1st AG brew: American in London ESB

Hey all, I am ready to embark on my first batch. I don't yet have a mill, so I had the grain purchased and crushed at my LHBS, Brooklyn Homebrew. They have some recipes there, so I purchased one called American in London ESB, in honor of my sister moving to London this month.

Here is the grain bill: 10lb Maris Otter, 8oz- C80, 4oz - Cara Pils, Hops: 1oz Palisades 60+min, .5oz Palisades 30min, .5oz Palisades 1 min. 1/2 Whirlfoc tab (last 10 mins) Yeast #1469 Yorkshire Ale

Mash Schedule: 156* 60 mins, 170* 10 mins.

Few questions. How long should I boil? 60 min? Also, should I sparge however I see fit? My setup is an electric HLT/BK, and insulated MLT. I am going to setup HERMS, but in a few weeks. I was thinking just doing a single batch sparge. Let me know if you guys have any thoughts. Here is a pic for a basic idea. Once setup I'll take some better pron pics.


Equipment: 13gal turkey fryer HLT, upside down Keg, chugger pump, camlock fittings, 40plate kegcowboy chiller, mazzei venturi aerator, Jaybird falsebottom, PID 5500watt controller (courtesy of previous owner Jon).

THANKS to all for help/inspiration.

John

Also props to Bobby Homebrew for taking care of my fittings/thermometer needs, Norcal Brewing for the very nice false bottom, 3 HBT listers whom I bought chiller/system/aerator. If everyone in the world acted like the homebrew community, the world would be a better place.

THE YEAST HATH BEEN SMACKETH!!! Just getting this rolling tonight, hopefully in a few hours I'll have some nice looking wort.

Ok here are last nights results for anyone interested. 1st off, that was a hell of a blast. After reading endless threads, books, blogs, crap, it felt great to finally get some grain wet. The good: I believe I have about 5 gals of wort at target OG of 1.059 that is bubbling away quite nicely. The bad, definitely forgot some steps, vorlaufing, missed original mash temp target, some mild HSA when cooling, didn't get a great whirlpool so not much trub left behind, and just some general confusion. All and all, I rate it a rousing success. Here are some notes of things I've did wrong and will improve on.

A) Never had clear plan of how to dough in (temps, volume, etc.) I ended up using about 4 gals of water at 170*, resulting in mash temp of about 148-152. I started out with MLT not having an insulation on it, so lost some temp about 5-8 degrees. So me and brew buddy Matt, wrapped MLT in r30 insulation. Was a hack job but def. helped slow temp loss. We added 1 total gal more of water at about 180 to bring temp to a solid 150. Total mash time was about 70 mins. Drained 4 gals of wort that was about 1.062.

B) Never had a clear plan of how to sparge, so on the fly I decided to sparge with about 3 gallons of 212* water that brought grain up to 170*, held it there for about 20 mins. Drained that final 2 gals that started at 1.020 then we stopped when runnings hit 1.010.

So we started boiling a hair less then 6 gallons. That 5500w element really rips, so by end of boil, after correct hops/whirlfloc additions we were close to around 4 gals of wort, I decided to add about 1 gal of boiling water. Just seemed like the proper thing to do. We then cooled it by circulating through keg cowboy 40plate chiller, using 80* ground water, hotter then I thought. It took about 20 mins of circulating to reach around 80*. Gravity of 5 gal was about 1.059. Using mazzai aerator tube I had setup, we aerated into clean/sanitized better bottle, pitched fully expanded yeast packet, and hooked up blowoff. Pitching temp was about 75*. The cellar is about 68-72*.

All told, I started at 730, and I was done (not including cleanup) by 12. I def. wasn't organized, and was confused, but all told everything seems ok. Next brew I will have a clear plan of what I am going to do, and I will not fly by the seat of my pants. I will brush up on beersmith and let that guide me. According to Brewers Friend I got these gravities; Efficiency 1.081 - max, Brew House Efficiency - 72.84%. The jaybird false bottom was great, mash tube from Bobby was great, no complaints. Will let HBT know how beer turns out.

Way to make it happen Jersey boy! No worries on the HSA and the trub...sounds like you made proper adjustments on the fly. Hella nice equipment for a first timer! I'd suggest a batch sparge...measure first runnings and add sparge water to make pre boil volume. Ex.: first runnings are 3.5 gal and you need 6.5 gal pre boil...thusly sparge w/ 6.5 - 3 = 3.5 gal sparge KISS.

Thanks for input and suggestions. Yes the equipment is nice, I am a engineer from college, and have been working as a chef for past 5 years so I just wanted to brew simply and elegantly, but with homage to commercial practices. I lucked out and won a NCAA pool, so used that money to seed original HLT/PID controller from past HBT lister who was moving out of hobby. The other stuff I have piece mealed together over the past 5 months. I figure I have about $1200 into everything, but most of it should hold value decently (camlocks, kegs, chillers, etc.). Once I get moving I hope to brew about 5bbls/year. Once I get a few runnings I hope to add a herms setup.

Also behind the primary you can see a few gals of Ed's apfelvien. Pretty damn clear after about 2-3 months.

Houston, we have made beer. Took my 1st gravity reading this morning, sucker is at 1.018. I have a hell of a hangover from last night so that sample was just the hair of the dog I needed. Pretty tasty, nice combo of hops and malt. I plan on taking another reading in 2 days, then probably rack it in 3 days. Any thoughts? Fun stuff.