Fisrt all ag brew - a strange success?

**Jsmith82** · 05-02-2011, 02:34 PM

I'm hoping for a couple replys and some critiques.. What did I do wrong and where did I get lucky, or did I actually do this right

?

Having done 2 partial mashes in the past 2 weeks and not hitting the correct gravity for either, I decided to up the home equipment and stop trying to "get by" with with my previous methods. Following Flyguy's instructions, I converted a 5 gallon igloo cooler into a mash tun last week, then went out the following day and bought myself a grain mill (2 of the best investments I feel I have made so far with this hobby). The beer I brewed prior to this I ordered everything online, but also grabbed 8 ounces of glacier hops on a suggestion from one of the guys at the local brew shop stating a pale ale he brewed last year was quote "the best pale he had ever made, completely brewed with glacier". That being said and after a little research, I had a recipe thrown together and was ready to roll...

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Glacier Pale Ale (5gal)

OG Est: 1.054
FG Est: 1.014
SRM: 6.2
IBU: 36
ABV: 5.3%

8lbs Pale 2-row US
1lbs Vienna
1lbs Crystal 20L

Mash @ 60 min @ 153F / 12.5 quarts of water

60 min full wort boil:
1.0oz Glacier @ 60
0.5oz Glacier @ 30
0.5oz Glacier @ 15
1 tsp Irish Moss @ 15
1.0oz Glacier @ 5

Wyeast American Ale II #1272

Dry Hop 1oz Glacier
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Play by play...

Milling the grain:
I assembled my mill and by hand, cranked out manually my 10lb grain bill (broke a sweat!). I noticed though my grain looked different, consistency wise, from the crushed grain of my local brew shop, theirs being crushed and broken but not very fine, mine being crushed to the point it looked like coarse ground pepper, maybe a little bigger. This mill GROUND that grain up! I'm hoping there isn't such a thing as over-milling and this is just what you get when you invest into proper equipment.

The Mash and Sparge:
I first took my massive grain bag and put it into the mash tun wrapping the excess around the sides. Using Beersmith suggested amounts, I brought 12.5qts of water up to 165 degrees F, then quickly dumped it into the cooler, then slowly poured in the crushed grain while SWMBO stirred for me avoiding clumps. Once in, I tossed in the floater thermometer and slapped the lid on. I checked temp about 5 minutes later, 148 degrees. Quickly brought up 2 quarts of water to barely a boil, then mixed it into the tun and tossed the lid back on again. Temp check 15 minutes later (20min into the mash), 152F, works for me! With 40 minutes left, I opened the tun 2 other times to stir. Temp at 0 minutes: 151F (Thank you Flyguy!)

I still only have 2 4gal pots for my boils so I knew going into this I would have to split the boil. At about 20 minutes left in the mash, I brought up the rest of my water to exactly 170 degrees (started this endeavor with 7 gallons of distilled water), the timing worked out great. After draining the initial wort into pot 1, I closed the spigot then poured in the 170 degree water from pot 2 into the mash tun. After pot 1 was at 3 gallons, I pulled it to the stove and put the now empty pot 2 under the spigot and let her rip. At this point, I was getting stuck frequently (guessing because the grain was so finely crushed). A lift of the bag and a swirl moving the hose in the tun around got it moving. Squeezed the hell out of the bag and got all I could from the mash. This left me with about 6 gallons dispersed across 2 4gal pots.

The Boil:
Was a standard boil, nothing odd about it. The only minor issue was one pot started boiling before the other, so I cut a pot short by about 9 minutes. I split the hops down the middle and followed the original schedule for each pot.

Cooling and Pitching:
Took about 30 minutes for me to get both pots down in the 80 degree range, not used to 2 pots in my 2 bay sink, I normally swap ice baths out :P At this point I went ahead and filter / funneled the wort into my fermentation bucket and took my OG reading...

Ready for this... 1.054! 5 gallons exactly! Right on the money! I have yet, extract or partial mash, hit a gravity perfectly. I'm always short a couple or in one case, a little heavier.

Aerated, pitched my yeast, popped the cap on and to the brew closet it went!

