Crappy homebrewers first AG attempt, please help!

The plan is BIAB on the stove...

This is the recipe im gonna try:

Mutilated1 Coldwater 420.
Malts:
7 1/2 Pounds - Pale Malt American 2-row, ( 1.036 - 2L ) - 65.2%
1 1/2 Pounds - Light Munich Malt ( 1.033 - 10L ) - 13%
1 1/2 Pounds - Vienna Malt ( 1.035 - 4L ) - 13%
1/2 Pound - CaraAroma ( 1.036 - 25L ) - 4.3%
1/2 Pounds - Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt ( 1.033 2-L ) # .5 - 4.3%

Hops:
1 ounce Cascade ( 5.75% Alpha ) @ 60 minutes
1.5 ounce Cascade ( 5.75% Alpha ) @ 30 minutes
.5 ounce Cascade ( 5.75% Alpha ) @ 5 minutes

Yeast:
Fermentis Safale US-05

Heat 3.5-4 gallons of water to 165F, or hot enough to bring the mash to 153F. Mash at 153F for 80 minutes, then drain. Sparge with 4.5-5 gallons of water at 170F, to collect 7.5-8 gallons of wort.

Bring wort to a rolling boil and add the hops according to the schedule.

Chill wort to 70F and pitch 1 envelope US-05.

Do I need to have that big wort for the boil? What would happen if I only have like 3-4 gallons of wort for the boil and then add cold water afterwards to make 5 gallons...

oh yeah, the recipe is for f gallons

Have you tested your stoves ability to boil a large amount of water?
EDIT: How big of a pot are you planning on using?

Yes you can do higher gravity boils then dilute with all grain brewing (similar to extract). I have no idea how small of a volume you would want to do this with. IMO I would not want to have to top up with more than 1 gallon.

You might want to use a brewing program to help with hop utilization with the higher gravity boil.

Another option is to make a 2.5-3 gallon batch and still use a 5 or 6 gallon fermenter.

fuzzy2133 said:

Have you tested your stoves ability to boil a large amount of water?
EDIT: How big of a pot are you planning on using?

Yes you can do higher gravity boils then dilute with all grain brewing (similar to extract). I have no idea how small of a volume you would want to do this with. IMO I would not want to have to top up with more than 1 gallon.

You might want to use a brewing program to help with hop utilization with the higher gravity boil.

Another option is to make a 2.5-3 gallon batch and still use a 5 or 6 gallon fermenter.

Click to expand...

I have a 6.3 gallon pot.
The main reason that i want to brew smaller wort and then add water is for cooling purposes before yeast. I have nowhere to cool the big pot...
How about 4 gallons of water. Some will vaporize during the boil and then fill up with cold water to make 5 gallons?

I have no problem to boil 5 gallons of wort. Did that the last time i brewed. But cooling took many hours...

Speaking to Yooper about this a while back, volume effects total IBU's. In a 5 gallon post boil volume your looking at a maximum 50 IBU's or something similar. Partial boils have an even greater constraint that can't be made up for with bigger hop additions.

rockdemon said:

I have nowhere to cool the big pot...

Click to expand...

How about outside? Lots of people some to do a "no cool",

Take a look

http://www.brewersfriend.com/2009/06/06/australian-no-chill-brewing-technique-tested/

Queequeg said:

How about outside? Lots of people some to do a "no cool",

Take a look

http://www.brewersfriend.com/2009/06/06/australian-no-chill-brewing-technique-tested/

Click to expand...

The problem is that its between 20-30 f at night and 40-50 f during daytime. Its not cold enough for a fast cooldown and at night the wort will freeze...

The last wort took i dont know, maybe 5 hours or more to cool outside... I was up til 3 am waiting... on a worknight

Then seal up, leave it inside and do a "no cool". Pitch 24 hours later.

or

buy/make a counterflow chiller. Plates chillers might be a fussy to clean and expensive but that do cool hot wort fast, even faster if you feed them from a cold liquor tank

Queequeg said:

Speaking to Yooper about this a while back, volume effects total IBU's. In a 5 gallon post boil volume your looking at a maximum 50 IBU's or something similar. Partial boils have an even greater constraint that can't be made up for with bigger hop additions.

Click to expand...

Im not really following. Probably my english that fails me.
Is it that the liquid only can reach a certain IBU?

Queequeg said:

Then seal up, leave it inside and do a "no cool". Pitch 24 hours later.

or

buy/make a counterflow chiller. Plates chillers might be a fussy to clean and expensive but that do cool hot wort fast, even faster if you feed them from a cold liquor tank

Click to expand...

Sure thats no problem really but still it seems like alot of people cool their wort with cold water or even ice and i havent fully understood the reason why this is bad...

