My First Mash! Pictures and all!

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Beer Snob

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Hey there all. This will be my first attempt to Mash. I am Batch sparging so I'm attempting to do an All Grain Mash with two pots as seen on the SockMonkeysAndBeer page.

Certainly all things start with a starter:)

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Like this one. This actually started real fast.... like 90 minutes.

2560-100_0471.jpg

It stayed pretty active for about 18 hours or so, but did not go crazy on me.


More to come!
 
2560-100_0472.jpg

Here is the setup, kinda like some of yours:)

2560-100_0473.jpg

Here is that cooler I screwed up. Its a HWT now. I like the lid (you just push it closed) and wish the MLT closed like this does (screws on).

2560-100_0478.jpg

Well... looks more like goop right now......
 
Your making beer............Make sure you drink enough while your mashing.......A proper mash takes at least 8-10 good home brews while your waiting......
 
Damm... got em in the fridge... totally forgot.....

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For all those bright souls like me thinking... why do I need one of those big ugly spoons just for a mash... I'll just use the one I have....

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I took some grain out to boil cause the temp apparently went very low... like... 148 according to the probe.

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Another shot of the grain with some out boiling in a small pot.

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Got the glass thermometer in there now as I am starting to question the probe... not sure...
 
The glass themometer says I'm great... the probe says I'm screwed. Right now the probe is reading 178 and the thermometer is reading 158.:mad:

But I'm drinking a brew now at least....:tank:
 
I think I'm good. According to the probe the air temp in the kitchen is 105 which looks off just a bit. Gonna take it back to target later.
 
Those probes are tricky. The problem with them is, if you submerge them beyond the sleeve where the wire braid goes into the probe, you get water lodged in them and their calibration is done for. I went through three before I read about this little trick:

Place the probe in the oven and hang the plug-in outside the oven door. Let it 'bake' at ~250-325oF for an hour or so, thus driving out any moisture. Plug it into the control every once in awhile to see what the temperature reads. Once it's fairly consistant and near your oven's chosen temperture, take it out and check the ambient air temperature. You should be good to go!

I ended up with two probes and I do this before every other brew session, just for safety's sake. Works every time! My probes are within 1-2 degrees of each other. If one goes kaput, I have the backup. That's saved my a** a couple of brew sessions!:D Give it a try before you head to Tarchet!
 
Well for the first time .... I actually do not know what I'm going to get out of this. It looks real bad actually:) The guy who did the grind must have made it too fine or something cause the only way I was getting any out of the false bottom was if I scraped the false bottom a bit... then some would come out... it would stop... scrape some more on the false bottom... a bit more would come.... again and again.
 
Here is the recipe I attempted. I got from NA Clone Brews, its a Sam Adams Summer Ale clone.

4lb Malted Wheat
5lb Pilsner Malt
8oz Carapl Malt
1 lb Flaked Wheat

1. Mash with 3 1/2 gal water at 152 for 90 min
2. Sparge with 4 Gal water

.............
1. Boil for 15 min, add 4 AAU Hallertau Hops
2. Boil for 40 min
3. Add 1 oz shredded lemon zest
4. Boil 5 min, Add 2 AAU Halertau hops.

Yeast Wyeast 3944

------------------------------------------------------------
I attempted to use the same method that is described on SockMonkeyAndBeer with two pots instead of one large pot. The first pot ended up with about 1 1/2 gal when I put it in the primary. Still waiting on the second one.

I did add a small amount of DME I had (not much).
Pot #1 at 145 degrees had a gravity of 1.080
Pot #2 at 128 degrees was at 1.030
 
Looks like the tubbing disconnected from the mash at the Kewler Kit junction. When I took out the false bottom there did not seem to be much clogged... the tubing was off though.......
 
Outside of looking like Misco soup I got 3 gal and the gravity is 1.070. Well... I suppose it could be worst.....
 
GOD said:
Outside of looking like Misco soup I got 3 gal and the gravity is 1.070. Well... I suppose it could be worst.....


Sure, it could have been a lot worse. You did fine!

With that OG, you could even add a half gallon of water to it and still make good beer.

I bet it turns out great.... :)


PS: thanks for all the pictures!
 
What I'm tring to think about is the problem.... was the grind too fine or did the hose attaching the mash to the connections came apart from the heat. It looked pretty warped. How do you guys connect the two? When I first put it together I remember that I thought I was gong to have a hard time taking it apart... well that is certainlly not the case.
 
2560-100_0484.jpg

Here it is after pitching... Thunder's like....soo.....this is Mashing... glad I slept through most of it......

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As you can see its a pretty activer fermentation. Usually my brews dont generate a lot of heat... but this sucker.....the room is cool cause a window was open but you can still feel the heat comming off the carboy.
 
GOD said:
What I'm tring to think about is the problem.... was the grind too fine or did the hose attaching the mash to the connections came apart from the heat. It looked pretty warped. How do you guys connect the two? When I first put it together I remember that I thought I was gong to have a hard time taking it apart... well that is certainlly not the case.
I think you've got to use hi-temp tubing for that connection...at 150F regular vinyl tubing is about as stiff as cooked pasta. My setup is exactly like yours, but I used hi-temp vinyl and didn't have any problems.
 
Your freakin mash stuck because of 5lb's of wheat............Try a pale ale next time......It's one of the easiest brews to make and it requires NO wheat.....
 
GOD said:
2560-100_0484.jpg

Here it is after pitching... Thunder's like....soo.....this is Mashing... glad I slept through most of it......

GOD,

Nice work. Is this sediment or yeast at the bottom of the carboy?
 
Excellent, excellent thread! Thanks for sharing the day!


You ought to turn that pic of Thunder and the carboy into your AV...

BREWDOG! :rockin:



Ize
 
Rusty said:
Your freakin mash stuck because of 5lb's of wheat............Try a pale ale next time......It's one of the easiest brews to make and it requires NO wheat.....

If you use a lot of adjuncts (unmalted grains) you will have to run a more elaborate mash schedule than a single infusion. These are the rests that I recommend:

Beta Glucanase - breaks down the wheat gums. This is what caused your stuck sparge
Protein rest - breaks down some of the long and medium chained proteins so the yeast has amino acids to feed on.
Saccrification - convert the starches

And if you are using cracked wheat kernels (not flaked wheat) I even recomend doing all this as a decoction mash ;) or boil the wheat before you add it to the mash.

You should definately try an all barley malt beer next time. You'll see, its a breeze :)

Kai
 
Great pics. Your MLT is almost identical to mine. Same cooler, same color, even the valve is almost the same. :D
 
boo boo said:
Flaked or kernal, it's still wheat. And you used 5 pounds for a 3 gallon brew? You would probably need a lot of rice hulls to sparge that much, IMO.

Actually the recipe says its for 5 gal.
 
Brewsmith said:
Great pics. Your MLT is almost identical to mine. Same cooler, same color, even the valve is almost the same. :D

Do you use a false bottom? How do you connect the false bottom and connector together. Previously mentioned to use high temp tubing... is there other options?
 
Kaiser said:
You should definately try an all barley malt beer next time. You'll see, its a breeze :)

Kai

I'm all worked up to try it again already. This time though take a step back and make sure the recipe is as easy as it gets first.
 
Check this out!
2560-100_0487.jpg


The efficiency has to break records but it looks pretty good (remember this recipe was for 5 galons)
 
Last I tried it was like a month ago. The gravity was 70 points and needed some time to mellow... think I'll try another one today see if I like it.... The stout came out much better I believe. Might bottle it tonight :)
 
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