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ahaley

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I just got my stuff today, and I'm nervous. I've read how to brew AG section several times but the terms trip me up! I would like some reassurance or correction on any of my questions about the directions..
I'm used to directions step by step. Do this then this this ect. Until the brew is done. But this AG directions say
Mash schedule : single infusion
Sacch' rest: 154*f for 60 min
Mash out: 170*f for 10 min
Boil additions and times
1oz fuggle 60min.

Just for my peace of mind...
Sacch' rest is when I mash in or get my mash tun water to 154* and let my grains soak for 60 minutes, then I vorlauf all of my wort?
And the mash out is when I batch sparge and let it sit for 10 min then vorlauf again?
Start the boil and add hops like a usual extract w/ grains?

Thanks for all the help in advance! In making my starter today and brewing tomorrow!
 
Just for my peace of mind...
Sacch' rest is when I mash in or get my mash tun water to 154* and let my grains soak for 60 minutes, then I vorlauf all of my wort?
And the mash out is when I batch sparge and let it sit for 10 min then vorlauf again?
Start the boil and add hops like a usual extract w/ grains?

Almost.

1. Yes, Sacc. rest is when you dough in by adding water to your grains (or vice versa, not everyone agrees) and then letting it sit (sometimes with intermittent stirring). You want the water temp to be higher than 154 because the grains will cool it down. Once you've added the grains and mixed well, you want the total temp to be 154. You can use a program like Beersmith to calculate your water temp for you.

2. No, technically mashing out and batch sparging are different. Mashing out describes raising the temperature of your water + grains, then holding it for a while, to stop the conversion process. To do this, most people add a little more very hot water and then stir like crazy to equalize the temps. Hold for 10 minutes, then you vorlauf, drain, add your sparge water, stir, vorlauf, drain, etc. FWIW, not everyone bothers mashing out. It's of debatable utility.

3. Yes. Once you have collected both your first and second runnings, the boiling works just like it did with extract.
 
chally said:
Almost.

1. Yes, Sacc. rest is when you dough in by adding water to your grains (or vice versa, not everyone agrees) and then letting it sit (sometimes with intermittent stirring). You want the water temp to be higher than 154 because the grains will cool it down. Once you've added the grains and mixed well, you want the total temp to be 154. You can use a program like Beersmith to calculate your water temp for you.

2. No, technically mashing out and batch sparging are different. Mashing out describes raising the temperature of your water + grains, then holding it for a while, to stop the conversion process. To do this, most people add a little more very hot water and then stir like crazy to equalize the temps. Hold for 10 minutes, then you vorlauf, drain, add your sparge water, stir, vorlauf, drain, etc. FWIW, not everyone bothers mashing out. It's of debatable utility.

3. Yes. Once you have collected both your first and second runnings, the boiling works just like it did with extract.

Awesome thanks. I get psyched around the "science" terms
 
You will find that the only really hard part is getting your water temperatures correct and you can expect it to take several brew sessions before you really understand your equipment. I recommend keeping some ice and boiling water on hand for doughing in and the sparge process so you can add either one to get your temps right. It doesn't take much of either to drop or raise the water a few degrees. Once your used to your equipment, you won't have to do that. Good luck! :mug:
 
mike20793 said:
You will find that the only really hard part is getting your water temperatures correct and you can expect it to take several brew sessions before you really understand your equipment. I recommend keeping some ice and boiling water on hand for doughing in and the sparge process so you can add either one to get your temps right. It doesn't take much of either to drop or raise the water a few degrees. Once your used to your equipment, you won't have to do that. Good luck! :mug:

Thanks for the words of encouragement, I'm still a little nervous, but I've watched videos and read threads and chapters but still a little psyched that I'll mess up. I'll let you guys know if I'm still alive tomorrow with or without 3rd degree burns!
 
Back again for some things I didn't think about, my grain weighs 8.5 lbs I believe, x 1.25qt/pound=10.625 qt= 2.66~ gallons. That's how much I put in my mash run right? Then how much water do I use for the sparge? I've been reading people add a lot of water, I have a 7.5 or 8 gallon brew pot, I don't want to boil over. Thanks again guys
 
Yes that's how much goes in the mash run. You've got to figure up how much total water you need for your batch size, and use what's left, after mash addition,to sparge. You've got to account for water lost to grains, boil off, water lost to boil trub, cooling shrinkage, any water left in equipment losses, water lost to ferment trub and any packaging losses. Add all that to the amount you want to be bottling or kegging, and that's the amount of water u need. I'm no expert, but that's what I do and it seems to work out for me.
 