Eventually Ill probably buy a wortcooler but for now Ive spent 600$ and have 0 beers to drink and all this stuff takes alot of space( i live in a three room apartment)

Chill wort to 70F and pitch 1 envelope US-05.

Click to expand...

70 is a bit hot for US-05, 65 would be better for a cleaner brew

all the best

S_M

There are a few reasons to cool quickly

1) Convenience
2) a good cold break which increases clarity of the final beer
3) lowers chance of infection
4) reduces the retention/formation of the compund DMS

If you pratice good sanitation and swirl the hot wort inside the container you can eliminate the risk of 3. Many people seem to have no problem with 4, but to be on the safe side steer away from lager malts.

Your beer might end up more cloudy doing no chill.

Yes homebrewing does take up a lot of space

Just re-read you post. Reduce boil volume reduces the total amount of IBU's you can have, so you can't make really bitter beers. That's about it.

I just did my first AG on my electric stove we ran into a couple issues, one being our pot was too small for the boil after the mashing. As long as you nail your protein and sacch rest temps (I did a protein rest, you don't have to) the rest is pretty easy. We didn't have a wort chiller and nowheres near enough ice so our cooldown was like an hour, but our fermentation is clean and happy!

Queequeg said:

There are a few reasons to cool quickly

1) Convenience
2) a good cold break which increases clarity of the final beer
3) lowers chance of infection
4) reduces the retention/formation of the compund DMS

If you pratice good sanitation and swirl the hot wort inside the container you can eliminate the risk of 3. Many people seem to have no problem with 4, but to be on the safe side steer away from lager malts.

Your beer might end up more cloudy doing no chill.

Yes homebrewing does take up a lot of space

Just re-read you post. Reduce boil volume reduces the total amount of IBU's you can have, so you can't make really bitter beers. That's about it.

Click to expand...

Im not aiming for a superhoppy beer so abit lower ibu is no prob for me...

Is pale ale malt a lager malt? Thats what i got for the brew

I boil 4 gals on the stove, but I also have an upgraded large burner. It could boil more, but my 5 gal pot can't support more as I need a little boil over room. I've been meaning to look at 7-8 gal aluminum pots.

I make 6 gal partial mash brews and use my LME as partial top off, along with chilled filtered tap water.

My 5 gal pot barely fits into my sink, and using cold tap water 3 times, and chilled tap water with 3 ice trays of ice twice cools my beer down into the low 70's high 60's within 30 mins.

Plugged some numbers into the program I use. And created a brew profile using a 4 gallon boil and 2 gallon top up in fermenter.

Good news is your pot will hold all the grain and water for a 4 gal boil. (about 4.75 gallons in the mash no sparge water added)

These are all estimates since I had to assume some variables like boil off (0.75gal per hour) and mash efficiency (72%).
OG 1.060
FG 1.016
IBU 38.4
Color 11.6
ABV 5.8

fuzzy2133 said:

Plugged some numbers into the program I use. And created a brew profile using a 4 gallon boil and 2 gallon top up in fermenter.

Good news is your pot will hold all the grain and water for a 4 gal boil. (about 4.75 gallons in the mash no sparge water added)

These are all estimates since I had to assume some variables like boil off (0.75gal per hour) and mash efficiency (72%).
OG 1.060
FG 1.016
IBU 38.4
Color 11.6
ABV 5.8

Click to expand...

Cool! i was just wondering about how much water i could use in the pot. thanks!

rockdemon said:

Is pale ale malt a lager malt? Thats what i got for the brew

Click to expand...

Pale malt is kilned at higher temperatures, will give a bit more malt flavor and color.

rockdemon said:

Sure thats no problem really but still it seems like alot of people cool their wort with cold water or even ice and i havent fully understood the reason why this is bad...

Eventually Ill probably buy a wortcooler but for now Ive spent 600$ and have 0 beers to drink and all this stuff takes alot of space( i live in a three room apartment)

Click to expand...

Its easy to spend someone else's money but a wort chiller was one of the best things I've done so far. I built an immersion-type chiller. Cooling the wort is now about a 15 minute process.

Why the other ways are bad is contoversial. Some report no problems putting things in their beer to cool it, others cite greater risk of beer infection.

I sometimes use both a wort chiller and boiled, chilled top off water to get low pitching temp. Most of the time the wort chiller is adequate but sometimes a little extra help is necessary.

Crap! I forgot to order Vienna malt. can i use any of the following instead?
* biscuit malt
* maris otter pale ale malt
* abbey malt

I understand that i cant get the clone that i want without the right malt but which of these are most similar?

How about Munich?

On MOreBeer's site it states that Vienna isn't quite as pronounced as Munich so maybe you could reduce the amount a little and get close?

I've only barely gotten into partial mashes and can't help well enough.

Found Abbey there, which says it's even more intense than Munich.

