Mashing R Us

Why did I need to go AG? Missed my strike temp (4 degrees to low), and had to let it sit 30 minutes while I warmed more water, then overshot by 4 degrees. Screw it...it's gonna have to do. No doubt in my mind I've ruined this batch...I should just dump it right now.

Stay tuned for more breaking news on this developing cluster f*&k.

At least your not at work!!!!!!!!!! Have a beer for me..

flhrpi said:

At least your not at work!!!!!!!!!! Have a beer for me..

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I am at work. The only question is which client I'm gonna try to bill for the time spent mashing.

I think this happens for everyones first AG. No worries, it'll be beer before long

Welcome to the dark side El P.

Yeah, AG is a tough bee-atch. I screwed up on water quantities and sparged too fast, but hey...you live and learn. Just hold onto the thought that AG opens up an even larger playing field in terms of beer styles. It also adds another realm of dimensions to the hobby (water treatment, mashing chemistry, sparging physics)....I'm scaring myself!

I'm definitely not giving up on brewing extracts or kits though.

So, what equipment have you put together for your first AG??

BlightyBrewer said:

Welcome to the dark side El P.

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I feel ashamed, how could I forget to say that

Many German step mashes use 2 saccrification rests. One for the Maltose at ~63C...66C (145F..151F) and one for dextrines at 71C (160F). The body of the beer will be determined mostly by the length of the Maltose rest.

You may have done just that. Just wait for conversion and you should get a higher bodied beer. If you want to have a lighter body, just cool it down a bit and wait 20 - 30min after conversion.

Kai

El Pistolero said:

Why did I need to go AG?

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You ass! I'm going to be one of the only motor-mouth extract brewers on here!

Christ..... now I'm going to have to go to homedepot and buy a bunch of AG stuff. Thanks, EP... you dick!

-walker

PS: j/k. I'm interested in hearing how this all turns out!

Imperial Walker said:

You ass! I'm going to be one of the only motor-mouth extract brewers on here!

Christ..... now I'm going to have to go to homedepot and buy a bunch of AG stuff. Thanks, EP... you dick!

-walker

PS: j/k. I'm interested in hearing how this all turns out!

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You're an extract brewer? I thought you did (half-assed) partial masses

Darth Konvel said:

You're an extract brewer? I thought you did (half-assed) partial masses

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Sometimes I do half-ass mini-mashes, but only if I throw in 2-row. If that's not in there, I'm just doing anal-retentive steeping.



-walker

LMAO @ Emperor Norris.

Don't give up! You will be suprised. I bet your mash converted and your beer will be fine. Believe me when I say it gets easier.
Some things you can do to help hit your mash temprature:
1. Pre heat your Mash Tun with hot or boiling water before you add the strike water. Dump the pre-heat water just before the strike water is added.
2. Heat your strike water to a slightly higher temp than needed. For example if you want it to be 170 degrees, heat it to 173. Add the water to your Tun, let it cool to 170 then add your grain.
3. If you have a glass thermometer like I have it lags pretty bad. It can make you chase temps all over the place. Let the mash temp stabilize before you adjust with hot or cold water.
4. Have an extra 1/2 to one gallon of hot and cold water ready in case you need to make slight adjustments to the temp. Add about a quart at a time.
I have found that my plastic cooler Mash/lauter tun absorbs a lot of heat before it stabilizes. These tips have helped me get within 1 degre of my desired mash temps and the mash tends to stay at the desired temp longer.

ElP, don't sweat the first run. Everyone did it. I've been doing AG for a while and thought I knew my **** until I broke out the new mashtun and totally flopped with it, TWICE. I went back to the old one and didn't skip a beat.

I'll have to get another cooler and try again this summer, but for now I am happy with my small cooler.

You obviously became "one" with your mash tun Dude.

I have been lucky and hit on my first 3 but the one I did the last weekend was a little on the high side about 158, I didn't relize that 30lbs of grain would retain that much heat. I had the top off my mash tun most of the time and finally got down to 153 right before sparge time.. Sometimes it's better to be lucky that good..

OK, it's now 2:25 pm (that's 14.25 for Dude and Swami ) and I've got about 5 gallons of wort, but due to poor planning and drunkeness I'm out of sparge water. I've got some heating up, but I've got to wonder if maybe I should just keep lautering and see if I get there...but then what happens if the grain bed collapses? Can one inadvertently create a black hole by sparging too fast?

Where is Janx when you need him?

El Pistolero said:

OK, it's now 2:25 pm (that's 14.25 for Dude and Swami ) and I've got about 5 gallons of wort, but due to poor planning and drunkeness I'm out of sparge water. I've got some heating up, but I've got to wonder if maybe I should just keep lautering and see if I get there...but then what happens if the grain bed collapses? Can one inadvertently create a black hole by sparging too fast?

