Long day, first all grain, not happy

Today I brewed my first all grain. I thought I had thought of everything to check but of course I forgot things. My mash tun sucked ass and after one go around, I am thinking of making changes. I didn't check it for temp loss when adding strike and it lagged badly. It took me an additional hour to bring my temp back to where it needed to be. My mash volume per Beersmith ended low so I added water to reach my pre boil volume and my SG turned out low. Should have been 1.044 and was 1.034. I said F%@^ it and proceeded. I learned a lot but I will brew next time on a Saturday so I have a day to reflect before going back to work.. I will recover but had to vent. I know it will be beer but not what I wanted to start with. Sorry beer drinkers but I have to have a nice neat glass of The McCallan to take this edge off. Thanks for the ear.

I am newer to the AG game, and it has worked good for me so far.

I am going to prempt other brewers here by saying...

recipe, equipment and everything we need to know to help a successful brew next Saturday.

Chin up, all will be well. If I don't make great beer, there is an aisle close by that does.

Right...so what I do when mashing in is add my strike water at strike at 190F or hotter, and let the water warm up the mash tun. Then I let the water cool off to a little bit over strike temp..maybe 5 degrees over, and then stir in the grain. If I'm still warm after that, a little extra stirring with the top open will get it to the right temp within a couple of minutes.

It takes a few rounds to dial in your gear and system.

I've been brewing all grain last maybe 15 batches and it's still a lot of work. I've had good results but I'm thinking of brewing an extract or two just to save some time..the 4 to 5 hour brew day is a killer if you're short on time and patience.

Moose777 said:

I've been brewing all grain last maybe 15 batches and it's still a lot of work. I've had good results but I'm thinking of brewing an extract or two just to save some time..the 4 to 5 hour brew day is a killer if you're short on time and patience.

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I did just that this year and now back to AG. Made for a quick brew day and some good beers! Going to add some extract batches to the brewing calendar from now on.

I have done two ag batches and I agree that I am going to be adding some extract brews to my schedule. I work and go to school so brewing time is limited. I had swore off extract after buying and building my grain setup but I am really missing the quick brew day. I am looking to up my brew days up to two weekends a month so one of those brews will prob be extract.

Crazy, sorry to here you had problems. In actuality they were not much of a problem. So you missed you mash temp low, thats a heck of a lot better than missing it high. If you miss high you have already started to destroy the enzymes you want. FYI with todays malts I can get complete conversion at 144 in 40 minutes. You end up with a drier beer but that is what most people on here seem to be shooting for. Don't be discouraged. Did you dial in beersmith before this brew? That is very important to hit you projected volumes. As some of the others have said extract is easier but the control of the process is missing. The day I went AG, I never looked back. Yes their were problems for several batches, but every one was drinkable. You wanted to go AG for a reason, stick to it and you wont be disappointed.

It does take a few batches to get dialed in. Don't worry, just take one problem at a time. I generally heat my strike water to 15 degrees above strike temp, then pour it into my cooler and wait a few minutes. It's usually 5-10 degrees hotter than it should be, so I just stir it until the temp drops.

With gravity, try to err on the side of too high, as you can always add some water to compensate. At the same time work on getting your setup dialed in, and in a few batches you'll be hitting the right numbers.

I was really frustrated too when I started AG, but my last dozen batches have gone like clockwork.

One trick you can use is to keep a pound or two of pale extra around just in case you miss your SG target. Once you dial everything in you will not need to compensate with extract unless you want to.

I like to shoot for the high side on volume so that I can keep some for spiese or krausening and if I get a SG thats too low pre-boil I can just boil for a little extra to match the target OG. If I am on the mark the spiese that is held in reserve is a bonus, if not then I am still safe with my OG.

What was your grain bill?

Lol, after posting I'll be doing extract brews I ordered an all grain kit - YooperBrew's Hoppy American Amber - from BrewMastersWarehouse last night, lol.

