First AG batch. I clearly was not ready!!

Top off you glass, sit back and get ready to point and laugh at the new kid.

Quick background on me. I have never brewed a beer before yesterday, not an extract not even a Mr Beer kit. I decided to start brewing AG because I figured I'd never brew an extract so why bother learning that way.

I picked up a kit from NB for Caribou Slobber Brown Ale I love me a brown ale!! First thing to note is the amount of cleaning, scrubbing, washing and sanitizing is insane. I am germ-a-phobe to start so I mighta overdone the cleaning and sanitizing part but figured your gear can never be too clean right!?

So now that everything is clean enough to eat off it's brew time!! I live in Maine and we have amazing spring water here so I am brewing using that. I got 5gals to 168deg as my mash calls for 153 @ 60mins. I am using 10.625lbs of grain which means i am using @ 1.8qts of water per lb of grain, i realize now that that maybe more water than necessary to mash with. I am using a SS pot that is slid into a cooler to help retain heat as I didn't want to mash in the cooler itself as I was weary of off flavors from the plastic. This setup seems to work well for me as my starting temp for the mash was money @ 153.8 and finished @ 152.4. A big reason for the drop was my curiosity and opened up the lid a couple times to see how things were going. Oops

And for me I think this is where things went down hill. The recipe calls for a 10min mashout at 170degs I realized I didn't understand (and still don't) the term mashout. What I now "think" it means is to raise the temp of the entire mash to 170degs and let it sit for 10 mins. Is this correct? And if so how do I determine how much water and at what temp to get the mash from 153 to 170?

So that being said I had about 4gal of boiling water on standby so I got the mash to 170 just by dumping a bunch of boiling water in till it hit the 170 mark. I have no clue how much I dumped in but would like a way to know how much should be required to achieve this without having to fudge it.

So continuing on... After I hit my 170 I started to drain it off into the boil kettle, I didn't wait the 10mins as required as the temp was dropping fast because I had my lid open the whole time. I didn't measure how much wort I had after my first running for the mash so I just added water till I had about 6.75gals of wort in my boil kettle. Again it wasn't the correct way to do it but sometimes ya gotta just work with what ya got. I did notice a lot of what I call floaties in my boil kettle as I started the boil (before I added the hops) so not sure if I drained off enough of the first runnings or if I somehow disturbed the grain bed. Do you normally see floaties in your kettle?

Ok now I have my wort on an open flame to bring it to a boil. This took about an hour with my gas stove to get to wort to slow roll boil is this too long? I guess what I am asking is that from first flame to end of boil it was a total of 2 hours over a high flame how does the added hour it took to get to a boil affect the outcome of the beer? Also I was assuming that the hops addition didn't start till the wort was at a steady rolling boil correct?

I ended my boil and realized I hadn't taken a pre-boil gravity Dooh!! Owell it was too late at that point. I did take an OG and came in at 1.042 when I shoulda been at 1.052 can anyone tell me what part or parts caused me to be shy of the OG required (1.052)? Are there factors I didn't calculate when figuring OG like temp or atmosphere or how many beers I had consumed at that point?

I ended up with just shy of 5.5gal in the carboy @ 80deg. I hit that with about 3mins of oxygen and dropped in my yeast, capped the carboy and she was bubbling about 2hrs later.

that was about 18hrs ago and she is bubblin away. So all in all I really enjoyed brewing my first batch of beer. I am optimistic that the beer will turn out ok for my first ride at the rodeo. Mashing seems to be my crutch and need to get a better grip on understanding volumes needed/required to do it properly. Other than that I am like a kid in a candy store wanting to buy up lots more grain to brew. Cheers!'

David

CARIBOU SLOBBER BROWN ALE (All Grain)

OG 1.052
READY: 6 WEEKS

Suggested fermentation schedule:
1-2 weeks primary;
1-2 weeks secondary;
2 weeks bottle conditioning

MASH INGREDIENTS
- 9 lbs. Rahr 2-row pale
- .75 lbs. Briess Caramel 60L
- .5 lbs. Briess Caramel 80L
- .25 lbs. Fawcett Pale Chocolate
- .125 lbs. English Black Malt

MASH SCHEDULE: SINGLE INFUSION
Sacch’ Rest: 153° F for 60 minutes
Mashout: 170° F for 10 minutes

BOIL ADDITIONS & TIMES
1 oz. US Goldings (60 min)
1 oz. Liberty (30 min)
1 oz. Willamette (15 min)

YEAST
liquid yeast:
WYEAST #1332 NORTHWEST ALE YEAST.
Optimum temperature: 65-75°

Not bad for a first brew. One thing though, you really should try and get the wort cooler before pitching the yeast. 80F is way too high and could result in off flavors. Try and get it at least down to 70F if not lower. Your other issues will smooth out once you get a few brews under your belt.

5.5 gal might've contributed to your lower gravity since the recipe is formulated for 5gal.

BBL_Brewer said:

Not bad for a first brew. One thing though, you really should try and get the wort cooler before pitching the yeast. 80F is way too high and could result in off flavors. Try and get it at least down to 70F if not lower. Your other issues will smooth out once you get a few brews under your belt.

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I will def do that next time i didn't realize the higher temp would cause off flavors..

David

Marlowefire said:

5.5 gal might've contributed to your lower gravity since the recipe is formulated for 5gal.

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so its it safe to say that most kits from NB are for 5gal batches? For whatever reason I thought i was supposed to finish up at 5.5.

