Mashed into greatness?

Just doughed into an Ed's Pale Ale recipe for my first AG brew. Noticed a lot of you have chosen this recipe. I hit my temp 152 right on and now Im awaiting that 60 minute mark so I can begin my first ever batch sparge. Damn this is exciting! So thankful to have finally taken the plunge. It took me 2 years of brewing.

Welcome to the dark side! It's nice over here.

If you thought extract and PM was addicting, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Nicely done...

I like to while away my mash time by sipping a cold one and formulating my next recipe...

YooperBrew said:

Welcome to the dark side! It's nice over here.

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bradsul said:

If you thought extract and PM was addicting, you ain't seen nothing yet.

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BierMuncher said:

Nicely done...

I like to while away my mash time by sipping a cold one and formulating my next recipe...

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What all of these guys said. You will never go back

congrats gonz! I made the switch about 5 batches ago, and going back for me would be the equivelent of putting the training wheels back on the bike.

That's not to say I may never use ME again, maybe for double imperial stout.....

Congratz! Yup i just got back from the LHBS with my first AG grain bill....Ed's Haus pale. I plan to brew it up hopefully at the end of the month.

Would be interesting to do some swaps with some many first time AG'ers doing the same recipe. Would be interesting to see the little differences.

Cheers,

Saturday night for me. Tonight I fixed up my 48qt. coleman square cooler with a SS braid. I also made a 25 foot 3/8 copper Fred Sanford brand immersion chiller. Last weekend I bought turkey fryer. SWMBO will be so impressed with the amount I am saving going all grain

So Saturday night I am going all grain for the first time, too. I am pretty sure that Ed's Haus Pale is required for the first all grain. I will probably up the two row a little.... I don't follow directions well

Ed's Haus Pale must be awesome, I have to try it. Anyways congrats on your first AG welcome to the addiction.

Low Efficiency?

Wow was that fun.. and damn it gets dark here early in FL. I started my mash at 4:30PM and by sparge time I had to bring my cooler inside due to lack of light.

My first runnings right out of the tun were 1.071. I then added 3.5 gallons of 170 degree water and let sit for 7 minutes. Then circulated until clear, and drained. Wort was now 1.030.

My kettle was a keggle with the top fully cut off. A wide mouth SOB so I lost more water than anticipated. Only had 4gallons after boil (also probably had my propane burner set too high). S.G after cooling was 1.051. I added a half gallon to now make 4.5 gallons, my S.G is 1.047. So Im looking at like 60% efficiency... pretty upset about that but Im not to worried about it for my first AG.

Im thinking to add a couple more pounds of 2-row in the near future to compensate for my equpment/methods. But is there any other suggestions out there for improving my first AG efficiency. I know this has been discussed daily, but based on my S.G. and other number can you all suggest anything.

60% is great for a first AG, don't feel bad about that!

3.5G isn't enough sparge water. I would go up to 4.5-5 next time. When you add your sparge water, give it a really good stir and then let it sit for 2 minutes to settle the grain, then recirculate. There's no reason for a longer delay when you're batch sparging.

If you don't have any brew software yet think about getting some. It makes it easier to calculate the amount of grain you need for your efficiency and also the water volumes you require.

Congrats man! I did Ed's Haus on Sunday as my first, and I am stoked as well. We should definitely get a swap together! It'd be great to try everyone's first, as well as share mine.

jacobyhale said:

Congrats man! I did Ed's Haus on Sunday as my first, and I am stoked as well. We should definitely get a swap together! It'd be great to try everyone's first, as well as share mine.

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yup I'd love to try it out with some one who did the recipe straight. I'm going to substitute Nottingham's for Safale US-05. I used Nottingham's a lot when I first started brewing and I continue to use it a lot. I just wanted to experiment with some of the different dry yeasts.

I'll most likely be behind the curve a bit but would love to swap with someone for the hell of it! Anyone thats interested can shoot me a PM and we can organize a swap.

There are several factors that play into your efficiency. 60% is not bad for a first time. If you surf this section and the equipment section you will see countless threads on grain mills. This is because getting a grain mill is the fastest way to increase your efficiency. Once that is under your belt, it comes down to process to queeze out more efficiency points.

What was your initial water volume for the mash?

Ryan_PA said:

There are several factors that play into your efficiency. 60% is not bad for a first time. If you surf this section and the equipment section you will see countless threads on grain mills. This is because getting a grain mill is the fastest way to increase your efficiency. Once that is under your belt, it comes down to process to queeze out more efficiency points.

What was your initial water volume for the mash?

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I didn't get above 65% efficiency until I got my Barley Crusher. Before that I was using precrushed grains from the HBS. Now I'm getting 80+% efficiency.
I use almost 8 gals of water for most of mg AG batches. Around 15qts for mash in and 2 batch sparges of about 2 gal each. I try to use a little of my sparge water for a mash out but with a 5 gal cooler there is often not much room.
I am finding that sparges take longer with the finer crush of my Barley Crusher. It used to be I could open the valve and drain the MLT in under 2 min. Now I get a pretty good vacuum on the drain hose and it can take 5 to 10 min for the sparge to dribble out. I'm sure the pound of oats and half pound of wheat didn't help with my last brew.
Craig

Actually I came in today and took a look at my wort and the S.G had settled to a nice 1.047. This was w/ 5 gallons so I ended up at around 66% efficiency! Made me much happier!!

I had 60% for my first two batches. From what everyone is saying it takes a good crush and some technique to get it higher. I'm working on the technique and hope to get a barley crusher soon - hopefully both will help. But then again another pound or two of grains solves the problem too...

I had 64% efficiency with my first AG. The crush was done by the shop and had a noticable amount of uncrushed grain in it. I bought a second hand mill for $50 and got 73% with my last batch. The bulk of my grain bill was the same 2 row as the first batch, I just crushed it again.

Beersmith worked out my water perfectly for my first batch but I was about 5 litres (1.3 Gal) short preboil for my second batch. I heated up some more water and sparged again. I ended up with a nice high (for the style) OG of 1.056 so it seems Beersmith just undercalculated the sparge volume. Or maybe I stuffed up measuring my water. The differences compared to my first batch were I had a few extra types of malt in my second batch, I decocted 2 litres and I did a mash out. I need to have a play around with Beersmith and try and work out where it (or I)went wrong.