Now popping my AG cherry.

In my previous thread, I mentioned going to a friend's house and brewing yesterday. Since the two other guys got to go first with their extract brews, I was more or less stuck waiting until 8, at which point I decided screw it, I'll take my equipment and do it tomorrow.

So I have 2 pots for the boil, a 5-gal and a 4-gal, and for the mash tun I have a 5-gallon cooler, with a Kewler Kit ball valve and a metal screen filter. It has a small leak out both the lock nut and the o-ring, and I will catch any drips with a bucket so as not to lose wort. I also have some silicone that I will use to repair it when the mash is done.

I brought my initial mash water (what do you call that?) to 180, put it in the cooler, and am now waiting for it to come down to 168 so I can dough in. I'm positively giddy with anticipation. I just hope my digital thermometer is accurate!!

Just doughed in at 168. It came down to ~157 so I iced it a bit to bring it down to 153. Now mashing. Both fingers crossed I get some decent efficiency here!!

Congrats! Get ready for some better beer!

Nice! We are on the same page, you and I. I just doughed in my fist AG batch and am at about 30 mins till I start the sparge. i think the word you were looking for was "strike water". Good luck!

30 minutes to vorlauf; now heating the sparge water.

So far, so good. What, specifically, are ya brewin'?

Grab a camera and take some pictures! I love AG beer porn. I wish I would have thought to take a few pictures over my brewing "career". I got a new burner yesterday, so I'll try to remember to take a few pictures of my new ghetto brew stand. I wish I could look back at my first few tries, because that's a great way to "see" where you've been.

Gonna be an oatmeal/chocolate stout. Recipe is here but I substituted 6lb extra two-row (english) for the extract, 2oz. UK northern brewer and 1oz. Willamette for the hops.

Pictures as things progress, but right now I'm scared to open the cooler and show the mash uh... mashing. You want pictures of heating sparge water?

bernerbits said:

Gonna be an oatmeal/chocolate stout. Recipe is here but I substituted 6lb extra two-row (english) for the extract, 2oz. UK northern brewer and 1oz. Willamette for the hops.

Pictures as things progress, but right now I'm scared to open the cooler and show the mash uh... mashing. You want pictures of heating sparge water?

Click to expand...

Hells yeah! We wanna see pics of your setup! We want brew porn!

BREW PORN!
BREW PORN!
BREW PORN!
BREW PORN!

My kitchen, overrun by a bucket infestation



Sparge water heating! I accidentally turned on the front burner on the right, so that one's a bit cooler.



My brand new rig, and my digital thermometer showing a nice constant 153.

Heck yeah! Delicious all grain goodness!!

By popular demand, more beer porn!







I just like saying "vorlauf".



Here we're tilting the cooler to get the last of the wort out...



Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaarge!

The whole family! Plus Leslie's legs



Spent grains. Anyone got a good spent grain bread recipe?



My gravity reading: 1.73 from the first wort collection! (what do you call that again? lol) Success!!

The wort on the stove!



.... and boiling because in the time it took to put these up, it boiled. Accidentally added all the willamette to pot one, so I compensated by adding all the UK Northern Brewer to the other Still got a pack of UK NB for aroma.

More gratuitous boil pics!







Lookit that steam! BOIL BABY BOIL!!!! bwahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa....

I love the pictures- and the nice shiny brew kettles!

Isn't it fun? Brewing is so addicting. It sure beats stamp collecting as a hobby, doesn't it?

Hmm... I may have overshot my target volume -- might be 6-7 gallons. What do folks recommend? Split the batch? I've only got one yeast packet...

bernerbits said:

The whole family! Plus Leslie's legs



Spent grains. Anyone got a good spent grain bread recipe?

Click to expand...

Treberbrot

Cookies for your buddy

Oh, nice legs, BTW

Whew. Hit the target volume on the head. Cooled and pitched. There's about 1cm of head space in the brew bucket. Should I be worried about an exploding airlock?

Other than that I couldn't have asked for this brew day to have gone better! Measured an OG of 1.048. More pics on their way, but I have some cleaning to do first.

YooperBrew said:

I love the pictures- and the nice shiny brew kettles!

Isn't it fun? Brewing is so addicting. It sure beats stamp collecting as a hobby, doesn't it?

Click to expand...

Hey, I'm a stamp collector!

bernerbits said:

Whew. Hit the target volume on the head. Cooled and pitched. There's about 1cm of head space in the brew bucket. Should I be worried about an exploding airlock?

