is my first one so I must start earlier next time. LOL. I've used the wl008 before in a Boston Ale Clone brew but I didn't dry hop that. I should have it came very close to the boston ale clone but a little on the sweet side I think the dry hop would have help that. I was trying to go with an IPA kind of thing for this but I think my mash may have been a bit thin for that we'll see in about .5 hours when I do a hydro reading.

Out boiling at 2:30 in the morning.... You sound about as crazy as I am!!


Sounds like you are going to have a good brew there....

okay here I am 3:35 am yeast pitched boiling over my gravity is only 1.030 I need to get a better crush on my yeast I think. What say you oh wise forum?

1.030 OG sounds like you got a poor crush and your sparging (how did you sparge, batch or fly) went too fast causing channeling of the wort and bad extraction. That much malt should get you in the 1050 range.

I did a fly sparge. and I'm pretty sure it was a poor crush. The LHBS I get my stuff from usually crushes it for me but there mill had a busted roller, it's a small lil place and they didn't have a backup me being impatient as I am just tried to crack it myself and spent hours with a rolling pin crushing 12 pounds of grain 1 cup at a time. So this is going to my my light beer I guess. The sparge took about 30 minutes with 5 gallons of water. I had no sparge arm so I floated a tupperware container lid on the surface of the water. And let the water from the liquor tank flow out of that. I think this had to do with the grain crushing.

voodoochild7 said:

I did a fly sparge. and I'm pretty sure it was a poor crush. The LHBS I get my stuff from usually crushes it for me but there mill had a busted roller, it's a small lil place and they didn't have a backup me being impatient as I am just tried to crack it myself and spent hours with a rolling pin crushing 12 pounds of grain 1 cup at a time. So this is going to my my light beer I guess. The sparge took about 30 minutes with 5 gallons of water. I had no sparge arm so I floated a tupperware container lid on the surface of the water. And let the water from the liquor tank flow out of that. I think this had to do with the grain crushing.

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Absolutely. The roller pin method is fine for extract+ specialty grains recipes, but I've never gotten anything close to a consistent crush that way.

voodoochild7 said:

I did a fly sparge. and I'm pretty sure it was a poor crush. The LHBS I get my stuff from usually crushes it for me but there mill had a busted roller, it's a small lil place and they didn't have a backup me being impatient as I am just tried to crack it myself and spent hours with a rolling pin crushing 12 pounds of grain 1 cup at a time. So this is going to my my light beer I guess. The sparge took about 30 minutes with 5 gallons of water. I had no sparge arm so I floated a tupperware container lid on the surface of the water. And let the water from the liquor tank flow out of that. I think this had to do with the grain crushing.

Click to expand...

Does explains why you were up so late? That is nuts dude! Consider investing in a mill for the future. It will save you some money, and time.

I'm sure you made a really nice beer. You will certainly enjoy this beer on a hot summer day.

Kidding aside. Poorly crushed grains are one component that may contribute to an inefficient mash. There are also other factors involved such as your mash temperature, and your lauter, etc... From my personal experience when I was brewing 5 gallon batches it would take me anywhere from 30-45 minutes to sparge.

It is also possible that your wort did not enjoy a nice rolling boil. You should be able to account for 8-10% evaporation loss per hour. How many gallons did you end up with when you pitched?

While AG brewing is not hard, it can be challenging when you are initially dialing the variables for your lab. It may take you several batches until you finally hit your gravity. Heck, why not just shoot for a range within acceptable limits according to the style you are brewing?

While there are many factors to consider, I'll just toss in a couple to help you along the way. Others in this a forum I'm sure will contribute from their experiences as well.

When dialing in you lab consider:
Clean lab & sanitized equipment
adequately milled malt **Don't mill your malt in the same place you boil**
accurate strike temp
consistent/stable mash temp.
maintaining a boil that will reduce your volume to the desired amount wish to achieve within your boil parameters. I.E., 60 minutes, 90 minutes, etc....
ability to rapidly cool your wort (READ: Wort Chiller )

I'm sure there's other stuff Imissed/left out.

again, relax you probably made a really nice beer.

Thanks for the info. I did all of these. Wort was reduced from 6.5 gallons to 5 gallons. Mas temp was 159 at start and only dropped to about 156 I did add boiling water for the mash out. I'm fairly sure it was a bad crush. I did use a wort chiller from boiling down to 78 in 15 minutes. Now I'm just waiting for the ferment to start pitched the stuff at 3:30 am it has not yet been 12 hours and nothing so far. But sometimes it takes a good 18 hours for my white labs to start. Maybe longer I'm guessing with the low gravit.