Mateo said:

One trick you can use is to keep a pound or two of pale extra around just in case you miss your SG target. Once you dial everything in you will not need to compensate with extract unless you want to.

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good advice.

you can also boil off more water to reach your SG, just don't add hops until you get there. also, take into account the change in hop utilization with the smaller volume.

just keep at it man. you'll get it dialed in!

To the OP: you're not alone. I also just did my first AG batch and had all kinds of problems, including wrong size tubing, collapsed tubing, low temps, 3 stuck sparges, collecting only 4 gallons instead of 5, and an 8 hour brewday when all was said and done. It was a bit discouraging, but it can only get better from here and I'm already looking forward to my next batch.

First AG isn't the easiest!!! It does take a few to get things dailed in just right. My first did not go as planned, low on SG as well. But it was very drinkable, and everyone enjoyed it. Another plus was I didn't have to worry about anyone having to sleep over!!!

I know, relax. I was just excited and when things started to got bad I got discouraged. I'll try again. I can say, learned a lot by my mistakes. I guess that is the only way I seem to learn anything. Oh well. Trying again in a week or two.

CrAzYmOuSe said:

Today I brewed my first all grain. I thought I had thought of everything to check but of course I forgot things. My mash tun sucked ass and after one go around, I am thinking of making changes. I didn't check it for temp loss when adding strike and it lagged badly. It took me an additional hour to bring my temp back to where it needed to be. My mash volume per Beersmith ended low so I added water to reach my pre boil volume and my SG turned out low. Should have been 1.044 and was 1.034. I said F%@^ it and proceeded. I learned a lot but I will brew next time on a Saturday so I have a day to reflect before going back to work.. I will recover but had to vent. I know it will be beer but not what I wanted to start with. Sorry beer drinkers but I have to have a nice neat glass of The McCallan to take this edge off. Thanks for the ear.

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It takes a while to hit your stride on AG. I had bad batches at first. You read everyone's post about their great (I have to imagine 8+ hour) first AG brew that they post before they drink the beer. When you memorize all of the steps and figure out how your system calibrates to your software (or notes from last time), you can start to dial in your process both in the time it takes and the results. I am brewing great beer for what I feel like the first time and I just can't stop. I had my first 6 hour AG brew day the other day, and that was a big motivator for me, to be done by lunch time. Of course once you get there, you start with recipe creation, and then it is all over

Just get out there and brew again next weekend, may be a good chance to buy a bucket or better bottle or something anyways!

My strike temperature is always 4F higher that what the beersmith calculator says. I have a couple of things I'd personally recommend until you get things nailed down. Lower your efficiency to 70% until you get everything dialed in and then make 2-3% increases every other batch until your hitting your numbers. I usually get 83-85% but the second I move locations my efficiency drops to about 75%. Another big thing for me was using 5.2, I struggled with cloudy beers and it dramatically cleared them up. Something to do with starches or protiens in suspension, my brain isn't working right now maybe someone with a functioning brain can explain why.

northernlad said:

It takes a few rounds to dial in your gear and system.

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THIS. Trying to wing the temperatures, or relying on homebrew software*, is likely to bring about only continuing annoyance.

YOUR MLT, YOUR amount of grist, YOUR brewpots, YOUR stirring, YOUR other procedures amount to a whole lot of variables, each of which will affect the temperatures you want, to a greater or lesser degree.

I achieved all-grain happiness when I kept careful records of how much 170F water was necessary to preheat the MLT, so that when I dump X pounds of grist in, and 5 gallons of Y degree F water and stir, it's going to give me pretty much 152F (or whatever) right on the nose. That way, I have the knowledge of what each batch of beer is going to produce in MY equipment.

Same thing -with fewer variables- dialing in a grain mill, etc. Once I realized what I needed to do, it was actually fun to do, particularly when I immediately started looking through the refractometer and seeing the numbers I was after.