Reread your recipe.

Since you are using Munich I'd say take a chance on the biscuit or Maris Otter.

I definitely wouldn't use biscuit as a base malt. Marris Otter would be much closer to Vienna.

As far as the IBU thing earlier, the idea is that the liquid becomes saturated somewhere around 100 IBU. So, if you're doing a partial boil and top off 50/50 wort to water, your max IBU of the diluted solution will be around 50 IBU. Obviously not a problem unless you're trying to make some hop monster.

gr8shandini said:

I definitely wouldn't use biscuit as a base malt. Marris Otter would be much closer to Vienna.

As far as the IBU thing earlier, the idea is that the liquid becomes saturated somewhere around 100 IBU. So, if you're doing a partial boil and top off 50/50 wort to water, your max IBU of the diluted solution will be around 50 IBU. Obviously not a problem unless you're trying to make some hop monster.

Click to expand...

Im planning to boil around 75% of the finar volume, and then add boiling water to keep it around 75%(15 Liters). And then add the last 25% cold water before fermentation and also pu frozen water bottles in the wort to cool it... this could work, right?

7 1/2 Pounds - Pale Malt American 2-row, ( 1.036 - 2L ) - 65.2%
1 1/2 Pounds - Light Munich Malt ( 1.033 - 10L ) - 13%
1 1/2 Pounds - Vienna Malt ( 1.035 - 4L ) - 13%
1/2 Pound - CaraAroma ( 1.036 - 25L ) - 4.3%
1/2 Pounds - Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt ( 1.033 2-L ) # .5 - 4.3%


The author says that the caraAroma wasnt necessary so i changed it to:

8 1/2 Pounds - Pale Malt American 2-row, ( 1.036 - 2L ) - 65.2%
1 1/2 Pounds - Light Munich Malt ( 1.033 - 10L ) - 13%
1 1/2 Pounds - Vienna Malt ( 1.035 - 4L ) - 13%
1/2 Pounds - Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt ( 1.033 2-L ) # .5 - 4.3%


He's efficiency is like 80% and im doing my first AG and also BIAB so my efficiency is probably way much lower so I added 1 pound of pale ale malt..

Can i change the 1 1/2 pounds of vienna to 1 1/2 pounds of maris otter? like this

8 1/2 Pounds - Pale Malt American 2-row, ( 1.036 - 2L ) - 65.2%
1 1/2 Pounds - Light Munich Malt ( 1.033 - 10L ) - 13%
1 1/2 Pounds - Maris Otter P-A Malt ( 1.035 - 4L ) - 13%
1/2 Pounds - Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt ( 1.033 2-L ) # .5 - 4.3%

I'm not sure why you'd want to add boiling water as part of the top-off. Without a wort chiller, I'd want all of my top off water as cold as possible.

Since they're both about 4L, I would think a 1 for 1 swap of MO for Vienna would be just fine.

There's probably nothing wrong with the recipe you came up with, but for future use, the right way to scale a recipe for efficiency is to keep the ratios of each grain the same and change the total amount rather than just adding more 2-row. That's why you'll see a lot of recipes formatted like:

2-Row 85%
Crystal 60L 6%
etc.

Also, I forgot what size pot you said you have, but 12 lbs grain plus the strike water takes up some room. You may want to use the "can I mash it?" calculator on this page:

http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

You can change your mash ratio a little if you need to save some space, but I wouldn't go below 1 qt/lb.

gr8shandini said:

I'm not sure why you'd want to add boiling water as part of the top-off. Without a wort chiller, I'd want all of my top off water as cold as possible.

Since they're both about 4L, I would think a 1 for 1 swap of MO for Vienna would be just fine.

There's probably nothing wrong with the recipe you came up with, but for future use, the right way to scale a recipe for efficiency is to keep the ratios of each grain the same and change the total amount rather than just adding more 2-row. That's why you'll see a lot of recipes formatted like:

2-Row 85%
Crystal 60L 6%
etc.

Also, I forgot what size pot you said you have, but 12 lbs grain plus the strike water takes up some room. You may want to use the "can I mash it?" calculator on this page:

http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

You can change your mash ratio a little if you need to save some space, but I wouldn't go below 1 qt/lb.

Click to expand...

No the warm water was ment for the boil. i have a 5.5 galon pot so i cannot do like the recipe said and have 7.5 gallons of water for the boil so my plan was to add boiling water to keep the wort from getting dry due to vaporization...

anyhow, it turned out fine, my efficiency was horrible(51%) but it was my first all grain and first BIAB. I think I learned alot(didnt mill the grains enough, sloppy sparging and mash temp went from 67C to 63C in 80 min).

I made a smaller batch, added 3 liters top of cold water, think its like 4 gallons instead of 5 now..