Hasso
Member
So, today was my first all grain, and about everything possible that could go wrong, did. I'm looking for some advise, and some feedback.
First, my background - I've been brewing extract brews for about 18 months, and so far, have had no major incidents other than one boil over (not bad, beer was still good) and one incident where I learned not to substitute table sugar for corn sugar, even reducing the amount.
That said, I've wanted to get into all grain, but my first attempt appears to have faltered - badly. I was using an all grain adaptation of "Rocky Raccoon's Crystal Honey Lager" (Papazian's 3rd ed., p. 210) This typically calls for:
3.5 lb extra light DME
2.5 lbs clover honey
3 oz. cascade hops (1.5 boiling, .5 finishing)
American Lager Yeast
Bottling sugar
Based on what I've read, I substituted 5.5 lbs of grain for the DME, splitting it among the following:
3lbs Pilsner Malt
2lbs Light Crystal Malt - 20 Lov.
0.5 lbs Dark Crystal Malt - 120 Lov.
and kept the honey and other ingredients constant.
For equipment I used the same (underpowered) propane burner and pot I always use, a fry thermometer, a 10 gal. water cooler with a false bottom and ball valve, (the two being connected by plastic tubing). Weather conditions were clear, and approx 38 deg., F. All of the ingredients began indoors, at approx. 68 f.
Based on the strike water calculators I found, I began with 8.25 quarts of strike water, which I intended to heat to 149 for an initial temperature of 140, which I intended to rest at for 20 minutes, then tweak it up to 158 and hold it for 40 minutes. I intended to mash in the brew pot, and then lauter it through the drinking cooler.
What happened was that I wound up heating it to 150, and then after adding the grain it wound up being about 145f. Assuming this to be close enough (or even recommended, depending on the sources), I held it there for 20 minutes, and then turned the burner back on; this is where things began to go massively wrong - within about 5 minutes, the fry thermometer appeared to read 160 - a little higher than I wanted - I shut down the heat and gave it a good stir, and re-took the temperature - 190. Assuming this was a bad thing, I kept the lid off and stirred like crazy for 10 minutes to get it to dump heat - 38 degree weather is helpful for this - I got it to 160 at the end of that period of about 10-12 minutes.
I decided I may as well push through, and then attempted to put it into the cooler - unfortunately, I could get hardly anything to flow - stuck sparge. I tried suction and blowing at the end of the tubing I had attached to the output of the ball valve, but got nowhere - Knowing that time was running rapidly out, I tried adding the sparge water on top of the initial mixture, which worked to force the first 2 gallons or so out, but then also stalled. I wound up having to pour the whole mess through a large collander; at this point, it was too late in the day to do the boil, due to my hose based immersion chiller and the impending sub-freezing temperatures tonight (frozen pipes are a bad thing...), I dropped it into the kettle, slapped the lid on, and presently have it in the garage. It is sitting at about 4.5 gallons and a SG of 1.10 -- note - the honey has not yet been added.
My questions are this:
A) How many different things should I change the next time I try this, and
B) Should I try to boil this, or call it a 5.5 lb learning experience, and hit the brew shop on Monday to replace the grains and try this again next weekend (assuming it doesn't rain)?
First, my background - I've been brewing extract brews for about 18 months, and so far, have had no major incidents other than one boil over (not bad, beer was still good) and one incident where I learned not to substitute table sugar for corn sugar, even reducing the amount.
That said, I've wanted to get into all grain, but my first attempt appears to have faltered - badly. I was using an all grain adaptation of "Rocky Raccoon's Crystal Honey Lager" (Papazian's 3rd ed., p. 210) This typically calls for:
3.5 lb extra light DME
2.5 lbs clover honey
3 oz. cascade hops (1.5 boiling, .5 finishing)
American Lager Yeast
Bottling sugar
Based on what I've read, I substituted 5.5 lbs of grain for the DME, splitting it among the following:
3lbs Pilsner Malt
2lbs Light Crystal Malt - 20 Lov.
0.5 lbs Dark Crystal Malt - 120 Lov.
and kept the honey and other ingredients constant.
For equipment I used the same (underpowered) propane burner and pot I always use, a fry thermometer, a 10 gal. water cooler with a false bottom and ball valve, (the two being connected by plastic tubing). Weather conditions were clear, and approx 38 deg., F. All of the ingredients began indoors, at approx. 68 f.
Based on the strike water calculators I found, I began with 8.25 quarts of strike water, which I intended to heat to 149 for an initial temperature of 140, which I intended to rest at for 20 minutes, then tweak it up to 158 and hold it for 40 minutes. I intended to mash in the brew pot, and then lauter it through the drinking cooler.
What happened was that I wound up heating it to 150, and then after adding the grain it wound up being about 145f. Assuming this to be close enough (or even recommended, depending on the sources), I held it there for 20 minutes, and then turned the burner back on; this is where things began to go massively wrong - within about 5 minutes, the fry thermometer appeared to read 160 - a little higher than I wanted - I shut down the heat and gave it a good stir, and re-took the temperature - 190. Assuming this was a bad thing, I kept the lid off and stirred like crazy for 10 minutes to get it to dump heat - 38 degree weather is helpful for this - I got it to 160 at the end of that period of about 10-12 minutes.
I decided I may as well push through, and then attempted to put it into the cooler - unfortunately, I could get hardly anything to flow - stuck sparge. I tried suction and blowing at the end of the tubing I had attached to the output of the ball valve, but got nowhere - Knowing that time was running rapidly out, I tried adding the sparge water on top of the initial mixture, which worked to force the first 2 gallons or so out, but then also stalled. I wound up having to pour the whole mess through a large collander; at this point, it was too late in the day to do the boil, due to my hose based immersion chiller and the impending sub-freezing temperatures tonight (frozen pipes are a bad thing...), I dropped it into the kettle, slapped the lid on, and presently have it in the garage. It is sitting at about 4.5 gallons and a SG of 1.10 -- note - the honey has not yet been added.
My questions are this:
A) How many different things should I change the next time I try this, and
B) Should I try to boil this, or call it a 5.5 lb learning experience, and hit the brew shop on Monday to replace the grains and try this again next weekend (assuming it doesn't rain)?