1st All Grain this weekend!

BrewSwag 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
jarnock

jarnock

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 15, 2012
Messages
71
Reaction score
2
Greetings!

1st post, thought I would introduce myself! I'm fairly new to homebrewing, I have brewed probably 4 or 5 batches 3 years ago and just recently picked up the hobby again. I have brewed 3 batches since December and just received a 9 gallon stainless steel pot to do my 1st all grain.

I made a Mashtun out of a 10 gallon Rubber Maid cooler with a bazooka tube. I will be using Edworts Haus Pale Ale recipe.

So a big thank you to the community here and would like to ask for any last minute tips! Thank you for everything!
 
Watch your mash temps closely and be sure to have a HomeBrew by your side.
 
jarnock said:
Greetings!

1st post, thought I would introduce myself! I'm fairly new to homebrewing, I have brewed probably 4 or 5 batches 3 years ago and just recently picked up the hobby again. I have brewed 3 batches since December and just received a 9 gallon stainless steel pot to do my 1st all grain.

I made a Mashtun out of a 10 gallon Rubber Maid cooler with a bazooka tube. I will be using Edworts Haus Pale Ale recipe.

So a big thank you to the community here and would like to ask for any last minute tips! Thank you for everything!
Click to expand...

Oooohhhhhh, you're beating me to the punch by a few weeks. :mad:

Just kidding, I should be ready to do my 1st AG beer in about 2 weeks tho. I did an extract batch today for the pipeline.

Good luck with this and let us know how it goes. :rockin:

Rick
 
Put a layer of aluminum foil on top of your mash before you start the 60-minute mash. This has been a big help in keeping my mash temps stable, and it's a pretty cheap insurance policy.
 
Make sure you heat some extra water (qt or 2) just in case you don't hit your mash temp the first time. I find that my strike water has to be about 170-174F in order to hit my mash temp (152F) but your equipment losses will vary. It's much easier to throw some ice into the mash if it's too hot then it is to realize it's too cold and then have to wait for water to heat up on the stove.
 
hoppheadIPA said:
Good luck with the all-grain!!! It's not as hard as you think, you'll be fine.
Click to expand...

And if you do manage to screw it up, then use it as a learning experience. Take a lot of notes so you know what to fix next time.

Things that my brew partner and I messed up on and how we fixed it:

Our initial mash temp was way off because we had no clue on how much temp we were going to lose from heating the strike water to when we closed the lid on our mash tun. Experience taught us that if we pre-heated the tun, then we lost about 15 degrees in the process. If we didn't pre-heat the tun, then we lost about 17 degrees in the process. It was also very helpful to have about 4 quarts of boiling water / 4 quarts of cold water ready in case our mash temps were off.

Our mash tun was too small for the strike water and grains that we were using. We didn't do the calculations right. We fixed this by getting a bigger mash tun, but we could have fixed it by making sure the numbers were right OR by reducing the water-to-grains ratio to a more manageable number.

Our bigger mash tun had a lot of dead air (headspace) on certain batches, and that seemed to severely affect the stability of the mash temp, so we put some aluminum foil over the mash and that helped us out a lot. And a sleeping bag over the mash tun probably didn't hurt either, but we used that from the get-go.
 
I just did my first AG about a week ago and everyone recommended I take notes on everything... I took the advice and I'm glad I did. I suggest the same. Take good notes (pre-boil volume, post-boil volume, mash temp, target OG, actual OG, etc.). Even things that you feel are not important (i.e. let grains sit in sparge water for "x" min to run to the bathroom). Everything matters when it comes to AG is what I'm gathering, and if you come out with an excellent beer (or vice versa) you want to be able to duplicate the process or change something.
 
LandoLincoln said:
Put a layer of aluminum foil on top of your mash before you start the 60-minute mash. This has been a big help in keeping my mash temps stable, and it's a pretty cheap insurance policy.
Click to expand...

I have never heard of the aluminum foil, but will do it!
 
Jayhem said:
Make sure you heat some extra water (qt or 2) just in case you don't hit your mash temp the first time. I find that my strike water has to be about 170-174F in order to hit my mash temp (152F) but your equipment losses will vary. It's much easier to throw some ice into the mash if it's too hot then it is to realize it's too cold and then have to wait for water to heat up on the stove.
Click to expand...

Ok, heat up .5 gallon, should it be boiling or just in the process of heating up?
 
LandoLincoln said:
And if you do manage to screw it up, then use it as a learning experience. Take a lot of notes so you know what to fix next time.

