axoll

Recipes 

this is how It went with my first AG. please tell me what i did good and what I did bad... I am using a 5 gallon gatorade cooler
1. I used 3.5 gal of water for 11 lbs.
2. after 1 hour I sparged with 5 gal of water @ 185. Was i supposed to stir the grains before sparging or not? cuz i didnt. I used a plastic measuring cup to pour the hot water on top of a coffee lid i put inside the cooler, there was about an inch of water on top of the grains thru out the sparge process . took me about 30 min to finish. while sparging i had the keg on top of the burner heating, not on high since I didnt want it to start boiling before I was finished sparging. after I was all finished I ended up with 6 gallons of wort in my fermenter (I only wanted 5) probably used too much sparge water? ...I tasted the last of the sparge water and I could still taste a little bit of sugar not much.
if you guys can give me some advise ....

WBC

Recipes 

You did quite well considering you were doing this on the fly.
Beersmith will calculate everything and you will not have to guess. I hope you were able to cool your wort quickly. Try to keep it fermenting in the lower end of the yeast's fermentation range for 2 weeks if possible. Lower is better for clean tasting beer. A hydrometer is needed to determine the sugar content in the wort. A brix meter works for this too but is more money.

__________________
Cheers,
WBC

Fermentor 1: Bill's House Ale II, Fermentor 2: German Helles, Fermentor 3: Bill's Schworzbier (Black Bier)
Tap 1: Bill's House Ale II, Tap 2: German Hefewizen, Tap 3: Nut Brown Ale
Future Brews: Stone IPA Clone, Blonde Ale, Budvar Clone, Newcastle Clone
New toy: Blichmann 27 gallon fermentor

“If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging”

“Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment”