Just an update. Brew day went well. 5 hours including clean-up. I'd say for my first time, and not knowing how my mash tun would work, I did alright. Was looking to mash at 154, but was more like 151. It was at 149 after the hour, so that's not bad. Was a couple degrees under with the sparge too. Was aiming for an OG around 1.085, but got right at 1.070. Pitched the yeast about 5:30 Sunday evening. Fermentation is well on it's way. Bubbling like crazy when I woke up this morning. I guess the true test is in a couple of months when I get to see how it tastes!
Congrats! Switching to All Grain can be a challenge at first, but I hope you like it as much as I do. I switched last June and have not looked back.
If this helps, here is some advice from my lessons learned:
- I use a whiteboard (cheap little thing from the office store) to write out my brew steps. I write out the Strike temp/qty, the sparge temp/qty, a place to write down the exact boil start time, and then figure out what actual times to perform hop additions. I used to alwasy scramble (cause I lost track of time) and using the white board helped, as well as helped any friends that were helping me brew.
- I had OG/efficiency problems at first, but after spending a lot of time here (thanks to all the HBT folks!) and searching this site, I have the ability to nail OG's dead on. I used to be 8-10 points low at first.
- In regards to the above, here is what helped:
- paid more attention to my grind. I can grind at a local store (Midwest Supplies is nearby in MN) and I ensured I had a good grind.
- 5.2 mash stabalizer plus the use of filtered water from the grocery store. I just bring in my Ale pales and the cost is .29/gallon.
- I batch sparge, and I increased my sparge temp to 184 degrees (I think I started at 170 for the water before adding to the mash), made sure I stir the mash, then let sit for 15 minutes before I vorlouf and run into the boil kettle.
- Put notches on my paddle for each gallon of capacity to know what volume of wort I have left during the boil. I do not have a sight gauge .5 gallons can make a huge difference. I also take the time to do a quick gravity reading at pre-boil to know where I stand. I had some lower OG than planned brews with high IBU's and came out with good but not planned beers at first.
- I used to do partial mashes and I had to suck it up and lower my efficiency calcs when reformulating recipes for all-grain. I did not do this at first. I went from 80% to 70% on my recipe formulation, and this helped a lot. I now am at 75%. This maybe more than anything helped at first so I did not have too little grain. Hopefully though experience I can get to the high 70's or 80% eventually.
Hope any of this helped. I have now brewed about 20 all-grain batches and love the ability to experiment. I was a little frustrated at first, but in short order got my process nailed down.
Best of luck and good brewing!!
Broc
