My First AG Batch - Here's My Process

Okay, I'm getting ready to do my first AG brew very soon. To prepare, I've read and re-read this site, John Palmer's book, HB for Dummies, watched the Basic Brewing video, and then wrote down my step-by-step process. Please give it a look, and let me know if I've missed anything obvious. Thanks!

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Equipment

Mash/Lauter Tun – I plan to use a round 10-gallon cooler with a ball valve and a stainless steel braid.

Large Brew Pot – I will be using a 10-gallon stainless steel pot to do my boils for 5-gallon batches.

Propane Burner

Chiller – I will be using an immersion chiller.

Water Volume

I want a boil volume of 7 gallons.

There will be .1 to .2 gallons water lost per lb. of grain, and I figure at least .5 gallons lost to dead space in the MLT. That means I need roughly 8.5 to 9 gallons of water to get to a target of 7 gallons for my boil, of which roughly 1.8 gallons will boil off, leaving me with 5.2 gallons once the boil is done.

Step-by Step All Grain Brewing

Mash - Infusion

• My target for my first AG batch is a mash temp of ~ 150°F.
• I will use 1 quart of water per pound of grain.
• I will use BeerSmith to determine my strike water temperature.

1. Preheat my MLT for 10 minutes
2. Empty the MLT, pour in strike water.
3. Check the temperature
4. Slowly add in the base malts then the specialty grains, stirring while adding to avoid dough balls
5. Check temperature again to see if I’m near (+- 2°F ) my target temperature.
6. If not, add cool or hot water to get to within +- 2°F of target.
7. If it is within my range, close the lid on the MLT and wait 60 minutes.
8. Check for conversion. -- *Okay, question; How do I know when the conversion is complete? How can I check this?*

Lautering – Vorlauf

1. Open the ball valve slowly, letting it run into glass container.
2. Watch for husks and material, closing the ball valve after about 3-4 cups has run out.
3. Return the liquid to the MLT, pouring along the side to avoid disturbing the grain bed.
4. Repeat 1-3 until you don’t see husks and other material in the hose.
5. Once clear, rack into your brew pot slowly.
6. Put the brew pot on the propane burner.

How to Determine the Volume of Sparge Water

• Calculate how much water you’ve put into the mash, then subtract .1 gallon per pound of grain

• Subtract whatever water will be left in the dead space of the bottom of the MLT
(~ .5 gallons)

• Subtract this number from volume you want to boil (7 gallons)

This will be your sparge volume.

Sparging – Batch

1. Heat my sparge water to 170°F.
2. Make sure the spigot is closed!
3. Pour in the sparge water. At this point, I am not worried about disturbing the grain bed, as I’m going to make a new one now.
4. Wait for things to settle.
5. Vorlauf again, until clear, same steps as before.
6. Rack to brew pot once clear.

From this point, proceed as I normally would with an extract batch.

By the way, here's the recipe I plan to use:

0.5 lb. US 60L crystal malt
8.75 lb. British 2-row pale malt
6 oz. US wheat malt
1.1 oz. Tettnanger (bittering)

.25 oz. Willamette (flavor)
.25 oz. Cascade (flavor)
1 tsp. Irish moss

Wyeast 1056 American ale yeast

3 oz. apricot beer flavoring in secondary

Mash 8.75 lb. British 2-row pale malt, 6 oz. US wheat malt, and .5 lb. US 60L crystal malt at 150*F for 60 minutes.

Add 5 HBU of Tettnanger for 60 minutes of the boil. Add the flavor hops and the Irish moss for the last 15 minutes of the boil.

Your process looks good. You've certainly done your homework!
To check for conversion (I rarely even bother with this anymore..) Get a clean white plate, and put a small amount of your mash on it. Put a drop of iodine (iodophor will work) on your mash sample. If there is still starch present, the drop of iodine will turn purple or black. if it's clear, you're good to go.

BTW, to save from having to do all the calculations in the future, consider investing in some brewing software. It makes your AG life nice and simple. Good luck!

Your mash temp of 150 is pretty low. It will result in a dry beer. Is that what you are looking for?

Good luck. First time is always a bit nerve racking, but like most stuff, it gets better with each session.

I've got BrewSmith, bur for the first one, I want to understand the process behind the magic that the software does for you. Yeah, I'm that guy...

And to the question of how dry the beer will be, my understanding was that your mash can range from 140°F (Beta - More fermentable sugars) to 158°F (Alpha - Less fermentable sugars), so for the first batch, 150° was a good target. This is a clone recipe for Magic Hat #9, which is an American ale with a touch of apricot flavor. The extract recipe is very good, so I'd like to stay in that ballpark. Should I increase my temp to a higher number, say, 156°F?

Just a few suggestions for what it's worth.