This was brewed Friday night, yeast pitched around 1 in the morning, and as of 12pm Saturday, it was bubbling away. Sunday morning the CO2 lock wouldn't even sit down it was going so hard. This morning around 7am, it was down to a bubble every 10 seconds or so, guessing them yeasties had a vigorous 2 day party therefore are now winding down a little early.

There you have it, my first all ag brew and a "strange success". I'm curious from your reading through my topic, what would you suggest I change or what do you think I could do to be a little more safely accurate? Nailing the OG feels great to me but I can't help feeling I got lucky, you know what I mean? Thanks for all comments and suggestions, and as always thanks for a great site like this to learn from.

HokieBrewer · 05-02-2011, 02:45 PM

Sounds like it went well. Congrats! To help with temp stabilization next time, heat your strike water about 10 degrees hotter and pour in your MLT. The cooler will absorb some heat and when the water cools to 165, you're ready to add your malt.

All grain is fun huh?

broadbill · 05-02-2011, 02:51 PM

Nothing really wrong as far as I can see...nice job on your first AG!

I was a little confused by the mash setup though....so you had a modified cooler (sry...don't know what flyguy's set up is exactly) but also used a bag? Also, did you vorlauf?

You shouldn't have had a stuck sparge based on what your grainbill, so something else is going on...I would guess a too fine of a crush (yes, you can overmill your grain...and it will cause a stuck sparge!).

Also, did you only use distilled water? Keep in mind you You do need SOME minerals in your water.

Otherwise, looks good.

**Jsmith82** · 05-02-2011, 03:15 PM

Thanks Hokie, good advise on taking a couple extra degrees into consideration, I'll definitely overshoot a bit next batch.

Here you are Broadbill, pictures of my cooler:

I basically took the slack out of my grain bag and folded it around the sides of the cooler, I thought since it fit it would be another way to help filter out the grain from the wort, also allowing me to squeeze it at the very end of the sparge.

I did not vorlauf, actually this would be my first time hearing it which is my own fault for not researching more. Hopefully since that process filters and cleans the wort, the irish moss and yeast will do a good job for me since I did not do it.

Good to know there is "over milling", fine milled grain did slip the bag so that would be the cause of my stuck sparge. I'll adjust my mill accordingly next time.

Lastly, I did use only distilled water (this being normal for me). What are your suggestions to introduce some minerals into everything, maybe 6 gallons distilled and 1 gallon spring?

Thanks for the suggestions

broadbill · 05-02-2011, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jsmith82

Thanks Hokie, good advise on taking a couple extra degrees into consideration, I'll definitely overshoot a bit next batch.

Here you are Broadbill, pictures of my cooler:

I basically took the slack out of my grain bag and folded it around the sides of the cooler, I thought since it fit it would be another way to help filter out the grain from the wort, also allowing me to squeeze it at the very end of the sparge.

I did not vorlauf, actually this would be my first time hearing it which is my own fault for not researching more. Hopefully since that process filters and cleans the wort, the irish moss and yeast will do a good job for me since I did not do it.

Good to know there is "over milling", fine milled grain did slip the bag so that would be the cause of my stuck sparge. I'll adjust my mill accordingly next time.

Lastly, I did use only distilled water (this being normal for me). What are your suggestions to introduce some minerals into everything, maybe 6 gallons distilled and 1 gallon spring?

Thanks for the suggestions

+1 to Hokie's suggestion....its much easier to cool down a mash by stirring or adding water (tiny amounts at a time!), then to scramble and add boiling water to bring it up in temp.

The way you have your cooler set-up, no bag is necessary. I also wonder if would have still had a stuck sparge had you mashed without the bag (maybe there was some interaction between the bag and the cooler?). As for vorlaufing, I don't think you have to do it for BIAB (or you can't do it, actually).

Frankly, you spent the money and took the time to build a cooler MT. I'd suggest getting rid of the bag.

As for over-milling, pictures of your crush would help.