Where is Janx when you need him?

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You''ll never get 3 more gallons out of the tun. When I've done that in the past (run out of water), I've quickly heated up the amount of water I needed to get to 7-8 gallons, then poured it all into the tun, stirred, waited 10 mins, and batch sparged the rest. I didn't like letting the grains sit in there any longer than that.

The sad thing is that the misery of the process will only be exceeded by your desire to "make it right" the next time around.

Just kidding...we all love every minute of AG.

OK, it's 3:00pm and I've got nine gallons of wort...the final runnings were 1.001 @ 130F. Then butthead son "reminds" me that he has to be at work at 4:00, and of course I'm UI, so choke down a hamburger so I can drive his sorry butt to work. Now it's 4:20, and 1st daughter needs to be at softball practice at 6:00, and baby needs to be picked up from daycare. Do I commence boiling now, or wait?

Sometimes Mr. Mom and brewing just don't mix.

9 gl; that's a lot of wort. Were you shooting for a 5.5 or so end batch or a really long boil?

One other tidbit on AG is you should halt runnings once you get below 1.010 otherwise you're rinsing more husky flavors than sweet wort.

EDIT!!! - Just noticed that was at 130 degrees. Runnings stopped at 1.014 adjusted. Excellent!

desertBrew said:

9 gl; that's a lot of wort. Were you shooting for a 5.5 or so end batch or a really long boil?

One other tidbit on AG is you should halt runnings once you get below 1.010 otherwise you're rinsing more husky flavors than sweet wort.

EDIT!!! - Just noticed that was at 130 degrees. Runnings stopped at 1.014 adjusted. Excellent!

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But any more than 8 gallons (for a 5 gal. batch) even with a huge evap. rate is probably overkill unless you know your efficiency stunk and you are compensating for that.

Dude said:

But any more than 8 gallons (for a 5 gal. batch) even with a huge evap. rate is probably overkill unless you know your efficiency stunk and you are compensating for that.

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8 gallons was what I was shooting for...just collected a little extra because I wasn't exactly sure how much I'd run off.

7:20pm now...back from softball practice. Time to get my buzz back on and commence boiling.

Hey what kind of beer are you brewing anyway? Ya know, it's simply amazing that anyone's first AG attempts actually turn into beer. My first try I couldn't get the temp right, the sparge wouldn't work right, and I had a huge boilover. But my beer still tasted good after all the worrying. It'll turn out , I promise.

El Pistolero said:

OK, it's 3:00pm and I've got nine gallons of wort...the final runnings were 1.001 @ 130F. Then butthead son "reminds" me that he has to be at work at 4:00, and of course I'm UI, so choke down a hamburger so I can drive his sorry butt to work. Now it's 4:20, and 1st daughter needs to be at softball practice at 6:00, and baby needs to be picked up from daycare. Do I commence boiling now, or wait?

Sometimes Mr. Mom and brewing just don't mix.

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This post has snapped me back to my senses. I had been having visions of me going AG, brewing outside like a real man should, mashing, sparging.... large volume boils....

when I read this post, I realized that my visions did not seem to include any mention of my children, who consume a very large part of my day, and certainly wouldn't allow me a huge, uninterrupted stretch of time.

Suddenly my visions changed and I saw myself still going AG, but brewing outside in the DARK and getting to bed as the sun came up, because I wouldn't be able to mash-in until 9PM to get things rolling.

I think I'll buy another 50# bag of DME this weekend.....

-walker

Imperial Walker said:

when I read this post, I realized that my visions did not seem to include any mention of my children, who consume a very large part of my day, and certainly wouldn't allow me a huge, uninterrupted stretch of time.

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Really, it didn't turn out all that bad. Got back from softball practice a little after seven, started boiling, SWMBO bathed the kids while I went to pick up son #1, and suddenly it's 11:00pm and the yeast is pitched. Softball in the middle of everything was kind of a nice interruption...almost invigorating. In the end I've got 5.5 gallons of Hobgoblin @ 1.056 OG (was shooting for 1.059), so I'm feeling kind of good about things...this AG is a piece of cake.

El Pistolero said:

In the end I've got 5.5 gallons of Hobgoblin @ 1.056 OG (was shooting for 1.059), so I'm feeling kind of good about things...this AG is a piece of cake.

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Sounds like you did well!

AG is more intimidating to the unknowing than need be. It takes longer, that is about it. It really is a piece of cake once you get the kinks out of your process.

What method of sparging did you use El. P? Have you got a wirley gig sparger?

I completely forgot to measure the OG at the end of my sparge (which I screwed up by sparging too fast)...D'oh!

