Did my first all grain and have some questions.

I asked recently about high mash temps, in another member's thread, but still had some other questions about my first all grain. I didn't want to thread jack that person's topic, so just thought about doing a new one here (thanks to those who answered and gave advice, much appreciated).

I did the BIAB approach using my Bayou Classic 10 gal pot with bag and steaming basket. The brew was a Fat Tire clone.

I used a calculator app on my phone and after putting in the info, it came up with 159F strike water to do a 152F mash temp. I did this, but when I poured in my grains, stirred, then check the temp, I got 156. Oh, brother!:smack:

I stirred for 10 minutes and the temp dropped to 153. I put the lid on and covered with a thick blanket, and set my timer for 60 minutes. I noticed the temp dropped one degree over 35 minutes. I don't know if you are supposed to constantly stir through out the mash, or just the first few minutes and then leave it for 60. I got to reading and saw where some suggested stirring, so which one is it? Stir through out the entire time, or just to smooth out any dough balls and leave covered for 60?

After I mashed out (170 for 10 minutes), I took a 2 quart pitcher and just filled it up about 3 times and dump it back into the kettle. I don't know if this is the proper way to vourlaf, or if that's really needed, but I done it anyways. My wort still looked a bit cloudy. This was having the basket of grains sitting on an oven rack above my kettle when I done this.

After that, I took a gravity reading and got 1.040. I also had 6.5 gallons in my kettle. Since this was pre-boil, I dumped the sample back in and fired up the burner and did my hop schedule. I took another reading of the wort after I cooled it down and got 1.042. This was with 5.5 gallons of wort instead of 5. Should I have boiled off the half gallon, or is this ok? This clone was from NB, so is it a fair assumption that the OG should match up with the extract version? The extract version shows an OG of 1.052, so I'm worried I screwed the pooch on mine.

Apparently, I'm losing a gallon instead of the 1.5 gallons I previously thought. Now that I know, would it be better to boil down first, then do the hop schedule? Or is it better to just boil a bit longer after my hops have been added?

Sorry for the long thread. A huge thanks in advance.

I stir for a few minutes to make sure there is no clumps and make sure I am at the temp I want,put the lid on my cooler and walk away(I do leave a temp probe so I can monitor and adjust if needed), I would not boil any longer,once you know your boil off rate you can use that to determine pre boil volume.A lot of people shoot for 5.5 gallons for a 5 gallon batch to account for loss due to trub.

I don't do BIAB, but instead use a cooler MLT. I thought the purpose of Brew in a Bag was to remove the need to lauter/vorlauf to remove the wort from the grains--just lift the bag out of the kettle and you have clean wort. Anyways, ...

I stir until there are no clumps and then cover and forget for the hour.

The vorlauf sets the grain bed and removes loose matter that made it through the screen so that you don't boil chunks of grain and husk that will give off tannin. The wort will still be cloudy at this stage.

As for your low gravity reading, I don't know what happened. Even boiling off the other half would not have pushed you to where you wanted to be. You didn't get the efficiency you wanted, but that could be caused by an assortment of factors--often the way the grain was ground does a lot of it.

You didn't screw it up though. You will just have a lower alcohol and (with the temperature issues) perhaps a bit more unfermentable sugars giving you more full mouthfeel than you were shooting for. Also, the lower gravity will allow more utilization of your hops so the bitterness will probably be a bit higher. It should still be very drinkable. I've seldom seen an truly screwed up homebrew. Missing the style or the gravity are part of the fun of learning to brew better beer.

I done a red ale the next day and had a different experience than with the Fat Tire clone. I goofed and didn't get enough strike water for my grains. Because the grain bill was 2.5 lbs more, my mash was pretty thick. Really thick. The only thing I can think of is I didn't account for the dead space between the bottom of the basket and the bottom of my kettle.

I'd like to take another shot with another brew, so does this look right for my math?:

Total Volume = preboil+mash volume+"dead space" (between the basket and kettle).

One other thing. When I mash out, I kept getting some pretty crazy temp swings. Is this due to my mash being too thick? Do I measure the temps by the grains, or the wort? I kept stirring as I was bringing the temp up to 170, but with all the crazy readings I got (many above 170), I just said screw it. After about 10 minutes of stirring, I pulled the grains and preceded with my hop schedule when I reached boiling.