First all grain-- mid brew question

Doing my first all grain and during my boil-- right now-- it looks like i have alot of grain or sediment in my wort. it didnt look that way from my mash tun-- i waited until it ran clear-- but should i see so many particles in it now. its not hops, im using a hop bag. is this normal?

is it bits of grain or is it the hot break? If it looks slimey it will probably be the hot break which is fine.

I would say it is normal in the beginning. It took me a while to get the vorlauf down. I would think it ran clear but then had the same issue as you.

All is well though, everything settles out in the fermenter.

How are you going to cool it? If it is a CFC and you really have a lot of grain in there it might give you some trouble but if you are just siphoning or draining to from a spigot I bet it will be fine.

looks like bits of grain to me-- but not sure exactly. was clear from my mash tun, but i noticed the stuff when it started to heat up and boil. It has been there the entire boil and im 45 min in

wort chiller then siphon thru sreen into carboy--

I remember thinking my first AG was like this. It also turned out to be my clearest beer yet. It'll all settle out when it's fermenting. Proceed as normal, and have another homebrew.

Dumpsterboy said:

Doing my first all grain and during my boil-- right now-- it looks like i have alot of grain or sediment in my wort. it didnt look that way from my mash tun-- i waited until it ran clear-- but should i see so many particles in it now. its not hops, im using a hop bag. is this normal?

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sounds like it could be break material. if you didn't see any grains going through and it started as you heated the kettle, that'd be my guess.

yeah my OG was off, and my volume was off, but we'll see what happens. First try with all grain so didn't really know what to expect. Now my damn bung won't stay in tight. man!!! Gunna have a beer and chill out now.

Dumpsterboy said:

yeah my OG was off, and my volume was off, but we'll see what happens. First try with all grain so didn't really know what to expect. Now my damn bung won't stay in tight. man!!! Gunna have a beer and chill out now.

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I generally keep some DME around to "tweak" the pre boil gravity if I need to. Just jot down how much you had to use and adjust your future grain bills (this is adjusting for your equipment efficiencies). I boil until I hit my post boil OG and stop...I take whatever volume that results...if you are using brewing software the predicted volumes are pretty darn close.

Did it look anything like this:

That looks awesome.

ended up with 4 1/2 gallons at OG 1.065, predicted 1.075. I think my efficiency was off and then I decided to boil a little longer and didn't account for my hop bag setup I used. I should have boiled with my 60min plan(not 70min). I'll learn from this one. All I know is that it is starting to ferment now (I can here it bubbling) so somethings happening. Kind of excited.

BierMuncher said:

Did it look anything like this:

View attachment 49365

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very nice!!

Dumpsterboy said:

ended up with 4 1/2 gallons at OG 1.065, predicted 1.075. I think my efficiency was off and then I decided to boil a little longer and didn't account for my hop bag setup I used. I should have boiled with my 60min plan(not 70min). I'll learn from this one. All I know is that it is starting to ferment now (I can here it bubbling) so somethings happening. Kind of excited.

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it's all a learning experience man. it's a lot harder to nail gravity readings with AG. you'll get the efficiency figured out in a few brews and you can have your software set the way ya need. for now, ya made beer, and it'll be good beer!

NordeastBrewer77 said:

it's all a learning experience man. it's a lot harder to nail gravity readings with AG. you'll get the efficiency figured out in a few brews and you can have your software set the way ya need. for now, ya made beer, and it'll be good beer!

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SO TRUE! I'm three AG batches in (extract for 9 months before) and each time my efficiency gets better. I'm finding that identifying the nuances with your equipment is the biggest hurtle. All three AG batches have been off for one reason or another while i get stuff dialed in. Each beer has some of the best beer i have ever made!

NWAleDad said:

SO TRUE! I'm three AG batches in (extract for 9 months before) and each time my efficiency gets better. I'm finding that identifying the nuances with your equipment is the biggest hurtle. All three AG batches have been off for one reason or another while i get stuff dialed in. Each beer has some of the best beer i have ever made!

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oh, no doubt. the improvement in the beer totally makes up for the missed OG. i think my last batch was the first AG where i actually nailed my numbers, and that was a very basic grain bill, so i pretty much knew the efficiency to expect. usually i'm a few points off and that's fine by me, the beer's great! on my RIS, i missed my OG by -12 points, but when i transferred that brew into jugs for aging, it tasted absolutely amazing.