Click to expand...

Yes. Replace your airlock with a piece of tubing into a coffecan (or similar) of water .

Or, clean your ceiling tomorrow morning. The only time my wife gets pissed about my hobby is when I hit the ceiling with spume from my fermenter, usually when I was lazy and assumed the airlock wouldn't blow).

Yes. Replace your airlock with a piece of tubing into a coffecan (or similar) of water .

Click to expand...

Hmm. Well, my racking tube won't fit in the gasket on the brew bucket. So, I suppose I could rack over to the 6.5-gallon carboy, but I'm worried about leaving the yeast behind...

bernerbits said:

Hmm. Well, my racking tube won't fit in the gasket on the brew bucket. So, I suppose I could rack over to the 6.5-gallon carboy, but I'm worried about leaving the yeast behind...

Click to expand...

You could just take out the gasket, and stuff the tubing into the hole. A blow off tube might be needed, since you don't have much headspace. How big is the bucket? Usually buckets give more headspace than carboys, not less.

You don't have to rack to the carboy if you choose to move it, though. Just pick it up and pour it in.

Ended up pouring the whole thing into the carboy last night for my own peace of mind. Fortunately I had pre-sanitized the funnel and carboy just in case. I'm pretty sure I got most of the yeast but I left a bit of hop sludge behind. No krausen this morning, and I'm showing a temp of about 68, but the airlock is at least bubbling.

My last (and first) oatmeal stout didn't have a violent krausen either. I had probably 2 inches of head space at the top of the bucket and the airlock worked just fine through the whole process. The fermentation was a nice steady one.

Congrats on your first AG, and good choice on your first recipee

When I left for work this morning there was a bit of krausen. But it looked dark and uneven, unlike any krausen I'd ever seen before.

Someone please tell me to RDWHAHB before I go nuts here.

in the future pop the lid. put something heavy on it and be done with it. and i dont mean a 50lb weight. just something to keep the lid down. after the active fermentation you can reseat the lid and airlock.

RDWHAHB x2

bernerbits said:

When I left for work this morning there was a bit of krausen. But it looked dark and uneven, unlike any krausen I'd ever seen before.

Someone please tell me to RDWHAHB before I go nuts here.

Click to expand...

Damn, Brownie, take a valium or something.

RDWHAHB.

shecky said:

Damn, Brownie, take a valium or something.

Click to expand...

It's just that it's my first brew since January, AND my first all-grain. Plus I've never poured a batch from one fermenter to another after pitching but before fermentation. So those old noob tricks my mind plays on me are back.

bernerbits said:

It's just that it's my first brew since January, AND my first all-grain. Plus I've never poured a batch from one fermenter to another after pitching but before fermentation. So those old noob tricks my mind plays on me are back.

Click to expand...

Alright then, try this. I did my first AG about a month ago. I didn't do any better than you did, probably worse, and so far it's turned out fantastic. It's in bottles now and it's all I can do to keep my grubby hands off it.

In other words, if I can do it, you surely can.

Just transferred to secondary and added the isinglass last night. Got a final gravity reading of 1.017, so ~7.35% ABV. Not bad, but I think I'm going to lower the dough-in temperature by 2 degrees next time and try to get a less dextrinous wort.

The malt character itself was unbelievable! I will never go back to extract. It was a little too grassy though, because I overhopped it a bit and left the sludge from the hop pellets in the wort when I pitched. That should even out with time, though.

Nice work on the brew! I just brewed a week and a half ago for the first time in about 6 months. Was in a transitional stage between apartments and couldn't get tied down with a bunch of kegs of beer. But now I am set up and back on the brew-train! Just one comment though a bout your ABV...

bernerbits said:

Other than that I couldn't have asked for this brew day to have gone better! Measured an OG of 1.048. More pics on their way, but I have some cleaning to do first.

Click to expand...

Wondering which number is wrong here. You said OG of 1.048, FG of 1.017... Put this into the first alcohol calculator that came up on a google search and it says 3.88%

Still nice work on the beer! I'll be making a hobgoblin clone friday woot wish me luck.

Oops. Yeah, I was reading back in this thread for my OG and read the wrong one. Rats, 3.88%? Oh well, as long as it tastes good.

That number seems more in line with your grain bill. You know I just put the numbers into the calculator again and I get 4.07%. I did it twice so I think that is what it actually is. Still no 7.35, but about what you'd expect. And the good news is it shall be tasty, and you'll be able to get more of it down before you get woozy!

Patrick