1st Time All Grain Brew day

Well I got up around 930 Texas time and decided to brew an all grain brew.

I started with a Honey Wheat, that I bought for the wife (my beer drinkin buddy). I got my gear together with my new mash tun I built out of one of my coolers. All parts purchased at Lowes. I preheated my mash tun with 150 degree water and then dumped it. I heated my water to 162ish and transferred it to the mash tun. Added my grain and did an inital test on temp and came up with 154, one degree higher than the mash temp. I proceeded anyway. Waited my hour and had a beer at 10 something in morning. At the hour mark I did another temp check and came out with 149, guess I'll be getting a newer cooler for a mash tun. Started the sparge with 170 degree water and took about ten minutes to complete. Had a good amount of wort before boil, I would say around 6.5 to 7 gallons of wort. Started to get an initial gravity and dropped the hygrometer (broke it) guess no gravity reading. Decided to continue due the time and effort of the making, besides fun was being had. Finally got the wort to the cooker and brought it to a boil and added the hops and boiled for 59 minutes and added the honey. Finished it all off and transferred the wort to my chiller and cooled it all in about 35 minutes. Pitched my yeast activtor packet and am now waiting on the fermantation. This is the first all grain brew and I have to say I enjoyed the he@? out of it and dont think I ll go back to extract or partial mash or stepping.

I can tell you once I figure out how to upload photos I will put a pic in the photos area of what turned out after the carbonation has been completed.

Any advies is great appreciated being this was my frist AG brew. Cant wait to taste that sweet smelling Brew.

Bill

I think you took your reading of the mash without a wait of 5 minutes for temps to equalize in the tun with the lid on and then stir well again before taking the reading several places in the mash so you are sure it is the actual stabilized mash temperature. A lot of new brewers make the mistake of taking the temp of the mash after stiring the grains and strike water together and then trying to adjust the temperature with cold water or boiling water and then going off the other way because they failed to equalize the temperatures of the water, grain and mash tun the first time around.

No I actually took the reading ten mintues afterward and stirred a few times in between and took temp in more then 6 locations after the ten minute mark, came up with the 154.

Bill

Are you supposed to add grain to water or water to grain? The 'how to brew' book says water to grain, and to do so slowly so as not to shock the enzymes or something like that.

rwdr4 said:

No I actually took the reading ten mintues afterward and stirred a few times in between and took temp in more then 6 locations after the ten minute mark, came up with the 154.

Bill

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Well then it must be temperature loss (measured at the end of the mash) due to poor insulation. You need a blanket around the tun or a better tun I guess.

vmpolesov said:

Are you supposed to add grain to water or water to grain? The 'how to brew' book says water to grain, and to do so slowly so as not to shock the enzymes or something like that.

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You can do it either way but I like to put water first a few degrees above strike temp and wait a bit to let the temp stabilize, stir and measure until I see it not changing and at the strike temp and then add the grains. This way I know I will hit the mash temp spot on.