1st All-Grain - Pale Ale

Took over the deck for my first all-grain brew. SWMBO documented the procedure.

Everything brewing related you'll see in these pictures I scored for $325 off some guy on Craigslist




Checking the temp of strike water


Various equipment - eventually going to mount the pump, filter, and chiller on my brewstand, but want to rebuild it first. It's a bit gigantic as it is.


Vorlaufing


First runnings


Spent grains - lottt of uncrushed grains in that thing, no good.


The boil - man this burner is sooo much better than my old stovetop


Bittered with Cluster, late additions of Amarillo and Centennial. Nom Nom.


Charlie wanted to help.

And it's happily bubbling away now!

Looks good. I also use paper plates to organize my hops additions. It looks like you had things pretty much under control. What was your recipe, if you don't mind sharing?

For the most part - I tried to read up like crazy before making the plunge. Only things that were off were my grain crush, my strike temps were off but I fixed it before the dough-in, and had some issues with the March pump at the start. But all in all a good day.

Recipe:
9lb 8oz lbs 2-row
12oz Crystal 60
8oz Carapils

Mashed at 152 for 60 min. Batch sparge.

Hops:
1oz Cluster at 60
.5oz Amarillo at 15
.5oz Centennial at 15
.5oz Amarillo at 5
.5oz Centennial at 5
1oz Centennial at flameout
Will probably dryhop with an oz of Amarillo as well.

OG 1.051 at 65% efficiency.
Fermented with S-05

That's awesome. Mind sharing a list of what all $325 scored you? Did I see a Blichmann???

From Craigslist said:

10 gal. Blichmann Boilermaker
CampChef burner
Propane tank
Water Filter
2- 10 gal. Coolers
Brew stand
All hoses
2- 6 ½ Gal. glass carboys
3- 5 Gal. glass carboys
Bottles
Bench capper
Shirron wort plate chiller
March Pump
Misc. Equipment
Airlocks
All ingredients I have left

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And by all ingredients, he meant over 50 lbs of uncrushed grain and 2 lbs of hops. I was freaking out

Wow... I'm totally jealous. That is a sweet find. I'll be anxious to see what you do with it all. Happy brewing!

One small bit of advice: don't use the carboy handle. Even on an empty carboy it puts a lot of strain on the neck of the carboy and can lead to a very ugly accident. I keep my carboys in milk crates. they offer good support and an easy way to carry them and move them around.

I brew a few different Pales (Crystal-based APA, Victory/Munich APA, and Rye APA) that are around 1.044 and I dry hop all of them with 2oz Amarillo.

I would recommend 2 oz of Amarillo, it turns out wonderful.

Eric

I used an ounce of Amarillo, as it was all I had on hand. Bottling this up sometime next week, hoping for the best!

Welp, I committed every sin in the book in the process of trying to bottle this last night. Complete $#!*storm. If this doesn't wind up infected, I think I'll stop sanitizing at all.

Congrats on your 1st all grain brew!!

Awesome deal!

Wow...Great CL score. FWIW, the picture of Charlie was my favorite.

Thanks guys. I'm battling an off taste right now that's showing up in all my beers, so I haven't brewed in a while. It's got me in a funk.

New equipment; fight through it!

HokieBrewer said:

Thanks guys. I'm battling an off taste right now that's showing up in all my beers, so I haven't brewed in a while. It's got me in a funk.

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Dido on the fight through it. Read this and registered to inspire some motivation.

The setup itself looks fine. Your techniques look on par far as I can tell. So probably on the cold/fermentation side. Double down on sanitation.

1) Ditch the plate chiller! Buy or make and an immersion chiller and gravity feed from kettle to carboy. 99% sure that's your problem. Use the pump for moving hot wort but not cold.

2) Replace any plastic beer transfer lines/racking canes used anytime after the boil. Replace any plastic bucket fermenters. If any stains or scratches throw away or use for something else. Screw making starters or anything unnecessary like that for your next batch of beer.

Then use bleach (1-2 oz per 5 gallons) and cool water mixture as a pre-sanitizer on anything that touches your cooled wort or fermented beer. 5 minute soak. Rinse the bleach mix off thoroughly then use non-rinse sanitzer. Use the bleach water to sanitize equipment before putting away. Make sure to take apart any fittings easily able to do so and clean well -- such as corny kegs. Kegs are fine to clean with that concentration bleach ever so often -- so long as short contact time and rinsed.

That will at least tell you if it is a sanitation problem. Bleach or I should say chlorine is about the best sanitizer around. That's why it is in our water supplies we drink. Has strong residual sanitizing effects and is harmless in such low concentrations such as after being rinsed.

Homebrew stores don't sell it because there is no money in it. Way too cheap. They emphasize the negative effects if used improperly --> hard on stainless and equipment if mixed in heavy concentration and left to sit too long. However, it simply has no equal to sanitize -- especially when trying to root out a infection problem.

A little time cleaning and re-investment in older replaceable equipment and you'll be right back in action!

I'll take a no-rinse sanitizer (star-san) any day over something that needs to be rinsed. Why add the extra step and extra chance for contamination?

Eric

EricCSU said:

I'll take a no-rinse sanitizer (star-san) any day over something that needs to be rinsed. Why add the extra step and extra chance for contamination?

Eric

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b/c he likely has an infection somewhere and his normal routine isn't working. Although likely the plate chiller is the culprit IME (clog those once and they can be totally plague brews thereafter) why not make sure everything is clean?

The bleach is an additional step of cleansing/sanitation. Acid based star-san is no where near the disinfectant/cleanser as chlorine is and is this application of routing out a persistent infection with a strong disinfectant is appropriate.

I would go so far to say as occasional homebrewers who pack away plastic tubing and parts for months at a time SHOULD use a bleach solution before the putting the equipment away. The residual disinfectant properties of chlorine (even after rinsing) will save them from having to throw away their stuff.

Here, he bought used stuff -- from a brewer who got out of the hobby... My money is on the fact that stuff was put away without much care moons ago before he purchased it...

so what kind of off taste is this?

The offtaste makes my Vienna northern brewer smash taste like a pretty darn good Belgian Blonde.

Well... keep the bug as a pet and brew Belgians or exterminate as described before.

Don't know if you can (if the chiller can take it that is) but maybe try boiling the crap out of the plate chiller... maybe while circulating cleanser through it while near boiling...

You might be able to get away with using the chiller then... Problem is you never know if those things get clean. Maybe just make boiling it a routine.