dhammers91
Well-Known Member
On Sunday I woke up and decided I was going to brew my first all grain batch of beer. I brewed my very first batch (extract kit) one month ago. I brewed an Blonde Ale extract brew that had steeping grains on this past Thursday. I brewed an Oatmeal Stout on Friday that was a Partial Mash kit, and then on Sunday I brewed my first All Grain batch of beer. I used a relatively small grain bill because my brew kettle is only 8 gallons, and I do not have a good mash tun... YET! (I used my bottling bucket, and I used tiling tape to tape in a mesh bag over the spigot). I used 6 lbs. of 6-row and 3 lbs of cracked raw field corn. I cracked the corn with a hammer so some was really smashed and others didn't get cracked. Some of you may be wondering why I wanted to use corn, because it sounds like corn has a bad rep. in the brewing world, but I live in Iowa and I wanted to make beer with our own home grown corn. I did a cereal with the corn and 1 lbs of the 6-row. I just put in enough water to cover all of the grains by about 2 inches. Proceeded to heat the mixture up to 160* where I let it rest for 10 mins. I then boiled for 30 mins. I drained off the liquid in the pot that I was going to use to head up my strike water (3 gallons @ 170*) and placed the grains that were boiled as well as the remaining 5 lbs of 6-row in my bottling bucket. I poured the strike water in and wrapped the bucket in a blanket within a sleeping bag to hold heat. After an hour I recirculated and then began slowly drawing off the wort into my brew kettle. I heated up my sparge water (3 gallons heated between 175*-180*) and kept the level of water 2 inches above the grain bed. I managed to draw out about 3/4 of the wort before I got a stuck sparge. I ended up having to just strain off the rest of the liquid from the grains and added it to my brew kettle. I boiled for an hour with hops and then cooled and added to the fermenter. I got a hydrometer reading of 1.038. I know it is not a very big beer but I was happy it read anything over 1.000! I pitched some dry Safale -05 yeast and the airlock began bubbling 5 hours after pitching yeast. Do you think I got a lower hydrometer reading because of my small grain bill? Because of the stuck sparge? Sorry for the long winded post, just thought someone else might find the info interesting or beneficial.
Thanks guys!
Thanks guys!