Making the All Grain jump

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dano1086

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I have decided to start my adventures in all grain brewing and have come for some advice on grain bill. I am brewing with a keggle and a bayou classic kb4 and will be building my MT this weekend (10 gal bev cooler style). until i get a 2nd pot my keggle will have to suffice as my HLT and my boil kettle.

My goal is a Session Pale Ale for the summer:

A Long Summers Session

8# Pale 2 Row
1# Carapils
.5# Rye

1oz Centennial @ 60
.5 oz Cascade @ 10
2oz Centennial Dry Hop

OG 1.048
IBUs 45ish

any suggestion? grain related stuff etc?
 
My only concern is that you will need another pot to use as the HLT. (I used my old boil pot for my HLT while I waited to find my third keg).

Here is why: Once your mash is done, you have to sparge (with about 5 gals I would guess with this batch) and that water goes slowly into your mashtun while you are slowly running the wort into your keggle. So you need somewhere to hold the sparge water and the wort.. hence 3 vessels.

Here is what my setup was like while I waited. For my third keg

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On second though, I think that the BIAB guys use two vessels, so maybe check on that. I fly sparge so basically always have needed 3 vessels (boil kettle, MT, and HLT.
 
Good point. That would work! Not sure why that didn't come to mind :drunk:
 
I would tweak the grain bill a bit by cutting back on the Carapils (you only really need .5 pound) and adding some caramel malt (.5 pound would do). I personally add both 40L and 80L to my pale ales.
 
I would tweak the grain bill a bit by cutting back on the Carapils (you only really need .5 pound) and adding some caramel malt (.5 pound would do). I personally add both 40L and 80L to my pale ales.

I just want to keep my SRM down. I am shooting for goldenish in color
 
I don't batch sparge, so take this with a grain of salt. I would just add sparge water that is at 168-170 degrees. This is what BeerSmith tells me to do if I put in batch sparge.

If you do a mash out to get the temp to 168 before hand, this makes perfect sense. If not, the temp of the grain bed will be slightly lower during the sparge, but I think that should be fine.

EDIT: By the way, I would recommend that you get yourself a copy of BeerSmith to help with all the temps and calculations. It is relatively cheap.
 
I don't batch sparge, so take this with a grain of salt. I would just add sparge water that is at 168-170 degrees. This is what BeerSmith tells me to do if I put in batch sparge.

If you do a mash out to get the temp to 168 before hand, this makes perfect sense. If not, the temp of the grain bed will be slightly lower during the sparge, but I think that should be fine.

EDIT: By the way, I would recommend that you get yourself a copy of BeerSmith to help with all the temps and calculations. It is relatively cheap.

Beersmith is a tool to help you brew. It is not brewing instructions. 168-170 is far too low a sparge temp for batch sparging.
 
Denny said:
Beersmith is a tool to help you brew. It is not brewing instructions. 168-170 is far too low a sparge temp for batch sparging.

Thanks Denny I have been following the beer smith recommendations also but will up the temps on my next batch sparge
Thanks !
 
Your sparge water should be above 170. It rinses the grains while not allowing more breakdown. The point is to get the wort at this point not continue starch conversion. This is why most people will raise their mash to 170 for mash out before boil.
 
Also I use ibrewmaster. It's an app for iPhone and I believe for android now. I've used lite versions of beersmith and others and get confused with the set up. The app is easier for me to use and it does all you need
 
Your sparge water should be above 170. It rinses the grains while not allowing more breakdown. The point is to get the wort at this point not continue starch conversion. This is why most people will raise their mash to 170 for mash out before boil.

All I can tell ya is that 185-190 has worked great for me for hundreds of batches.
 
That high of a temp stops the action of the enzymes, correct?

Not necessarily. That's the water temp. You need to get the grain over 170 for at least 20 min. to stop enzymes. 185-190 gets the grain bed up around 170, but I don't hold the temp that long.
 
Well it's Brew Day.

Here is my plan:

A Long Summers Session (Session APA)

OG 1.047-1.050
FG 1.012-1.014
IBU 45
ABV 4.8%

8# american 2-row
8oz carapils
8oz crystal 40L

Strike - 2.8gallons @170°
Mash - 60 min @ 154°
Batch Sparge- 4 gallons@ 180°

6.5 gallon per boil

1oz centennial @60
.5oz Simcoe @30
.5oz Simcoe @10
2oz Cascade dry hop 7-10days

Wyeast 1056
 
dano1086 said:
Well it's Brew Day.

Here is my plan:

A Long Summers Session (Session APA)

OG 1.047-1.050
FG 1.012-1.014
IBU 45
ABV 4.8%

8# american 2-row
8oz carapils
8oz crystal 40L

Strike - 2.8gallons @170°
Mash - 60 min @ 154°
Batch Sparge- 4 gallons@ 180°

6.5 gallon per boil

1oz centennial @60
.5oz Simcoe @30
.5oz Simcoe @10
2oz Cascade dry hop 7-10days

Wyeast 1056

That sounds very refreshing! A lot of hops for a summer brew should do the "heavy lifting" of the aroma in there... Good luck!
 
Wort is cooler and today has been a learning experience!

Missed mash temp by 6° under so I added 1gal of boiling water and hit 151- mashed for 1hour.

Sparge water wouldn't heat to 185 (running out of gas) so I sparged with 175 and hit my volumes pretty well. 6.3 gal preboil vs 6.5 that I wanted.

Ran out of propane just before hot break and had to reboil after

Outside temps dropped from 50-38 over the course of the afternoon causing heating issues and wind hindered my burner.

I will update with OG readings. Once wort is down to temp. Overall a fun day and I learned a lot! I aso kicked my breakfast stout on draft and kegged a 10.2%abv DIPA made with Citra and nugget, dry hopped with Sorachi Ace!

EDIT: I hit 1.045 OG which should put me right about 4.5% abv. The flavor was good after tasting my gravity sample and I got 4.7gal post boil. Not sure how with the calamity of errors I still came so close to hitting numbers but I will take it!

Cheers!
 
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