**Jsmith82** · 05-02-2011, 05:36 PM

Okay, good to know, I'll go bagless for the next brew. As for pictures of the crushed grain, I didn't snap one off and I'm kicking myself in the butt for it, it's the only part of the night I didn't snap a picture of. I can tell you though the grain crush was easily comparable to coarse ground black pepper. I too thought the bag sitting on the mesh hose may have caused some of the stuck points during the sparge but even after lifting the bag up high enough to slip a hand and spoon underneath, the clog wouldn't release until I stirred the hose around.

All evidence seems to be leading toward to fine of a crush so I'll adjust accordingly and be sure to get pictures next time. DOH'!

Do appreciate the advice!

broadbill · 05-02-2011, 06:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jsmith82

Okay, good to know, I'll go bagless for the next brew. As for pictures of the crushed grain, I didn't snap one off and I'm kicking myself in the butt for it, it's the only part of the night I didn't snap a picture of. I can tell you though the grain crush was easily comparable to coarse ground black pepper. I too thought the bag sitting on the mesh hose may have caused some of the stuck points during the sparge but even after lifting the bag up high enough to slip a hand and spoon underneath, the clog wouldn't release until I stirred the hose around.

All evidence seems to be leading toward to fine of a crush so I'll adjust accordingly and be sure to get pictures next time. DOH'!

Do appreciate the advice!

If it really like coarse ground black pepper then I would say it was way too fine. You want cracked, but mostly intact husks and chunks of starchy endosperm (white stuff) in the mix. A good investment would be maybe 3-4 lbs of 2 grain to play with....crush some, adjust your mill, crush some more, then compare (or compare to a pound of grain crushed at your lhbs).

good luck!

**JuanMoore** · 05-02-2011, 07:45 PM

First, congrats on your first all grain brew day, which sounds like it went rather smoothly (certainly more smoothly than mine). The other risk with crushing the grain too fine is tannin extraction from the shredded husks. Distilled water is fine for extract brewing because the mash was already performed with water that contained the proper mineral content. For all grain you either need to keep using distilled and add some minerals to it, or find out what your water profile is and go from there. "Spring water" is usually just local water that has been filtered and bottled, and the mineral content is hard to guess because it varies greatly depending on location. I suggest reading the water chemistry chapter of "How to Brew" to gain a better understanding of the mash. http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15.html

The spreadsheet in this thread is also a good resource for water chemistry adjustments.

broadbill · 05-02-2011, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JuanMoore

First, congrats on your first all grain brew day, which sounds like it went rather smoothly (certainly more smoothly than mine). The other risk with crushing the grain too fine is tannin extraction from the shredded husks. Distilled water is fine for extract brewing because the mash was already performed with water that contained the proper mineral content. For all grain you either need to keep using distilled and add some minerals to it, or find out what your water profile is and go from there. "Spring water" is usually just local water that has been filtered and bottled, and the mineral content is hard to guess because it varies greatly depending on location. I suggest reading the water chemistry chapter of "How to Brew" to gain a better understanding of the mash. http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter15.html

The spreadsheet in this thread is also a good resource for water chemistry adjustments.

The other option is to use your tap water and not worry about it.

**Jsmith82** · 05-16-2011, 07:38 PM

Chiming back in to this topic after all of the advice, I brewed last night, a 2 gallon Glacier Oak Imperial RyePA recipe I put together. It was a 6lbs grain bill with an added pound of dextrose just before pitching the yeast (7lbs total). My target OG was 1.092-1.095 at 65% predicted efficiency (high gravity, I was definitely not overestimating). I hit 2 gallons exactly into the bucket, OG of 1.105!! (75%) I didn't use the bag this time, it worked perfectly though the bolt at the end of my hose fell out when trashing the grain, I'm 99% sure I through it away haha.. ah well, should probably grab a couple next time I'm at the hardware store, I'm guessing this is going to happen often.

I eased up the pressure on my mill and didn't "dust" the grain this time, just tried to crack it down to about 1/2 - 1/3 the size of a normal piece of grain. This gravity blew my mind, I'm still a little shocked it was such an efficient mash given the mad science recipe put together. That airlock was moving within 2 hours of pitching and when I looked this morning?? There is a full on war against sugar going on in that bucket.

Thanks for the grain advice, I followed it and it has returned extremely good results.

Great efficiency and no stuck sparge. Win Win.