Jdaught said:
Yes that's how much goes in the mash run. You've got to figure up how much total water you need for your batch size, and use what's left, after mash addition,to sparge. You've got to account for water lost to grains, boil off, water lost to boil trub, cooling shrinkage, any water left in equipment losses, water lost to ferment trub and any packaging losses. Add all that to the amount you want to be bottling or kegging, and that's the amount of water u need. I'm no expert, but that's what I do and it seems to work out for me.

Sounds good to me, do you think 7 gallons of water will be enough to make 5 gallons of beer?
 
I just brewed ~6G in my 7.5G pot last week, and it was pretty dicey with regards to boil overs.

For the boil volume... download Beersmith! It will tell you how much water to use and what temperatures to heat your strike water to so you can hit your mash temp. It's free for 21 days so even if you don't decide to keep it, you can at least use it to answer your immediate questions.

Further, although it isn't clear from your initial post whether you are doing BIAB or a more traditional 3-vessel AG brew, you may be able to determine proper boil volumes with this site:

http://www.simplebiabcalculator.com/

I plugged in 8.5lbs grain and it spit out just under 7G (6.89) so it sounds like the right ballpark.
 
ahaley said:
Back again for some things I didn't think about, my grain weighs 8.5 lbs I believe, x 1.25qt/pound=10.625 qt= 2.66~ gallons. That's how much I put in my mash run right? Then how much water do I use for the sparge? I've been reading people add a lot of water, I have a 7.5 or 8 gallon brew pot, I don't want to boil over. Thanks again guys

The BEST thing I can say right now is.... Before you brew a next batch get the free trail of Beersmith 2 and play with it... It will all calculate what you need as water quatities and all... I know it dosen't help you out now but will in the long run :) Cheers dude bro and happy first AG homebrew :) I'm brewing a hefewisen at the moment in quebec canada, the corn boiler is roaring at the moment as I type away :) what are you brewing and where ??
 
7 gal should do it depending on your setup. Take the advice of getting beersmith. It's worth it and will do all the calculations for u. Good luck and congrats on moving to AG. Cheers!
 
Also, 7 gal in a 7.5 -8 gal pot will likely boil over. Gonna need to watch it as u approach boil and throttle the heat as needed. Also scoop all the foop possible as it builds. This will also help, but it's gonna be close. Good luck
 
Awesome thanks guys! I had beer smith 2 for the trial and I liked it in just a little short in money ATM, but I'm brewing northern brewers nut brown ale here in California! Im doing a traditional(?) AG, i don't know if my gear is quite "traditional" but I have a turkey fryer, 5 gal mash tun and a smaller pot for water in case I need more hot/cold. I'm super stoked to be doing it this way with no extracts, ever since I've started brewing extract I've been thinking " I want to make beer the way "they" did it! " and I hope my first AG comes out good! I'll post the recipe in a second I'm heating up my mash water right now
 
Grains are
7.5. Lbs english Maris otter
.25 lbs English chocolate malt
.25 lbs Belgian special b
.25 lbs belgian biscuit
.25 lbs briess special roast

Hops
Us fuggle 1 oz at 60 minute
Alpha 4.2% beta 3.4%

I chose dry yeast, danstar Nottingham ale yeast
 
Almost done with my 60 minute boil! 10 min left, I can't believe how much more enjoyable AG is! Thanks for answering all of my nooby questions, many thanks to homercidal, and revvy amongst many more for pushing me over the edge into this!! It took a little bit longer but I enjoy it a lot more!!! :)

Prost!

Sincerely,

Haley.
 
So everything is finished now! Clean up and everything! I checked, rechecked and checked about 5 more times what my gravity was. I got 1.050 at about 100*F through room temp, and it was still 1.052. Ive been rereading the efficiency part in how to brew, because every ag thread ive seen people say "I got 57%" or "i got 70%" So I wanted to feel included in these talks about efficiency. So I found the equation to figure it out. and the gallons was ann estimate of how much I used w/out top off water, but counting boil off.
So, here goes please correct me if I'm wrong.

