Hello everyone,
I have been a long time lurker and have learned a great deal from HBT. I finally was ready to share some experience, with the hopes of helping out (sorry for the long post).
Based on what I learned on HBT and youtube, I ordered AG equipment, made a brew plan (very important) and then tracked everything I could think of. Overall, my brew day went very well, with only a couple issues, that I don't think will affect the final product.
Yesterday I brewed my first AG batch of beer, a Pale Ale with the following recipe:
7-lbs British pale malt
0.5-lbs crystal 60L
0.5-lbs amber malt
0.5-lbs Munich malt
1-oz Northern Brewer for 60 minutes
0.5 oz Cascade for 30, 5 and 1 minutes
I will also dry hop some cascade in the secondary
5:48 - Woke up before alarm, excited to get going, I don't usually wake up this early, must mean I really like beer
6:00 Started heating 4.25 gallons for the mash (2 quarts per lb)
6:27 - Overshot temp slightly, let cool
6:40 - Prewarmed mash tun with hot water
7:00 - Dough-in (I did forget to add Ph stabilizer, doh)
7:04 - Mash temp = 155, target was 154. Little do I know that the temp had not fully settled, so I stir it for a minute or two with hopes of nailing it dead nuts (should have left well enough alone).
7:15 - Mash temp has fallen to 152
7:30 - Mash temp down to 151, I start heating up my sparge water another 4.25 gallons
7:45 - Mash temp holding at 151
8:00 - Mash temp down to 150
8:05 - Time to vorlauf (awesome word) temp at 149. Overall temperature loss of 3 - 4 degrees, because I don't think 154 was really a good measurement, I will certainly account for this in my next batch. I get a total of 2.8 gallons for my first runnings.
I add sparge water and lauter, done at 8:43
8:50 - I take a temp and gravity reading 142 degrees with a specific gravity (corrected) of 1.037 for approximately 7.3 gallons, it seemed like too much wort, but it all worked out in the end
9:22 - I finally achieve a boil and add the northern brewer hops
9:52 - Add first cascade hop addition
10:07 - Add irish moss
10:12 - Put in immersion chiller for sanitation, I did lose my boil for a couple minutes, so I added 5 minutes to the boil
10:17 - Add second cascade addition
10:27 - Last hop addition
10:28 - Kill gas, start water flow on immersion chiller
10:33 - Temp down to 150, 10:39 - Temp down to 122
10:46 - Wort racked to primary, 5.1 gallons @ 98 degrees OG of 1.042 (corrected)
10:57 - All done waiting to pitch yeast in the 70s
Total time = 5 hours
I am having some trouble figuring out my efficiency, I think it was about 67%, I tried a couple different calculators and got conflicting results. Any help on that would be helpful. Next time I will try to be a degree or two higher on the mash and add some more stirring to try to get up to 70%. I would also do less cleanup during the brew and do it all at the end (although that may not go over well here). I think next time I can cut about 30 minutes and add a couple points of efficiency. Already setup to brew again this coming weekend.
Thank you for everyone's advice,
Billy Ray Valentine
I have been a long time lurker and have learned a great deal from HBT. I finally was ready to share some experience, with the hopes of helping out (sorry for the long post).
Based on what I learned on HBT and youtube, I ordered AG equipment, made a brew plan (very important) and then tracked everything I could think of. Overall, my brew day went very well, with only a couple issues, that I don't think will affect the final product.
Yesterday I brewed my first AG batch of beer, a Pale Ale with the following recipe:
7-lbs British pale malt
0.5-lbs crystal 60L
0.5-lbs amber malt
0.5-lbs Munich malt
1-oz Northern Brewer for 60 minutes
0.5 oz Cascade for 30, 5 and 1 minutes
I will also dry hop some cascade in the secondary
5:48 - Woke up before alarm, excited to get going, I don't usually wake up this early, must mean I really like beer
6:00 Started heating 4.25 gallons for the mash (2 quarts per lb)
6:27 - Overshot temp slightly, let cool
6:40 - Prewarmed mash tun with hot water
7:00 - Dough-in (I did forget to add Ph stabilizer, doh)
7:04 - Mash temp = 155, target was 154. Little do I know that the temp had not fully settled, so I stir it for a minute or two with hopes of nailing it dead nuts (should have left well enough alone).
7:15 - Mash temp has fallen to 152
7:30 - Mash temp down to 151, I start heating up my sparge water another 4.25 gallons
7:45 - Mash temp holding at 151
8:00 - Mash temp down to 150
8:05 - Time to vorlauf (awesome word) temp at 149. Overall temperature loss of 3 - 4 degrees, because I don't think 154 was really a good measurement, I will certainly account for this in my next batch. I get a total of 2.8 gallons for my first runnings.
I add sparge water and lauter, done at 8:43
8:50 - I take a temp and gravity reading 142 degrees with a specific gravity (corrected) of 1.037 for approximately 7.3 gallons, it seemed like too much wort, but it all worked out in the end
9:22 - I finally achieve a boil and add the northern brewer hops
9:52 - Add first cascade hop addition
10:07 - Add irish moss
10:12 - Put in immersion chiller for sanitation, I did lose my boil for a couple minutes, so I added 5 minutes to the boil
10:17 - Add second cascade addition
10:27 - Last hop addition
10:28 - Kill gas, start water flow on immersion chiller
10:33 - Temp down to 150, 10:39 - Temp down to 122
10:46 - Wort racked to primary, 5.1 gallons @ 98 degrees OG of 1.042 (corrected)
10:57 - All done waiting to pitch yeast in the 70s
Total time = 5 hours
I am having some trouble figuring out my efficiency, I think it was about 67%, I tried a couple different calculators and got conflicting results. Any help on that would be helpful. Next time I will try to be a degree or two higher on the mash and add some more stirring to try to get up to 70%. I would also do less cleanup during the brew and do it all at the end (although that may not go over well here). I think next time I can cut about 30 minutes and add a couple points of efficiency. Already setup to brew again this coming weekend.
Thank you for everyone's advice,
Billy Ray Valentine