First AG attempt underway...

Just mashed in at 164 and read 152 after a good stir of everything. Cover is on, the hour wait begins...

What's brewing?

Excellent!!!......(rubbing hands together).....another apprentice hooked! Hopefully you are enjoying a brew while you wait! Keep us posted and if you run into issues or questions,..,,,,we are here....I myself am brewing today as well....

I'm just brewing a pretty basic APA.

6lbs of Pilsner
1lb of Munich
.5lb of crystal 40

Going to hop it with cascade & Citra.

Just following Beersmith.

Enjoying a Troegs Pale Ale. I really appreciate that. This board is awesome. Great people and beer, who could ask for more?!

Me too bro. First AG in process. Making a Schneider Weiss clone recipe. A lot of water though. Not sure about all this water.

Can't go wrong with cascade and citra. I love the citrusy hops. I brewed an APA a couple weeks ago with Centennial, Cascade and Mt. Hood. It's The Bitter End recipe from Two Brothers Brewing. Interesting grain bill. And with wyeast 1332, it's awesome.

Hope it turns out. Welcome!

By the way this is only a 3 gal batch. That's why only 7.5 lbs of grain

Yep, lots of water. I brew 4gal. batches. At the start of the boil I have 5.5 gal. You need that much to get all the sugar off the grain.

Good Luck to all of you!

PJoyce85 said:

What's brewing?

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OP mentioned nothing about "brewing"

GrogNerd said:

OP mentioned nothing about "brewing"

Click to expand...

What?

PJoyce85 said:

What?

Click to expand...

"what's brewing?"

is that I'm an idiot... I see now that you were asking what he was brewing, not, what I originally thought was "what is this 'brewing' you speak of?"

honestly, I've only had 1

Haha. Are you sure just 1?

It's late where I live and thought I was missing something.

Catfish, how's the "brewing" going?

Catfish1320 said:

By the way this is only a 3 gal batch. That's why only 7.5 lbs of grain

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I'm getting set up for my first brew day tomorrow as well. 3 gallon batch that will hopefully turn out to be a strong pale ale or mild American IPA. I'm also using about 7.5 lbs of grain. How many gallons did you put for Batch Size in BeerSmith? 3.0 or more (to account for trub/bottling losses)?

PJoyce85 said:

Haha. Are you sure just 1?

It's late where I live and thought I was missing something.

Catfish, how's the "brewing" going?

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only 1, of my AIPAs and I think, for now, that's it for now

3pm here, how "late" is it where you live?

It's 9:20pm here. I say"late" because I have to wake up pretty early for work and I am usually in bed by this time during the week.

For the BeerSmith question. Set up your equipment profile. It will ask about trub loss and such and will automatically calculate the water for you.

Everything going good. Sparge water is ready. Im 50 mins in, and last I checked I only dropped 1 deg. Im going to batch sparge in 2 steps. 1 gal and 2.5 gal. I do have on question. Do I have to drain real slow batch sparging like I would if fly sparging?

Catfish1320 said:

Everything going good. Sparge water is ready. Im 50 mins in, and last I checked I only dropped 1 deg. Im going to batch sparge in 2 steps. 1 gal and 2.5 gal. I do have on question. Do I have to drain real slow batch sparging like I would if fly sparging?

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No you don't have to but you don't want to drain too fast as you might compact the grain bed too much and get a stuck sparge. Usually not a problem with batch sparging, but can happen.

Thank you

Enjoying a Troegs Pale Ale. I really appreciate that. This board is awesome. Great people and beer, who could ask for more?!

Click to expand...

I love Troegs.....rode up to the Brewery last year on the Harley for a tour....and they have a huge Bar in there with food....awesome.

Anyway, make sure you vorlauf to set grain bed also......also you can put a muslin bag on end of hose to help filter runoff....I do that myself....

I have vorlaufed each time so far. I have sparged it once and just stirred in another 2.5 gals and letting it sit for vorlauf.

I want to make that trip on bike I ride a C-50T, I can see your face now. But hey, y heels are up...lol. I want a Harley, but Im afraid Id have to sell the drag car to do it.

Have you tried the Nugget Nectar yet?

Came up a bit short on wort collected after second sparge. I heated extra water so I am going to sparge once more. Im using a FB, probably the dead space?

I moved to morgantown a few months ago and the craft beer selection is not so great . I'm heading to D's in Pittsburgh and I'm hoping they have some nugget nectar. One of my favorite beers. Cheers and happy brewing

According to the efficiency calculator on Brewers friend, I hit 81% efficiency, can that be right? I put in the grains and amounts and the wort collected, and the pre-boil gravity, and its saying 81.1%. I was hoping for 70% first shot, if thats correct, Im pretty happy.

Good job. 81% is very possible and a great efficiency.

Yea I could not be happier with this first attempt. Everything went really smooth and my post boil OG was 1.061, which was higher then the 1.059 that Beersmith had as my target. If the beer turns out as good as the process went, it's going to be a great APA. Thanks for the help.

Make sure to get some pictures up of the first pour!!

Do you have to use a hosting sight to post pictures here? Id like to be able to do that.

I don't think so. I do everything from my phone and can upload the pictures straight to the reply.

Example. This is my set up

Thats a bad ass set up. Electric is the way to go in my opinion. Not that I can get there anytime too soon, but that is awesome.

Thanks!

I ordered a few fittings so I can mount the pump to the frame. I only mash with electricity and still boil with propane. All of the fuses in my house are 16A and I don't feel like messing with them to boil. I brewed inside because it was so cold (with a huge thanks to my fiancé who let me take up the kitchen for 6 hours). When I brew outside, I have another 8 gallon pot that I heat my sparge water in and move it to the mash with a pump. I don't fly sparge but don't like lifting heavy pots with water.

If you are into APA's, I have an awesome recipe that I just kegged today.

Love APAs. Right now I have Troegs Pale Ale near the top. Actually I have Troegs brewery near the top. Just a real consistent brewery in my oppinion. Would love to see the recipe. I will use Beersmith to convert it to 3.25 batch size. Thank god for Beersmith, great program.

I will give you the percentages and that should make it easier for you to convert to 3.25 gallons.

This is The Bitter End APA recipe that Two Brothers Brewing gave me.

79% 2-row
7% CaraHell
7% Crystal 10
3% Crystal 30
3% Melanoiden
1% Biscuit

Mash 152 for 60 minutes

75 minute boil

10 IBU Centennial for 75 min
6 IBU Centennial for 40 min
6 IBU Cascade for 30 min
5 IBU Centennial for 20 min
3 IBU Mt. Hood for 10 min
1 oz Cascade at flame out*

Dry hop with 1 oz of Cascade and Centennial*

* these are per 5 gallons so you will want to tone it back a bit.

SG: 1.060
FG: 1.014

I used Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale. Accentuates hops while keeping a nice malt background.

Fermented at 68° for 2 weeks. Transferred and dry hopped for 7 days.

Finished at 5.5% ABV

This will probably be the first beer I will make twice.