6gallons X 1.052(just the 52)=312
312/8.5lbs of grain= 36.7 so I round up to 37
37/37= 100%

In the mash efficiency section, it says to divide by 37 for the 3rd step. So I got 100% efficiency??? :O If that's true I'm so stoked! I kept thinking I did something wrong, I kept saying to my wife "there is NO WAY we got 100% on our first brew!! That's impossible!" So, if you guys see an error please correct it? I don't want to think I'm a super brewer if I'm not. Ill also copy and paste the things from the book so everyone can see what I'm talking about.

Heres the link http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter12-5.html
 
You probably did not get 100%. Nor should you want 100% efficiency. That is done by what is called a congress mash, and the wort it produces is not something you would want to drink. There is a podcast on the brewing networks brew strong series that talks about mash efficiency. Look it up. It's a good one.
 
tonyc318 said:
You probably did not get 100%. Nor should you want 100% efficiency. That is done by what is called a congress mash, and the wort it produces is not something you would want to drink. There is a podcast on the brewing networks brew strong series that talks about mash efficiency. Look it up. It's a good one.

Why is 100% bad? Does it change the wort bad with tannins?
 
Also, I see zero signs of fermentation :/
Just kidding I had slow yeast. This is normal right? I'm sure to seeing super fast top starting yeast.

image-2574628528.jpg

And from this picture I saw like "solar flares" of stuff floating to the top is that like a yeast colony breaking off? It's pretty cool looking
 

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ahaley said:
Why is 100% bad? Does it change the wort bad with tannins?

Yup. You will get all the tannins from the husks. In a congress mash where the determine what the 100% yield of sugars from grains is, they practically grind the grain to flour. I highly recommend that brew strong podcast.
 
tonyc318 said:
Yup. You will get all the tannins from the husks. In a congress mash where the determine what the 100% yield of sugars from grains is, they practically grind the grain to flour. I highly recommend that brew strong podcast.

Oh, so given my numbers and stuff, or just your experiences, what do you think my actual efficiency is?
And I was looking it up but my computer froze •_•
 
. . . the gallons was ann estimate of how much I used w/out top off water, but counting boil off.
Can you explain this part a bit? Are you saying you added "top off" water in the carboy? If so, did you measure your gravity before or after topping off? How full (in gallons) was the carboy before and after topping off?

The formula should be based on how much useable wort you produced. So if you got a full six gallons into your carboy, and all six gallons were at 1.052, then your efficiency was really high (unbelievably high), but it sounds like those numbers might not be the right ones.
 
ahaley said:
Oh, so given my numbers and stuff, or just your experiences, what do you think my actual efficiency is?
And I was looking it up but my computer froze •_•

It would be hard to say. I had a recent brew where I messed up my numbers. Had to have measured something wrong. Most likely the preboil volume. The number that is important for efficiency it the preboil gravity number and you need a accurate preboil volume to get true numbers. On that last one, I used an app to kind of back into and estimate for my efficiency.
 
chally said:
Can you explain this part a bit? Are you saying you added "top off" water in the carboy? If so, did you measure your gravity before or after topping off? How full (in gallons) was the carboy before and after topping off?

The formula should be based on how much useable wort you produced. So if you got a full six gallons into your carboy, and all six gallons were at 1.052, then your efficiency was really high (unbelievably high), but it sounds like those numbers might not be the right ones.

Pre boil I had roughly 6 gallons and it was 1.052, and my "top off" water was added after the boil was finished. I took a gravity reading before and after I topped off the carboy, and they were both 1.050 or 1.052. So I'm not sure where I messed up. Before adding top off water my carboy was around 4 gallons and it was 1.050 and when I added the 1 gallon to my carboy it was 1.052 or vice versa.
So then I should redo the equation with the 5 gallons in my carboy, I blanked about missing that part! I knew I didn't get 100% lol I imagined I'd get like 3% my first time! I feel so stupid now
 
Ok so with the addition of my 4th brain ( aka you guys! ) I got a new efficiency.
5*52=260/8.5=31/37=83%
Does that sound more reasonable? I've taken my gravity reading like 6 times today and it's been consistently 1.052, does that seem realistic?
 
Ok so with the addition of my 4th brain ( aka you guys! ) I got a new efficiency.
5*52=260/8.5=31/37=83%
Does that sound more reasonable? I've taken my gravity reading like 6 times today and it's been consistently 1.052, does that seem realistic?

A couple of clarifications:

Mash efficiency is the measure of how well you extracted sugars from the grain during the mash.

Brewhouse efficiency is the measure of how much of those extracted sugars make it to the fermentor.

My prior post was referencing brewhouse efficiency, but you are probably and understandably asking about your mash efficiency. Sorry for any confusion there.

