my first brew ever..5 gal all grain.

I basically took a free recipe and slightly tweaked it based on a few articles and research. I will detail my recipe and steps below then ask advice:

Ingredients:
10lb 2-Row Malted Barley
4oz Chocolate Malt
6oz Roasted Oats
10oz 40L carmel
1/2oz cascade pellet hops
1/4oz milleniam pellet hops
1oz cascade hops

The mash:
-cracked and combined all grains and roasted oats in tun.
-added 2 gal water 170deg mash temp of 144deg
-ten min later added 2 more gal at 170 mash temp 146deg
-at 24min added 1 gal at 170 mash temp now 146deg
-vorluagh 1 gall
-drain 2 gall to kettle at 45 min
-add 2 gall at 170, mash temp of 145
-vorluagh 2 gallons (heated to 160 before pouring back in)
-at 80 min add 180 deg water
-full wort drain at 100minutes to kettle.
At this point I had an OG of 1.042 at 68 deg. I made the mistake of not measureing final volume so i have to clue...guess is about 6.5 gallons of wort. I lautered longer because I couldn't reach target temp of 154degrees.

The boil:
-It took 22 min to hot break
-start timer at 0...hop .5oz cascade 7.3%
-at 40 min hop .25oz milleniam 15.9%
-at 45 min hop 1oz cascade 7.3%
-at 50min insert clean wort chiller to boil
-at 60 min kill gas and chill.
-it took 15 min to reach 85 degrees

Carboy:
Used gravity and siphon starter to moved cooled wort, allowed adequate splash for aeration. Pitch 11.5g of american dry ale yeast. Placed in closet with ac vent at 75 degrees.
Yeast activated in 1 hour causing aggressive fermentation.

Now, my total volume target was supposed to be 5 gallons...I am at 3.75. Also, my luater temp never came about 148 degrees but I did sort of a batch/fly sparge for 1 hour 40 min.

Question - can I add the remaining water volume while transferring to secondary fermenter if I boil it first the cool it to match beer temp?

What your SG post-boil/into the fermenter? Usually if you boiled-off too much water, the best thing to do is add top-up water until your reach your desired OG... before you start fermenting.

My guess is that if after an hour boil you were down to 3.75 gal, then you probably did not run off enough wort into the kettle in the first place, certainly not 6.5 gallons.

Without knowing what your OG/FG is, it's hard to say what adding water now will do. It may make the beer too thin.

Its been in the pri for 24 hours.. too late to sample gravity?

Welcome to the forums and to brewing! I applaud you for jumping straight into AG.

Yes you can top off your fermenter if you boil and chill first. It will reduce the IBU's and SG. If you're a in a carboy during primary you will want to make a blow off assembly if there is not a lot of headspace = stopper and a hose or airlock + hose --> hose goes into a liquid filled vessel to function as a crude airlock. Allows yeast krausen to "blow off" instead of popping your airlock and making a HUGE, beer smelling mess wherever you are fermenting.

here's one of many examples
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/blow-off-tube-413335/

A few thoughts:
I think you will have greater success hitting your mash temps if you add the whole volume at one time for a single infusion. I think 5 gallons of water @ 170 would have little trouble heating mash to around 154 F depending on your tun but when you spread it out you then have to heat up the additional water which is now only 144 after your first addition so you may need to go higher than 170 if you mash in multiple additions.

I think batch sparging is great- it's fast and I still get 78-80% efficiency on a regular basis. If you can/ want to fly sparge that's awesome but you may not need to.

Also did you happen to take a post boil gravity reading?

Gah... got called AFK and by the time I finish posting someone has answered.

chevellejake said:

Its been in the pri for 24 hours.. too late to sample gravity?

Click to expand...

It's never too late to take a gravity reading. It will at least give you a ballpark.
If it's <1.050 it is going to end with fairly low abv. if you dilute it any more.

Normally I would say don't worry about gravity or topping up. Day 2 you don't need to worry about O2 and if the yeast has taken off I (personally) am less concerned with contamination during growth phase.

You'll have beer either way dude!

I had pulled a post boil sample but it spilled during cleanup. I will pull another sample and check it out.

I need to get a bigger pot for a hlt, it was too hard to acheive proper tempt 1-2 gallons at a time.

I just hope i get drinkable beer..

chevellejake said:

Pitch 11.5g of american dry ale yeast. Placed in closet with ac vent at 75 degrees.

Click to expand...

If it's S-05 you mean by american dry ale yeast then I think 60- 65 F would be a good temp for a clean beer. Anything over 70 and it gets kinda fruity but I haven't had it get gross (cloying) on me like the S-04 will.

As far as drinkability goes.... I am only a year and a half into this hobby (lifestyle) and my palate has changed considerably. I used to hate certain flavors that I now thoroughly enjoy in the right beer and I used to love certain beers that I now hate b/c all I can taste is 'off' flavors.

You will likely end up with (highly) drinkable beer if your sanitation was thorough.

Thanks for the feedback! How can I keep it between 60-65 degrees? Any tips?

There are two ways I know to reduce the temp on your fermenter involving cold water. The first is simply putting the fermenter in a tray/ pan to catch water and drape a towel over it that is soaked in cold water- refresh with cold water daily/ twice daily. Other is just putting the fermenter in a plastic trash can and filling that with cold water. then putting ice in it every day. I have never tried either (I ferment in a basement) but I would go route 2 if I did this.

edit: Don't forget to use your thermometer!

Phew! You need to get a bigger HLT. All that heating and adding to the mash...

In the future:
1) you need to work on getting the right amount of wort into you boil kettle to end up with the right volume post boil.
2) get you wort temperature down to the lower end of the yeasts range before pitching the yeast.
3) research "swamp cooler" for controlling the fermentation temperature.

I am not sure of the best way to top up and you really need to know the gravity so that you don't water down the beer too much. I would guess that the easiest way would be to wait until you reach final gravity, which should be too high, then dilute to the proper FG.

Thanks, Im looking at the swamp coolers now. I just left my volume alone... i figure too strong is better than contamination. Its a first batch ever anyway...thanks for all the help.