First brew in progress

I wanted to first say thanks to everyone that posts on this forum. I read a ton of stuff here before attempting my first brew and I hope it works out

Anyway I'm doing a pale ale recipe for my first attempt. So far I managed to crush my grains, heat up the strike water, and get the mash going in my rubbermaid home depot special tun. After a good stir or two the temp was perfect. It's now sealed up for the next hour while I prepare for mash out and sparging.

I read something about not really needing to mash out. I guess my question is that the recipe I have in promash shows a mash out. If I'm not going to do this does my strike water volume become the total of the strike+mashout water volumes, or do I just use the regular strike water volume and sparge with more water?

Also I have a few glass carboys for secondary and the "ale pail" for primary. Am I going to need a blowoff? I'm pretty sure the pail is 6.5g and my batch will end up being 5g even.

Thanks!! I'll post pics when it's all done.

Well I finished my first ever brew. I think it went ok. Two things I noticed though. Even though I used the appropriate amt of water and had over 6 gallons going into the boil, I still ended up with only a smidge over 4 gallons of final beer to put into the fermenter. Also my specific gravity was only 1.020 which is low according to promash I only let the mash out water sit for 5 mins, and now I realize it was supposed to be 10.

Overall though I think it went pretty well. I sorta looks like it might be drinkable I tried like hell to keep everything sanitized, I hope it works out. In the primary now

Hey congratulations and welcome to this addictive hobby!

I just have a couple questions in order to figure this out.

1) What was your mash temp? Did you hit it and keep it steady the whole time?
2) It seems you crushed the grains yourself... how did you do it and what did they look like? Husky or floury?

The answer to those two might give a better idea of why your OG was so low. Actually, REALLY low if you intended to get 5 gallons and only ended up with 4 (and by the way, that would be caused by too high an evaporation rate during the boil... basically you boiled it too hard or too long)

#1. Need to see the recipe. 1.020 is an FG, not an OG, something went very awry here if you used the hydrometer correctly. It had nothing to do with your mashout water... I used to NEVER mash out and still got 78% efficiency. What was that crush like?

#2. A good starting point for boil off is 1.5 gal/hour. It will depend on how hard you boil, diameter of the pot, humidity, wind... etc. BUT, 1.5 gallons is not uncommon for a 60 minute boil.

#3. Need to see the recipe and hear about the mash temp. and crush, something went very wrong to get an OG of 1.020

I used the barley crusher on stock settings. It was relatively fine, but not powdery by any means.

7.50 Pale Malt (2-row)
1.00 Caramel Pils Malt
Cascade 2.00oz 60 mins, 1.00 oz 1 min

Strike water was 167 degrees, 2.44 gallons, equalized to 153 exactly. Mashout was 210 degrees, 1.22 gallons, equalized to a hair under 170.
Sparge was 170 degrees, 4.25 gallons

Two things that I know could have been a problem. First I didn't check the temp after the hour mash, second I didn't mash out for 10 minutes, only about 5 or 6. I think the temps were ok though, other than the mashout being a degree too low and half as long as recommended. If I skip mashout, do I just add that to my strike water amt, or just add it to sparge amt?

Is the OG is that low is there any point is fermenting? It's been bubbling away quite nicely. Will it just end up with a relatively low alcohol content, or does it adversely affect flavor?

I'm also using a 10g polarware brew kettle, which is pretty wide so there is a ton of surface area for the water to evaporate from. I was using 2.5 gallon spring waters from wal-mart. Was tricky to estimate quarter gallons and whatnot so it's possible that I was a tad short and boiled too hot in a wide kettle to get to 4g.

I think you must have made a mistake in the OG measurement. I ran the malt through Promash and it was like 30% efficiency for 4 gallons of finished wort.

At least you now have an idea of your evaporaion rate so you can adjust your water additions on the next try.

I'm no expert, but seems to me like the SG reading may have been off. Was the wort you took the measurement from mixed well enough?

Again, your mashout wont make a difference, it is way overrated IMHO.

You measured the OG wrong. The BC factory setting will get you 75-85% eff. if everything runs smoothly, as you are stating.

Your temps were excellent.

Mashout, meh.... who cares.

In a cooler, if you started at 153F, Id be surprised if it went lower than 151F over an hour.

The OG, if measured at the correct temp, should have been about 2-3x what you recorded.

If it is chugging, let it go, it is beer. You just dont know the OG, not a big deal.

I measured again today after about 5 days of fermentation. SG is 1.010 It was bubbling at the rate of every 2-4 seconds for days, now it's down to once every 10-15 seconds. It's my first batch, so I don't really know how fast it should get down to 1.010, or how low it's supposed to go, but something seems wrong. I wonder what I should do.

Hey cvstrat,
Firstly, two thumbs up for brewing your own beer and for getting straight onto grains. Nice one! Your changing gravity measurements mean you have made some beer, so excellent job with that. To help understand your OG measurement, did you add any water to your fermenter after it became apparent you had 4gal, and you really wanted some more beer? If you did, then chances are, Munsoned is spot on, and it wasn't mixed well enough, a common enough occurrence. If not, then maybe there was some bubbles on your hydrometer which caused it to sit up high in the wort, again easy enough to do once you have finished vigorously boiling, pitching, drinking your way through a brew session.

Good work on keeping everything sanitized. That is the most important part of your brewing, and will ensure your beer turns out fine. RDWHAHB.

Keep us posted on how it turns out, and get your next brew on once you have a free fermenter. Lack of HB is worse than any perceived problem in your brew!

By the way, just leave the brew to complete fermentation. I am sure by the in-depth questioning and consultation, you know to measure the SG a few times to confirm fermentation is complete. Get it in the bottle and leave it there for at least 3 weeks before making any final conclusions. It's all good!