On the MLT preheating. It's a lot easier to heat your strike water 10f hotter than your calculated strike temp. Close the cooler down for 5 minutes, open and stir. Check for temp and if it's still above strike target, stir with the lid open until you reach it. This ensures the cooler has taken all the heat that it will. The bonus is that you're not juggling two volumes of water.

1qt/lb is a little bit thick on the mash. 1.25 would be a little easier for a first shot.

The most foolproof way of knowing exactly how much sparge water you'll need is to measure your runnings and subtract that from your desired preboil volume. It's really easy if you have a graduated ale pail. If not, you can calibrate one with a sharpie marker line at each half gallon.

Finally, the sparge water temp should be closer to 180F.

Sounds easy enough! So, once my first runnings are ready to go to the brew pot, rack them to a graduated ale pale, then just subtract that from my target of 7 gallons. BrewSmith is suggesting 6.34 gallons, but I think 7 is closer to reality, what do you think?

It's really hard to guess at it the first time. You may have measured a deadspace with water that acts differently when the grain is in there. After a few runs you'll know exactly what your absorption and effective dead space is......and then you'll convert to some other MLT and have to learn it over again.

Well, I'll go with 7 gallons and then adjust next time, I guess it's better to be over than under. Thanks for all the help. I think I'm ready to do my first AG, I'm looking forward to brew day!

great summary! I will refer to this when I start my first AG batch

I have nearly the same setup.

I would trust Brewsmith 100% on their water volume calculations. In my experience they are always spot on, especially since they have the 10 gallon round cooler built in to the software.

However, my biggest mistake in trusting BS was using their sparge water temperature (it comes pre-set at 168). This caused me to get 55-60% efficiency. I would heat the sparge water to 190. That will get your efficiency up into the 80s.

I would also use some 5.2 just to be on the safe side, unless you've already done some water analysis research.

Also, after you get your wort into the kettle and get it stirred up, take a hydrometer reading so you can get your efficiency going into the kettle.

Bobby_M said:

Just a few suggestions for what it's worth.

On the MLT preheating. It's a lot easier to heat your strike water 10f hotter than your calculated strike temp. Close the cooler down for 5 minutes, open and stir. Check for temp and if it's still above strike target, stir with the lid open until you reach it. This ensures the cooler has taken all the heat that it will. The bonus is that you're not juggling two volumes of water.

1qt/lb is a little bit thick on the mash. 1.25 would be a little easier for a first shot.

The most foolproof way of knowing exactly how much sparge water you'll need is to measure your runnings and subtract that from your desired preboil volume. It's really easy if you have a graduated ale pail. If not, you can calibrate one with a sharpie marker line at each half gallon.

Finally, the sparge water temp should be closer to 180F.

Click to expand...

Dangit Bobby! You did it again..... Took my answer!
I have to learn to type faster.....

8. Check for conversion. -- *Okay, question; How do I know when the conversion is complete? How can I check this?*

Iodine test. Mix some iodine with your mash water; purple means starch black means sugar.

Eskimo Spy said:

*Okay, question; How do I know when the conversion is complete? How can I check this?*

Click to expand...

Some people do an iodine test, but I find it so easy to screw up I consider it worthless. Just mash for 60 min. at a temp. between 148 and 160 and you'll have conversion.

Eskimo Spy said:

Water Volume

I want a boil volume of 7 gallons.

There will be .1 to .2 gallons water lost per lb. of grain

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.1 to .2 is a very wide range. It will be much closer to .1 I always assume 1 pint water per lb grain because it keeps the math simple.

Eskimo Spy said:

Mash - Infusion

• My target for my first AG batch is a mash temp of ~ 150°F.
• I will use 1 quart of water per pound of grain.
• I will use BeerSmith to determine my strike water temperature.

Click to expand...

That looks good to me.
You could go for a mash temp a little bit higher (say 152), but 150 is fine for an English malt
1 qt per lb is traditional for English Ales, keeps the math nice and simple, and will give a maltier profile than 1.25. It will be slightly more difficult to stir than a thinner mash, but only very slightly.

Eskimo Spy said:

Sparging – Batch

1. Heat my sparge water to 170°F.
2. Make sure the spigot is closed!
3. Pour in the sparge water. At this point, I am not worried about disturbing the grain bed, as I’m going to make a new one now.
4. Wait for things to settle.
5. Vorlauf again, until clear, same steps as before.
6. Rack to brew pot once clear.

From this point, proceed as I normally would with an extract batch.

Click to expand...

I would heat the sparge water hotter than 170. I'd start with 180 - 185, as when you add this to your grains (which are going to be below 150) you want to get the grain bed up to 165 - 170.
I would also only use 1/2 the sparge water for the first sparge, then after step 6, you would repeat steps 1 - 6 with the 2nd half of the sparge water. This should increase your efficiency.
Add step 3a. Stir well to dissolve the sugars in the sparge water.

Very well thought out process.

-a.