devils4ever
Well-Known Member
Okay, I did my first all-grain homebrew this past weekend. It's an English Bitter. The recipe called for 6.75 lb of Maris Otter 2-Row and 0.5 lb of Crystal 60L. So, that's a total of 7.25 lb of grains. I figured my efficiency would be low on my first AG, so I added another lb of Maris Otter. I was correct. My efficiency was low about 62%. But, my main problem was keeping a constant temperature in my mash/lauter tun. I used a 48 qt Igloo cooler with a Bazooka braid for batch sparging.
I added 2.6 gal of 178F water to the cooler. Waited until the water cooled to 162F and added the grains. Temperature stabilized at 150F. It was right on according the recipe. I waited 1/2 hour to stir and take another temperature reading and it dropped to 144F. I lost 6F in 1/2 hour. I know the cooler is pretty empty with this lighter style of beer, but I expected the temp to hold better than that. I had to keep adding hot water to keep the temp up above 150F.
So, what can I do get the temp constant in the cooler? Next time, I'm tempted to do the mashing in my 10 gal pot on the burner to keep the temp under control.
Also, why is my efficiency so low? Is it because of my temp issues? Or, is it my sparging technique? Maybe the grains weren't ground fine enough (I got them from Austin Homebrew preground)?
TIA.
I added 2.6 gal of 178F water to the cooler. Waited until the water cooled to 162F and added the grains. Temperature stabilized at 150F. It was right on according the recipe. I waited 1/2 hour to stir and take another temperature reading and it dropped to 144F. I lost 6F in 1/2 hour. I know the cooler is pretty empty with this lighter style of beer, but I expected the temp to hold better than that. I had to keep adding hot water to keep the temp up above 150F.
So, what can I do get the temp constant in the cooler? Next time, I'm tempted to do the mashing in my 10 gal pot on the burner to keep the temp under control.
Also, why is my efficiency so low? Is it because of my temp issues? Or, is it my sparging technique? Maybe the grains weren't ground fine enough (I got them from Austin Homebrew preground)?
TIA.