My first All grain brew session

Well I finished my first all grain batch today and everything went exactly according to plan. I built my Mash/Lauther tun during the week from a 48 qt cooler and fly sparged. The rig worked very well which surprised me because I figured I would have ot go the drawing board at least once to get it right.

The sparge took around 45 minutes and my OG ended up 1044. This seems close to the target OG of 1046-1052. Is this close enough or should I do something differently to help push this up? My grains were crushed about a three weeks ago which may have had some impact on efficiency also.

The beer is in the primary and should be bubbling by morning. It is a smooth nut brown ale kit from Midwest. I am probably going to start buying in bulk and crushing my own grain if everyone thinks this experiment went relatively well so let me have any opinions that you may have.

Congrats!

If you want to increase your efficiency, you could sparge for about 90 minutes, rather than 45, but only you can say if the extra time is worth it.

-a.

Thanks Ajf,

I am still working with flow rates and water levels to try to get it stretched as far as possible. I will try to get closer to 90 min next time which should help. Do yo think the three weeks since grain crush could have had that much effect?

To quote from NorthCountryMalt.com
"For best results, we recommend using all milled products within 3 months and all whole kernel products within 6 months of receipt."

Assuming it was stored in a cool dry place, I don't think you have anything to worry about.

-a.

Looks like a sparge time issue then. At least thats a problem that I can fix easily. Thanks for the help Ajf. On another subject, what is the best way to add pellet hops?

Just throw em in the pot at the appointed times. For dry hopping, do the same or put em in a small muslin bag with a few sanitized marbles to sink the bag.