We can calculate your brewhouse efficiency pretty easily, since we know how much wort reached your fermentor (5 gallons) and what its gravity was (10.52). I come up with 81.5%.

Your mash efficiency is a little trickier, since you are just estimating your pre-boil volume at 6 gallons. Since at 6 gallons your mash efficiency is unreasonably high (97-98%), that's probably an inaccurate estimate. We can (sort of) reverse-calculate your pre-boil volume if you measured your mash and sparge water (that way we can account for grain absorbtion and any liquid left in the mash tun).

Either way, you should be happy with an 81% brewhouse efficiency on the first go-round at AG. Regardless of exact numbers, you did a really good job at getting the most from your grain.
 
I've taken my gravity reading like 6 times today and it's been consistently 1.052, does that seem realistic?

Also, make sure your hydrometer is properly calibrated. If your pre-boil gravity was 1.052 at 6 gallons, boiling down to 4 gallons should have significantly raised the gravity: You have the same amount of sugars concentrated in 1/3 less liquid. Likewise, adding a gallon of water to 4 gallons of wort should have reduced the gravity by 20%. A 1.052 before top off should be like a 1.042 afterward. It doesn't make sense that it would stay at 1.050+.

Not much to do about it now, but something to check and keep in mind going forward.
 
chally said:
Also, make sure your hydrometer is properly calibrated. If your pre-boil gravity was 1.052 at 6 gallons, boiling down to 4 gallons should have significantly raised the gravity: You have the same amount of sugars concentrated in 1/3 less liquid. Likewise, adding a gallon of water to 4 gallons of wort should have reduced the gravity by 20%. A 1.052 before top off should be like a 1.042 afterward. It doesn't make sense that it would stay at 1.050+.

Not much to do about it now, but something to check and keep in mind going forward.

Ya sorry about all of that misunderstanding, I didn't know there was multiple efficiencies. And I blanked on the pre boil, reading. I took so many I'm getting mixed up, I took one before I added the hops thinking thats what I was supposed to do and it was around 10.30 then I panicked and thought that wasn't right and I dismissed it. I'll look through all of my hastily scribbled notes I think it was 1.030 with no hops at about 4 gallons or just over 3. I'm such a noob lol, I have so much to learn!
 
This site has an efficiency calculator:
http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/

If you want to measure your MASH efficiency, you have to know how much wort you collected and the SG reading PRE-BOIL
If you want to measure your BREWHOUSE efficiency, you have to know how much wort went into your fermentor and your SG reading POST-BOIL

The efficiency calculation in and of itself is the same in either scenario, it just measures different parts of your process.
 
EvilDeadAsh said:
This site has an efficiency calculator:
http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/

If you want to measure your MASH efficiency, you have to know how much wort you collected and the SG reading PRE-BOIL
If you want to measure your BREWHOUSE efficiency, you have to know how much wort went into your fermentor and your SG reading POST-BOIL

The efficiency calculation in and of itself is the same in either scenario, it just measures different parts of your process.

Ooh ok so I'll do the equation for both and see what I get, thanks! That makes sense though.
 
So I just took my gravity reading and my SG was 1.052, and 2 weeks later it's about 1.012. Sound about right? I'll bottle tomorrow if it's stable, but I was a little shocked when I saw the low abv. If I read it correctly 1.012 = about 2%? Oh well! It taste like flat beer so I'm happy so far!
 
Jdaught said:
Not sure where u got the 2%, but that's more like 5.3% ABV

Maybe I looked at it wrong but I'll send a picture up

image-3223698966.jpg

The top of the napkin is at 1.012 and 5% is way below, wouldn't I read straight across?
 
You need to use the OG and FG to determine your ABV%

((1.05 x (OG – FG)) / FG) / 0.79

Based on your numbers its around 5.3% as jdaught stated above
 
I've never tried to read ABV off of the hydrometer. I always use the formula stated above. I would recommend writing it down and using it from now on.
 
Oh snap I didn't k ow there was a formula, thanks guys I'll add that to my notes!
 
tally350z said:
You need to use the OG and FG to determine your ABV%

((1.05 x (OG – FG)) / FG) / 0.79

Based on your numbers its around 5.3% as jdaught stated above

Where does 1.05 come in as well as .79? Are those constant numbers?
 
They are constant numbers.
1.05 is the number of grams of ethanol produced for every gram of CO2 produced and .79 is the density of ethanol.
 
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