first all grain today

I have been brewing for about a year now with extract and this christmas i got all new eqipment to go to all grain.

Good day today and learned a lot about things I can do better next time. Took about 6.5 hours start to clean up. I did a midwest hop head kit to start out with so I knew exactly what I should be hitting. I put all the information into beersmith and it said I should hit an og of 1.081 but the kit said 1.070-1.074. Im guessing I put something wrong into beersmith. I ended up hitting 1.070 with just shy of 5 gallons in the fermenter. I was pretty happy about that number. I ended up with 6.75 gallons in the kettle which was higher than beersmith called for so I boiled for longer which caused me to hit the 5 gallon volume. During the mash I was able to hold a temp of 152. I took the advice of others here and pre heated the tun. I was doing ice baths before but now have a wort chiller which was glorious, cooled down in 15 minutes or less.

One of the things I didnt do this time was really look at the water so im curious to see how its going to turn out. This forum has helped out tremendously.

Congrats! Sounds like you did a fine job.

I'm about a month or so into AG, sounds like you had a great first foray!

Isn't it so much fun??

Welcome to the dark side

Sounds like things went very well your first time.....you popped your all grain cherry!

In beersmith....on the main recipe page.,..there is a box for TOTAL EFFICIENCY......you will need to determine your efficiency based on your actual brew session today...and use that value....keep track over a few sessions to get YOUR total efficiency for your equipment and setup.

Beersmith calculates it for you....based on your grain bill and OG.....if you enter the 1.070 for actual OG....check out ACtual efficiency...and vaola!

Make sure you put in actual volume of wort the OG is based on as well.

To get your boil dialed in I'd suggest taking 8 gallons of water, boiling it for an hour, and measuring what's left. Whatever boils off just add 5 or so to it and there you have your desired preboil volume. Once you get your efficiency figured out you should be able to hit whatever gravity your recipe requires.

Welcome to all grain!!!

Thanks for the suggestions. I have to go back into beersmith to put all my notes in. I know I still have a lot to learn but its a lot of fun. I grew my own hops this year and have 4 taps in the house. it really has taken over my life..haha.

How was your crush... that could make a big difference in your efficentcy. There's nothing wrong with extract brewing, but once you make the switch to AG you'll never go back (unless time is an issue). Sounds like you did well with your first AG batch... good job!

Crush seemed good enough..forgot to take a pic :-( I did 20 batches of extract before going all grain and did some pretty good beers but wanted to take the brewing to the next level and continue to learn more.