First AG Today!

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

t_stout

Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2011
Messages
24
Reaction score
0
Location
Portland
Well, as my strike water is heating up I'll start this post to tell you guys that I'm taking the plunge and doing EdWorts Haus Pale Ale all grain! Hopefully everything goes well and there aren't any huge disasters. I'll take pics throughout the process and post them up when I'm done (if my dignity is still intact that is). Stay tuned!
 
Okay it took a while to upload pics but here it is along with a brief synopsis of my brewday of EdWorts Haus Pale ale

Steps (as per my beersmith notes):
-Heat around 12.84 quarts water to 170F
-Put in 1TBL 5.2 stabilizer
-Pour strike water into mash tun
-Dough in slowly and stir thoroughly
-Hit mash temp (152F) with no necessary adjustments (lost about 3F throughout mash)
-Digital thermo stopped working, switched to analog floating one
-Add 7.4 quarts to 200F mash out water, stirred, and let sit for 10mins for a mash out temp of around 170F.
-Vorlof 2 quarts and collect 1st runnings (15 quarts).
-Add 12.4 quarts sparge water @ 170F. Stir thoroughly and let sin 10mins.
-Vorlof 2 quarts and collect 2nd runnings (12.25 quarts). Preboil volume=27.25 quarts (6.8G)
-Preboil gravity=1.045 (predicted 1.048)
-This is where things got tricky. I am slowly buying all the equipment needed to go AG and have yet to get a big enough BK, so I knew I was going to split the boil into 2 pots (or so I thought). However, being the idiot I am I didn't calculate that boil volume of my 2 pots and actually ran out of room and had to boil the wort in 3 pots! This probably let to a larger boil off volume but I still ended up with a little less than 5 gallons post boil so I'm not too upset. ---Boil 1st runnings in big pot.
-Boil 2nd runnings (had 2 split between 2 pots)
-Hop additions split between largest, and second largest pot.
-Put immersion chiller in pot at 10mins
-Whirfloc at 5mins
-Chill and pitch yeast (after rehydrated)
-Measured OG=1.047 (predicted 1.055, 61% efficiency)

And now the pics (sorry, old school iphone 3GS is all I got):

Heating up the sparge water, nevermind the temp, kind of pointless


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Hit mash temp spot on! (Although I lost about 3F during the mash, next time I'll either try to insulate the tun better or overshoot my target mash temp by a degree or so.


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Mashing away...


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Collecting 1st runnings


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Time for a hot scotchy (actually w/ whiskey but still tasty nonetheless, some fine oregon microdistillery action)


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

No more pics until after she was in the carboy but there it is bubblin' away like a champ


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Random thoughts on the day:
1) I didn't take a pic of the crush but I have a feeling it was a little coarse which may have attributed to the low efficiency (although for a 1st timer I was perfectly happy with 61%).

2) Since I boiled my 1st and second runnings separately I wonder what (if any) effect it had on the final outcome. Maybe I should have mixed all the runnings together and then boiled so the 3 pots boiling had the same gravity wort

3) Fun as hell but I'm getting a proper BK stat (will be going with a cheapo 40qt one from amazon, what type of valve assembly would be most appropriate, full false bottom, dip tube? Any thoughts appreciated. Here's the link to the pot

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001CHKL68/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Looks great, nice work. I'm sure you're more precise here on your first AG than many folks who have been doing it for years. Which is a compliment btw.
I'd recommend against the cheap kettle and just get a stainless right away because eventually you'll wish for it.
 
Looks good! I'm sure that the beer will taste great but on your next batch when u have the big BK you'd probley be able to taste a little difference b/c who the hops bittered the wort. But hey its beer and no one you share it with will ever know!

I dont know if i'd go w/ a cheapo kettle! look on CL and see if u can get a keg to convert! IMO they work they best and u can do 10gal batches some day and not have to get another one!
 
The way I am reading your process; you had a gravity of 1.045 prior to boiling with 6.8 gallons of wort. Then you boiled down to just under 5 gal(we'll call it 5) and your measured gravity prior to pitching was 1.047?

I would say you have read your hydrometer incorrectly.

If you calculate the gravity points of 1.045 into 6.8 gall you have 306GU(45*6.8)
Take those same GU's and divide into 5 gal and you end up with 1.061(306/5)

So I would say your gravity prior to pitching was about 1.061 not 1.047
 
jetmac - I think the inaccuracy with my gravity readings was my temp. In all the excitement I didn't make good note of the temperature when I took my readings, so if the wort was to hot that is why the gravity would be read as artificially low.
 
jetmac - I think the inaccuracy with my gravity readings was my temp. In all the excitement I didn't make good note of the temperature when I took my readings, so if the wort was to hot that is why the gravity would be read as artificially low.

Then I would say your efficiency is much better than 61%:mug:
 


Uploaded with ImageShack.us
First taste 2 weeks after bottling. Still a little green but plenty carbed and had some nice lacing throughout the whole glass. Bottom line: I'm hooked and looking forward to trying Bell's TH clone this weekend!
 
Back
Top