bdaddy
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2009
- Messages
- 81
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My 3rd overall batch, but 1st all-grain.
recipe:
BierMuncher's Centenial Blonde. His recipe called for 5.5 gallons, but using beersmith I targeted 5.0 gallons.
equipment:
all my do-it-myself equipment held up great. No leaks from my keggle, no stuck sparge from my MLT from flyguy's thread (adapted slightly for my rectangular cooler), and no leaks from my homemade 50ft 1/2 IC. I need a digital thermometer as the one I have is for **** and I couldn't trust it at all.
The mash/sparge:
Was targeting 6 gallons into boil...based on beersmith I used 10.9 quarts @ 162 for mash and 17.5 quarts @170 for sparge, but ended up with just under 6 gallons into boil (5.75 or so?). Next time I guess I need to increase my sparge water?
Hit my mash temp almost dead on (150). After 30 minutes 1 degree drop, but after 45 minutes I had about a 5 degree drop (added some hot water to bring temp up a little). Need to do something about this as it dropped too much. (maybe better if did this outside in the heat to better keep temp?). Gravity going into boil was 1.048 with just under 6 gallons. (higher than beersmith's projected 1.039 going into boiler)
The boil:
Boiled for 60 minutes and lost way more than I expected. Ended up with around 4 gallons instead of the projected 5 gallons. I did hit the beersmith expected OG exactly (1.044). Not sure what would have happened to that OG if I had actually hit my 5 gallon target? Not sure what I need to adjust next time to keep OG the same but bring up the volume?
The cooling:
Here's where things went south in a hurry. Hooked up IC to outdoor faucet and my temp was 95 deg after 15 minutes, then 87 after 30 minutes, and dropped very slowly after that. I filled a tub with icewater and about 20ft of the hose inside of it, and let it run for 30 minutes but only dropped a few degrees after that. The water coming out of the hose was actually COLD, but for some reason wasn't cooling the wort. I tried slowing down the water flow and speeding up the water flow, but could not get temp to drop under 80. Even drained into fermenter and put fermenter in cool bath, but didn't drop much. After about 90 minutes post flameout trying all sorts of things, i finally pitched yeast at about 81 Really sucks as it was only 4 gallons I was trying to cool, can't imagine if I'd had been trying 5gallon or more.
Main 2 things I need to fix prior to next batch:
1) Digital thermometer
2) I need to get a better cooling solution. May have to even go with a commercial solution on this.
Thoughts? Suggestions for improvements?
recipe:
BierMuncher's Centenial Blonde. His recipe called for 5.5 gallons, but using beersmith I targeted 5.0 gallons.
equipment:
all my do-it-myself equipment held up great. No leaks from my keggle, no stuck sparge from my MLT from flyguy's thread (adapted slightly for my rectangular cooler), and no leaks from my homemade 50ft 1/2 IC. I need a digital thermometer as the one I have is for **** and I couldn't trust it at all.
The mash/sparge:
Was targeting 6 gallons into boil...based on beersmith I used 10.9 quarts @ 162 for mash and 17.5 quarts @170 for sparge, but ended up with just under 6 gallons into boil (5.75 or so?). Next time I guess I need to increase my sparge water?
Hit my mash temp almost dead on (150). After 30 minutes 1 degree drop, but after 45 minutes I had about a 5 degree drop (added some hot water to bring temp up a little). Need to do something about this as it dropped too much. (maybe better if did this outside in the heat to better keep temp?). Gravity going into boil was 1.048 with just under 6 gallons. (higher than beersmith's projected 1.039 going into boiler)
The boil:
Boiled for 60 minutes and lost way more than I expected. Ended up with around 4 gallons instead of the projected 5 gallons. I did hit the beersmith expected OG exactly (1.044). Not sure what would have happened to that OG if I had actually hit my 5 gallon target? Not sure what I need to adjust next time to keep OG the same but bring up the volume?
The cooling:
Here's where things went south in a hurry. Hooked up IC to outdoor faucet and my temp was 95 deg after 15 minutes, then 87 after 30 minutes, and dropped very slowly after that. I filled a tub with icewater and about 20ft of the hose inside of it, and let it run for 30 minutes but only dropped a few degrees after that. The water coming out of the hose was actually COLD, but for some reason wasn't cooling the wort. I tried slowing down the water flow and speeding up the water flow, but could not get temp to drop under 80. Even drained into fermenter and put fermenter in cool bath, but didn't drop much. After about 90 minutes post flameout trying all sorts of things, i finally pitched yeast at about 81 Really sucks as it was only 4 gallons I was trying to cool, can't imagine if I'd had been trying 5gallon or more.
Main 2 things I need to fix prior to next batch:
1) Digital thermometer
2) I need to get a better cooling solution. May have to even go with a commercial solution on this.
Thoughts? Suggestions for improvements?