4th All Grain and almost perfect!

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ThatGuyRyan

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Location
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Well after my first three AG went poorly so we upgraded our thermometer to a thermapen and tried Orfy's Hob Goblin II and wow what a difference! First I compared my three other thermometers to the new thermapen and two were off by 7 degrees. The third was only off by 2 degrees but I realized that it took 45-50 seconds to get a real reading on that one.

I assume this is the main cause of my problems in my first few attempts since it took way longer to get a actual reading and we were not allowing the time.

I also built a HLT using a old 6gal cooler that I found in my attic and installed a ball valve. I heated all of my water to the recommended temps using just my iphone apps and they actually were spot on!

After 10 minutes in my mash turn I doughed in and the temp was at 150.5 and 60 minutes in I only lost 1 degree. I was also able to keep my sparge water stable at 170 for 3/4 of my sparge process. I went as slow as I could taking about 45-50 minutes to sparge.

In the end the projected preboil was 1.042 actual preboil 1.041. Projected OG 1.056 actual OG 1.055. Considering my last AG attempts were off my .02 and now I am only off .001 I am stoked!

My only thing is that I honestly never even had a Hob Goblin before brewing this so I picked up a few for the brew day. And while I like it, it seems a little lacking in flavor to me. I was wondering if anyone would suggest dry hopping this and if so what would be a good hop to use. :mug:

Long story short....I love the thermapen!
 
nice man. i did my first AG about a month ago. I used a floating therm for the whole process and decided that i would never again go cheap with my therm again. i bought a thermapen and plan to use it for my second AG this week. can't wait. nice sig by the way. haha
 
Excellent! Having an accurate thermometer with a quick response time that you trust to better than .5 degrees is really a must for all grain. It's a good feeling when you really start dialing in on the processes and the finished product turns out as expected.

Cheers
:mug:
 
I too found that the thermometer I was using for my MLT was inaccurate. I was using a floating thermometer that I had bought from the LHBS. It is in good condition and only about 3 months old but it sucks. It reads 5.5 degrees higher than it should. I actually had to take 6 thermometers that I had around the house to figure out which ones were accurate. So some of my mashes were conducted at 6 degrees colder than they should have been and I had no idea. Makes me mad that I was sold such a piece of crap but makes me realize it was my fault not to check it and to trust a $7 thermometer.
 
Yea that’s exactly what I did. I started using the free thermometer that came with my turkey fryer. Then a floating thermometer and then two other cooks choice el-cheapo ones from the grocery store. The floating worked the best but after cracking two in the brew pot I stopped using them. Now if I could only settle on one sparge technique I would be set!:cross:

I really want to try my had at a big beer now. Oh the possibilities!
 
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