The wife and I made our first run at AG today using Using NB's Jamil's Evil Twin recipe
Picked up an HLT and MLT from POISLB off this board earlier this week at what I consider a ridiculously good price. He even crafted me a custom sparge head using CPVC, and threw in 5 packs of hard to find hops! Thanks Bob.
Check out the photos of ou new rig in action. If you're looking for something similar, get in touch with Poislb, he loves building this stuff and even guarantees is not to leak.
Wyeast 1056, 1300ml starter at 24 hrs
Grain bill:
10# English Maris Otter
1# German Munich malt
.75 Briess caramel 40l
.375 Briess Victory
.375 Briess caramel 120l
.25 Fawcett Pale Chocolate
Started with 4.14 gallons of strike water which I heated to 167 based on the strike water calculator here: http://www.brewheads.com/strike.php
My recipe calls for a 60 minute rest at 152, which I missed by 2F at 154F. I'm categorizing that as a win. I preheated my tun with 1.5 gal of boiling water before starting, which is what I attribute the slightly high temperature to.
Wasn't too sure how much sparge water to use so I went with 4.86 gal. My brew kettle is only 8 gal, so I didn't see the since in any more. I actually had about 1.8 gal of sparge water left when we shut it down.
I made the mistake of transferring my sparge water a little early and ended up sparging at close to 161, not sure what affect that will have. I also wasn't sure when to start sparging and the total process lasted about 40 minutes to get up to 6.5 gal of wort. OG of my wort before boiling came in at 1.054. Based on some advise I received from a reliable source, I didn't worry about mashing out.
One thing that surprised me was the amount of grain hulls that made it into the wort. I recirc'd till the wort ran clear, but this small material continued throughout the sparge. Is this normal, or did I do something wrong? Once in my BK I strained through with a metal strainer and captured most of these particles. Chilled from a boil down to 65F in 25 minutes. looking forward to receiving my new plate chiller to speed this up.
OG=1.070 vs a recipe target of 1.064
Pitched at 68F
The one thing I did not do is decant the starter, I just threw in the entire 1100 ml of wort and yeast. I'm again not sure, is there a risk to doing it this way?
All in all a great brew day. No major problems, albeit gravity came out a little high. Any guidance you can provide on why would be greatly appreciated.
Can someone tell me what efficiency we hit?
Thanks.
Picked up an HLT and MLT from POISLB off this board earlier this week at what I consider a ridiculously good price. He even crafted me a custom sparge head using CPVC, and threw in 5 packs of hard to find hops! Thanks Bob.
Check out the photos of ou new rig in action. If you're looking for something similar, get in touch with Poislb, he loves building this stuff and even guarantees is not to leak.
Wyeast 1056, 1300ml starter at 24 hrs
Grain bill:
10# English Maris Otter
1# German Munich malt
.75 Briess caramel 40l
.375 Briess Victory
.375 Briess caramel 120l
.25 Fawcett Pale Chocolate
Started with 4.14 gallons of strike water which I heated to 167 based on the strike water calculator here: http://www.brewheads.com/strike.php
My recipe calls for a 60 minute rest at 152, which I missed by 2F at 154F. I'm categorizing that as a win. I preheated my tun with 1.5 gal of boiling water before starting, which is what I attribute the slightly high temperature to.
Wasn't too sure how much sparge water to use so I went with 4.86 gal. My brew kettle is only 8 gal, so I didn't see the since in any more. I actually had about 1.8 gal of sparge water left when we shut it down.
I made the mistake of transferring my sparge water a little early and ended up sparging at close to 161, not sure what affect that will have. I also wasn't sure when to start sparging and the total process lasted about 40 minutes to get up to 6.5 gal of wort. OG of my wort before boiling came in at 1.054. Based on some advise I received from a reliable source, I didn't worry about mashing out.
One thing that surprised me was the amount of grain hulls that made it into the wort. I recirc'd till the wort ran clear, but this small material continued throughout the sparge. Is this normal, or did I do something wrong? Once in my BK I strained through with a metal strainer and captured most of these particles. Chilled from a boil down to 65F in 25 minutes. looking forward to receiving my new plate chiller to speed this up.
OG=1.070 vs a recipe target of 1.064
Pitched at 68F
The one thing I did not do is decant the starter, I just threw in the entire 1100 ml of wort and yeast. I'm again not sure, is there a risk to doing it this way?
All in all a great brew day. No major problems, albeit gravity came out a little high. Any guidance you can provide on why would be greatly appreciated.
Can someone tell me what efficiency we hit?
Thanks.
