My First AG Brew

Did my first AG brew today and overall it went pretty well.
I brewed a Octoberfest/Marzen using a 14 lb. grain bill and my AG brew set up.

Success - hit my mash temp right on.
Failure - overreached on my sparge volume.

I used Brewsmith for the first time and I think I need to tweek it for my equipmentt a little further. I overreached my boil volume through the sparge by 2 gallons. So, I took the excess running's and used them to make 6 quarts of starter wort.

Here are pictures from my day:

My water filter set up from here.


Filling the HLT


My mash tun


My grains ready for the mash


Doing the Vourlauf


My running's after first sparge


My running's from second (batch) sparge


I will post more pics about my beer and my grain bill later.

Thanks for all the great information I have gotten from all of you here on this great board.

Congrats! Nice setup.

Me too, BIAB Belgian wit.
Hit all my temps, but my boil off rate was a little faster than I expected and I ended up short about 3/4 of a gallon. OG was 1.048 with a 5G target of 1.044.

Way to go! Congrats
Jim

ScoRas said:

Congrats! Nice setup.

Me too, BIAB Belgian wit.
Hit all my temps, but my boil off rate was a little faster than I expected and I ended up short about 3/4 of a gallon. OG was 1.048 with a 5G target of 1.044.

Click to expand...

When I first used my rig I boiled off huge volumes with a 10" 250,000 btu banjo burner. After a few uses I realized a boil is a boil and turned the flame down a bit. Volumes have been much more consistant.

Good luck, and congrats.

Bump for OP's great pics.

Congrats looks like it was a good day!