David

You seem pretty concerned with detail. A brew program like beersmith with calculate all kinds of stuff for you. I use it all of the time. Other wise, id say dont pitch at 80 deg, <70 deg is best. Your OG is going to be most affected by mashing and sparging techniques. You will eventualy dicide what works best for you and you will become very consistant with your OGs. I hit 70 percent every time, and that is perfect for me.


Your mash out is to raise the mash to a temp of around 168 degrees however you can. If you step mash, just heat and stir till you are there and sparge with +-168 degree water untill you hit your preboil boil vol.

Infusion mashing will take a predetermined amout of heated water to bring you to +-168, then sparge as needed. I like to vorlauf with the second runnings to get all of the goodness out that i can. A beer program will do the math for you and get you very close.

Way to take the plunge, i told my buddy to just go for the all grain too when he starts brewing in a few weeks.

I noticed that you didnt stur your mash much. Judging by you saying that "A big reason for the drop was my curiosity and opened up the lid a couple times to see how things were going. Oops"
Sturing it frequently will help with some efficency. Also if your batch sparging.. (draining first runnings, then adding the 170 water second then drain. Stir when you add the 170 water and do a vorlauf. Hopefully that will help you out some. Congrats and welcome to ALL GRAIN!

hatepickingnames said:

.Way to take the plunge, i told my buddy to just go for the all grain too when he starts brewing in a few weeks.

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thanks man go big or go home right

thanks WC12 and to everyone who pitched in to help with the info I was looking for.

I will be sure to let you all know how it turns out and updates on my next brews!!

cheers!!
david

Don't sweat it. I think that all brewers have had those days and especially on first brew days. The key is too first have fun with it. Next, analyze your process, take good notes, and plan for the next brew. After a few brews under your belt you will start seeing more things happening right and you can focus on the next areas to improve. Process, Process, Process is the key.

kraypd said:

Don't sweat it. I think that all brewers have had those days and especially on first brew days. The key is too first have fun with it. Next, analyze your process, take good notes, and plan for the next brew. After a few brews under your belt you will start seeing more things happening right and you can focus on the next areas to improve. Process, Process, Process is the key.

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I am def having fun and learning a $hit ton and already making tweaks to my process to improve it.

david

I highly suggest reading the "Brewing Your First All Grain Beer" section in the free online edition of Palmer's book. It will clear up and lot of the details you had trouble with in your first brew. http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html

Sounds like a success to me!

If I could point out one (two) things, your yeast pitching rate and temperature are just as important as your mash. While you have a few kinks to work out in the mash, make sure you are pitching enough yeast and at the right temp. Also make sure you hold your ferment temp, especially for the initial/primary week.

Personally, I always make a starter for liquid yeast no matter what the OG. And for ales I like to ferment somewhere between 60-65 degrees.

I just made the caribou slobber last weekend as well, looking forward to a nice brown ale!

Not bad at all for the first brew ever! As stated, stir the bejesus out of it after you add your sparge water. The grain is holding on to sugars and you want them! Other than that, just getting your process down like water levels and pitching temp and you will see improvement every time. Good luck!

periwinkle1239 said:

Sounds like a success to me!

If I could point out one (two) things, your yeast pitching rate and temperature are just as important as your mash. While you have a few kinks to work out in the mash, make sure you are pitching enough yeast and at the right temp. Also make sure you hold your ferment temp, especially for the initial/primary week.

Personally, I always make a starter for liquid yeast no matter what the OG. And for ales I like to ferment somewhere between 60-65 degrees.

I just made the caribou slobber last weekend as well, looking forward to a nice brown ale!

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hey peri how do I know how much yeast to pitch? I just pitched a smack pak of Wyeast 1332. hope that will be sufficient.

as far as a starter is that required if using a smack pak?

how long did your caribou slobber bubble for? mine seems to have stopped after 48hrs of intense fermenting to just a few bubbles a min.

Naggs said:

Not bad at all for the first brew ever! As stated, stir the bejesus out of it after you add your sparge water. The grain is holding on to sugars and you want them! Other than that, just getting your process down like water levels and pitching temp and you will see improvement every time. Good luck!

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thanks bro def appreciate the positive reinforcement I have been getting from everyone.

adworld said:

thanks bro def appreciate the positive reinforcement I have been getting from everyone.

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A couple of the best investments I have made are a mash tun that I built out of a water cooler and a bulkheak with a bazooka screen (a lot people swear by false bottoms, but I have had no problems with my setup), and a refractometer to keep checking the gravity of the wort running into the boil kettle. As long as you aren't drawing wort with too low of a gravity reading (2.5 deg Plato, or 1.010 SG) keep pulling from the mash tun so you don't have to top off like you did. That probably would have helped your OG reading significantly.

Also, devise a system to check volume in your boil kettle. A dowel with notches works well, or I use a free paint stir stick with marks on it. Pour water into your boil kettle one gallon at a time and measure it with the stick. Mark the level on the stick at each gallon so that you can constantly check your level when sparging and while boiling.

Overall, it sounds like things went fine for a first try. Keep it up and enjoy the beer you make.

adworld said:

how do I know how much yeast to pitch? I just pitched a smack pak of Wyeast 1332. hope that will be sufficient.

as far as a starter is that required if using a smack pak?

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Check out the pitching rate and starter calculators at mrmalty.com or yeastcalc.com (I prefer yeast calc)

As far as starters go, you should probably make one any time you use liquid yeast.