My first AG coming up - Evaluate my process please

We'll skip to the good stuff. I need 7.5 gallons to start off with and will have about 5 at the end.

/begin drinking previously made homebrew
1- place false bottom on kettle, add 1.25qts/lb (water/grain) to kettle
(roughly estimated at 4 gallons - 12lbs of grain)

2- bring to about 170 degrees and add grain
(once temp settles with a reading, add heat to maintain 150 degrees)

3- maintain 150 degrees for an hour

4- drain wort from kettle and re-add to the top of hte grain bed, and repeat til the wort is clear. (helps bring the sugars down toward the bottom as well)

5- draing wort into kettle slowly white spreading out 170 degree water (approximately 3.5 gallons) over the entire grain bed to further wash the remaining sugars from the grain.

6- empty collected wort from bucket into kettle once it's clean

7- continue as you would normally with any boil/batch.

/end drinking previously made homebrew

I'm not sure what I'm making but it will be simple so I can take some practice in but yet still make good beer.

This is my understanding of the mashing process as I've read and observed during a recent brew with an AG brewing GOD.

Anything I left out.. ?

You are going to play it out over and over and over again in your head to make sure you have everything right. It seems like you've done plenty of partial/extract batches so just do it. I only did 1 batch that was a wit in a kit I bought from the LHBS. IT WAS TERRIBLE and swore to never do that again. So researched over and over and finally dove in. Definitely won't go back to anything besides all grain.

Only thing I see that you could improve upon is your sparge. Either do a batch sparge or there is a good thread on a hybrid fly sparge. I'd get info from someone else on batch sparge because I kind of have my own hybrid fly sparge where I drain ~2-3qt every 5 min. So I add 2 qt every 5 min. My set up is a funnel attached to some CPVC (almost like a drain manifold) and believe me I am not very handy so it didn't take much to make. If you opted to go with your method I've read that some people use a coffee can lid in order to not disturb the grain bed when adding sparge water.

Overall, everything to me seems pretty tight, then again I'm only 3 batches of AG deep.

Good Luck

coffee can lid?

I assume just lay the lid on top of the grain bed/float and pour ontop of the lid?

you need to put the down time in your process to consume HB

purechaos said:

you need to put the down time in your process to consume HB

Click to expand...

correct.. lemme correct.

I've seen a lot of methods (including Palmer) that recommend adding water to the grain, rather than grain to water.

Is there any real difference? Any reason to do one or the other?

"/begin drinking previously made homebrew"

I never mix that with large pots of boiling liquid, electricity & gas.

A few suggestions.
1. If your kettle false bottom is anything like mine, it leaves about 1.5g water underneath it. This 1.5 gallon will never make it up into the mash, so you may want to increase the strike water by the volume under the false bottom in order to get the right mash thickness.

2. 170F seems very high to achieve a mash temperature of 150. Assuming 12# grain at 68F and 4g strike water, I calculate 163F as the strike water temperature. Make sure when you dough in that you have some hot (boiling) and cold water to adjust the temperature if necessary.

3a. You may want to do a mash out by adding boiling water to bring the grain bed temperature up to about 168F before recirculating.

-a.

Since your using a false bottom in your tun, do you know your deadspace? Ensure that is taken into account for your mash.

edit - AJF posted after I started my reply. his first point is what I am refering to.

Yes for the sparge i mean put the lid on top of the grain bed just to disperse H2O.

Also a very good point with your strike water that passed me right by. If you are going for a lower mash temp and you strike with 170F, you will be stirring and adding cold for a while to get it down.

***One last point of advice from me is to prehead your MLT. I usually add a gal or so of my initial strike water and let'r sit for about 10 min before you formally dough-in.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I've seen many a video showing batch sparging where they don't worry about disturbing the grain bed when they add sparge water. After they vorleuf(sp?) they drain out the wort until it's just above the grain bed, then add whatever additional water they need to get the correct total boil volume in one big dump. Then they let this sit for ten minutes and slowly drain out the rest of the wort. I'm pretty sure hey didn't worry about being gentle with their added sparge water.

But I just got my cooler for Father's Day so I haven't done an AG batch yet. I'm building up to it here. All I've got to do is convert my cooler with a manifold and ball valve and I'm off and running.

Beavdowg said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but I've seen many a video showing batch sparging where they don't worry about disturbing the grain bed when they add sparge water. After they vorleuf(sp?) they drain out the wort until it's just above the grain bed, then add whatever additional water they need to get the correct total boil volume in one big dump. Then they let this sit for ten minutes and slowly drain out the rest of the wort. I'm pretty sure hey didn't worry about being gentle with their added sparge water.

But I just got my cooler for Father's Day so I haven't done an AG batch yet. I'm building up to it here. All I've got to do is convert my cooler with a manifold and ball valve and I'm off and running.

Click to expand...

Batch sparge: dump in sparge water (<170F), stir, wait 10, drain completely, repeat until boil pot is full.

Vorlauf if you feel inclined. It is a good idea, as grain particulate that makes it into the boil might result in astringency. Vorlauf means to recirculate, which, in practice, means to take the first quart or two of cloudy runnings and pour them back into the grain bed. Ideally, only the clear runnings make it into the pot.

stevea1210 said:

Since your using a false bottom in your tun, do you know your deadspace? Ensure that is taken into account for your mash.

edit - AJF posted after I started my reply. his first point is what I am refering to.

Click to expand...

I'll put in the false bottom and measure it out before I start to see what the difference is.

I'm guessing 1/2 gallon because I always come up 1/2 gallon short on my bottling. Usually falling in around 4.5 gallons bottled.

smarek82 said:

Yes for the sparge i mean put the lid on top of the grain bed just to disperse H2O.

Also a very good point with your strike water that passed me right by. If you are going for a lower mash temp and you strike with 170F, you will be stirring and adding cold for a while to get it down.

***One last point of advice from me is to prehead your MLT. I usually add a gal or so of my initial strike water and let'r sit for about 10 min before you formally dough-in.

Click to expand...

I'll adjust the temperature down lower. I think someone i talked to recommended 164ish water temp for 10-12lbs of grain.

passedpawn said:

Batch sparge: dump in sparge water (<170F), stir, wait 10, drain completely, repeat until boil pot is full.

Vorlauf if you feel inclined. It is a good idea, as grain particulate that makes it into the boil might result in astringency. Vorlauf means to recirculate, which, in practice, means to take the first quart or two of cloudy runnings and pour them back into the grain bed. Ideally, only the clear runnings make it into the pot.

Click to expand...

Do I have to keep the water level as high as the grain level or can I just drain it all out, then refill and stir/let sit for 10 minutes?

thanks