<thinks> maybe I should change my custom title to "Muppet Sparger"?

Next time, I'm going to batch sparge.

Congrats on the first AG. I know someone already posted this, but I'll second it. Having extra hot water is always handy at the beginning of the mash. When I first started, I tried to calculate exactly how much water I needed. Now I make sure I have a little more than that and everything seems to come out right.

Maestro Brewsmith said:

Congrats on the first AG. I know someone already posted this, but I'll second it. Having extra hot water is always handy at the beginning of the mash. When I first started, I tried to calculate exactly how much water I needed. Now I make sure I have a little more than that and everything seems to come out right.

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I second the "congrats" and man are you right on the extra water. Now after I dough in I fill the HLT back up and start heating, that way I know that I have plenty of hot water. If it's not used in the sparge then I use it during clean up..

Woo, grats on surviving your first AG. Dude is very much correct, once you get past the jargon and the bumps in the road, it's not hard - just takes longer

BlightyBrewer said:

What method of sparging did you use El. P? Have you got a wirley gig sparger?

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I did a fly sparge, but without the whirley gig...I just used a qt pitcher to pour water in the top, with a plastic lid floating on the top of the water to keep from disturbing the grain bed. I'm not sure why I did a fly sparge...I'd been planning on doing a batch sparge all along, but changed my mind at the last minute.

Felicidades, Señor Pistolero. AG does take longer, there's no way around that, but there are ways to streamline the process. I use the mash time to get my ducks in a row for boiling and fermenting, but that could be done in advance which would leave some downtime during the mash (at least for a single infusion). Batch sparging cuts down on the time a bit.

For a single infusion I can get through the process in 4 hours now, which includes cleanup. So basically, if I wake up at 8 on Saturday I can be done by 12 when SWMBO wakes up and wants attention

Baron von BeeGee said:

For a single infusion I can get through the process in 4 hours now, which includes cleanup.

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Really? Hmmmm.... that's not much longer than my extract batches take. I start at 9pm and usually finish cleaning up at 12:30am or so. I'm sure I could speed up the process with a propane burner (my electric stove sucks), but since I'm already comfortable with going to bed between 1am and 2am, maybe I COULD give this a shot.....

damnit....

I think I'll wait until this fall and give it a go. I want to get settled into my new house and get the brew station all set up in the garage.

-walker

Just get in your house, and I'll come over with my stuff and we'll run through it. That way you won't be away from the walkerlets too long. Maybe we can convince the other GRABASSes to do a group brew.

Turkey fryer is key...I'm boiling <15 minutes after runoff. As you can imagine, I can get my mash and sparge water up to temp fairly rapidly, as well.

Baron von BeeGee said:

Just get in your house, and I'll come over with my stuff and we'll run through it. That way you won't be away from the walkerlets too long. Maybe we can convince the other GRABASSes to do a group brew.

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Sounds great! But I think the proper term is GRABASSholes.

Baron von BeeGee said:

Turkey fryer is key...I'm boiling <15 minutes after runoff. As you can imagine, I can get my mash and sparge water up to temp fairly rapidly, as well.

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Maybe I should start a thread about whether the aluminum pot that comes with the fryer is suitable for boiling my wort in?...

Seriously, I would probably use the pot that comes with it. I don't want to shell out the $ for a big ass SS pot.

-walker

good deal on the ag el pistol. it's very satisfying to piddle around with grains and make beer.

i always have an extra gallon or two of sparge water ready on the stove in the kitchen whilst mashing/sparging/boiling out in the garage or driveway. it's nice that the garage walks right into the kitchen.

once i get about half a gallon of wort into the kettle i start boiling it as i'm still sparging... i'm usually removing hot break before the kettle is half full. and it's at a rolling boil when i'm done sparging. i don't care much about og and sg... i take a reading after the boil and that's about it, if i remember.

Imperial Walker said:

Seriously, I would probably use the pot that comes with it. I don't want to shell out the $ for a big ass SS pot.

-walker

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You have to do a full boil with AG though, so your pot has to be at least 8 gallons, better yet even more to prevent boil overs.

Dude said:

You have to do a full boil with AG though, so your pot has to be at least 8 gallons, better yet even more to prevent boil overs.

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yeah, I know. I've been talking to the Baron in the side about this. I need to track down a keggle someplace....

-walker

Go for it Walker! It's great fun...honest.

You can do it with a 7.5g pot, but it's a pain. I've been doing it that way for over a year, but recently jumped on a keggle somebody on the greenboard was selling. Just need fittings. You should have seen my general demeanor last weekend while trying to boil 7.25g in a 7.5g pot while looking at a keggle with no tap.