Things that my brew partner and I messed up on and how we fixed it:

Our initial mash temp was way off because we had no clue on how much temp we were going to lose from heating the strike water to when we closed the lid on our mash tun. Experience taught us that if we pre-heated the tun, then we lost about 15 degrees in the process. If we didn't pre-heat the tun, then we lost about 17 degrees in the process. It was also very helpful to have about 4 quarts of boiling water / 4 quarts of cold water ready in case our mash temps were off.

Our mash tun was too small for the strike water and grains that we were using. We didn't do the calculations right. We fixed this by getting a bigger mash tun, but we could have fixed it by making sure the numbers were right OR by reducing the water-to-grains ratio to a more manageable number.

Our bigger mash tun had a lot of dead air (headspace) on certain batches, and that seemed to severely affect the stability of the mash temp, so we put some aluminum foil over the mash and that helped us out a lot. And a sleeping bag over the mash tun probably didn't hurt either, but we used that from the get-go.
Click to expand...

Ok, so that answers my question from earlier, 4 quarts boiling and 4 quarts cold water.

I'm just printing off my recipe from Edwort and making the last few preparations before it I start. Once the kids goto sleep, IT'S GAME TIME!

And I'm excited to try my first Partial Extract IPA!
 
739776_10101115099438749_1695303036_o.jpg
 
Boiled the water to roughly 172 and poured it into the cooler, hit 152 then closed it up for about 30 seconds, remembered the foil trick, opened it back up, temp was at 154, i figured i was happy with that, might check it again. I'm so freaking nervous right meow. Also, my partial extract brew i popped open for the first time tonight tasted amazing!
 
so i just checked it again and it was at 158, so i poured some cold water in it and then shut it down at 152...we'll see :) if you can't tell already - i know i know, relax and have a homebrew...
 
Opened it up again once 60 minutes h it and bam, 152, so i guess i probably was a little high earlier, but I used the tin foil like landolincoln suggested. so far so good. Now i'm batch sparging...so waiting 10 minutes and then draining again. the wort seems to be cloudy...at least all of it. not sure if i screwed something up or not, oh well! We'll see!
 
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NQehkFaQ62Q/UOewBm-ezDI/AAAAAAAABdM/sfRtzCjrTW8/s1600/grains.jpg[IMG]


bah...can't get it to work!
 
Alright, so I'm on the 6 hour mark and I'm waiting for temperatures to cool down...FML this is starting to blow. I should have listened and gotten the wort chiller. FML, will post SG very soon! Even though no one cares and I don't really either. This has been a weird night, stressful/rewording, won't really know until I get the SG!
 
If its post-boil its OG, pre-boil is SG, but right now, who cares:)

Make sure you get it down to pitching temp and don't be too hasty pitching too soon, any higher than 70F and you're looking for trouble..
 
Ok, so I just finished and pitched the yeast - 6 hours and 42 minutes. SG is 1.047 - according to some random calculator, I got 72% efficiency - not sure if this is good or bad, but I'll take it. Might be a low ABC beer, but at this point I'm satisfied. Good night everyone!

Also, pitched the yeast at 68, randomly fell into that temp range with around 6 gallons of wort.
 
fishersfirst said:
If its post-boil its OG, pre-boil is SG, but right now, who cares:)

Make sure you get it down to pitching temp and don't be too hasty pitching too soon, any higher than 70F and you're looking for trouble..
Click to expand...

Ok, good point! Measured Post-Boil, the OG was 1.047 - do i need to recalculate? for efficiency?
 
If you're using brewing software, just adjust your efficiency figure till you get to the OG that you finished with.

If not, sit back, crack open a home brew and let the yeast do its thing. Don't stress about it, leave it alone! Welcome to AG brewing my friend!!
 

Similar threads

P
Steep to convert - Steeping grains
Replies
5
Views
354
hottpeper13
H
F
Converting an extract recipe to all grain
Replies
2
Views
256
IslandLizard
IslandLizard
HB_ATL73
Any Beginner Atlanta Home Brewers Need All-Grain Equipment?
Replies
3
Views
896
HB_ATL73
HB_ATL73
wmubronco
For Sale 15/20 gallon KAL clone 240V 50A system - Metro Detroit, MI
Replies
1
Views
187
wmubronco
wmubronco
C
Best brewing system for 5-15 gallon batches
Replies
25
Views
1K
Ninoid
Ninoid
InkBird 300

Latest posts

Back
Top