Yesterday was brewday...first AG experience, and it was awesome.
Notes:
$22 for all ingredients including 11.5# grain, liquid yeast, and hops by the oz...sure beats the $40 kits I was using before!
All told, 5 hours from boiling water to heat the Mash tun to packing up the equipment outside and pitching the yeast. Not all that bad, most of it was done inside while relaxing.
My mash was about 75 minutes due to the fact we didn't start heating sparge water until 45 minutes in, and it wasn't up to temp by the 60 minute mark. Don't know if that will hurt in the long run.
Used beersmith to calculate how much water I needed and how much would be lost...it was DEAD ON how much I had in the brewpot to boil...however I lost more in the boil than I wanted to and had to add about a quart of water to the fermenter.
Recipe:
5# pils
5# munich
1# crystal 80
5oz wheat
3oz carafa
Questions:
How do I calculate efficiency? We set beersmith up at 68% eff and got exactly in the brewpot what it said (6.92 g). However, we noticed in the end we were short water. And while cleaning the mash tun there was a lot more water left after we had let it settle for a few hours...wonder if we should have tried to catch that?
Notes:
$22 for all ingredients including 11.5# grain, liquid yeast, and hops by the oz...sure beats the $40 kits I was using before!
All told, 5 hours from boiling water to heat the Mash tun to packing up the equipment outside and pitching the yeast. Not all that bad, most of it was done inside while relaxing.
My mash was about 75 minutes due to the fact we didn't start heating sparge water until 45 minutes in, and it wasn't up to temp by the 60 minute mark. Don't know if that will hurt in the long run.
Used beersmith to calculate how much water I needed and how much would be lost...it was DEAD ON how much I had in the brewpot to boil...however I lost more in the boil than I wanted to and had to add about a quart of water to the fermenter.
Recipe:
5# pils
5# munich
1# crystal 80
5oz wheat
3oz carafa
Questions:
How do I calculate efficiency? We set beersmith up at 68% eff and got exactly in the brewpot what it said (6.92 g). However, we noticed in the end we were short water. And while cleaning the mash tun there was a lot more water left after we had let it settle for a few hours...wonder if we should have tried to catch that?