* Note: Yeah, I know there are some of you out there who use "Homebrew Heaven" software on your computer, and who hit your mash temps dead on every time, and then your beers go on to win all kind of contests. I tried doing this; I was not amused. My simple little chart works for me, every time, and I won't need to change it unless and until I change my setup. K.I.S.S.

CrAzYmOuSe said:

Today I brewed my first all grain. I thought I had thought of everything to check but of course I forgot things. My mash tun sucked ass and after one go around, I am thinking of making changes. I didn't check it for temp loss when adding strike and it lagged badly. It took me an additional hour to bring my temp back to where it needed to be. My mash volume per Beersmith ended low so I added water to reach my pre boil volume and my SG turned out low. Should have been 1.044 and was 1.034. I said F%@^ it and proceeded. I learned a lot but I will brew next time on a Saturday so I have a day to reflect before going back to work.. I will recover but had to vent. I know it will be beer but not what I wanted to start with. Sorry beer drinkers but I have to have a nice neat glass of The McCallan to take this edge off. Thanks for the ear.

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Aw man that sucks - i have a had a few holy %^$#%^# days myself. They get easier. What improved my mashing (I have a crappy tun also) is overestimate your dough-in temp by at least 15F. if you start too high its easy to add an ice cube or two at a time to achieve your target. Its much harder to increase the temp.

My first AG had serious volume issues also. What made it easier was to make a measure stick you can use pre-boil to be sure of the volume.

Anyway, the best thing is to keep practicing!

jjones17 said:

What made it easier was to make a measure stick you can use pre-boil to be sure of the volume.

Anyway, the best thing is to keep practicing!

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I made a line with a dremel on my mash spoon to mark 6.5 gallons in my BK.

I can honestly say that I have never had an AG brew session go completely as planned. This is particularly true if I go a couple of weeks between brew sessions.

I always encounter some glitch but it is never anything major (at least what I would consider "major"). Example - I brewed a Dogfishead 90 clone yesterday. Have brewed this several times (one of my favorites). Did everything as I normally do in terms of grain bill, temps, etc. nothing different but for some strange reason I undershot my OG but about 8 points. WTF? Tested my hydrometer after and found it to be off but even with that I still was low.

There is no getting around the time committment for an AG batch. It always takes me about 5 hours + but the results are generally so good that it keeps me coming back for more. I do have a few extract recipes that I still like to brew but I am pretty much an AG brewer for the most part. Montanaandy

jjones17 said:

Aw man that sucks - i have a had a few holy %^$#%^# days myself. They get easier. What improved my mashing (I have a crappy tun also) is overestimate your dough-in temp by at least 15F. if you start too high its easy to add an ice cube or two at a time to achieve your target. Its much harder to increase the temp.

My first AG had serious volume issues also. What made it easier was to make a measure stick you can use pre-boil to be sure of the volume.

Anyway, the best thing is to keep practicing!

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Don't be discouraged. Solve problem areas in the equipment. Work out the time sinks, streamline the process and you'll be down to ~5 hours / batch with complete control and making just about anything you can think of. I could never go back to extract. Being able to wake up one morning, wander into the brewer and decide on the fly what you want.. After a dozen batches you'll be amazed at both the quality and control improvements. Especially true if you break away from hoppy styles and try to showcase some of the dozens of strange and crazy malts out there.

I use the beersmith software to tell me what strike temp to use for a given # of grist. It has a checkbox for 'adj. for equipment' and if you put in your mash tun it knows how much to adjust. So, if you don't preheat your MT before adding the water just check that box. Make sure in the details of the mash you put in your grain temp so bsmith can figure the strike temp.

Now what I do is fill my MT with hot water from my tap, about 125F and just let it sit in there while I heat up my strike water... I dump that 125F water and then fill up the now preheated MT with my strike water, typically about 163-168 for my setup (10 gal igloo). I am always w/in 1 degree of target, 149-158F for my type of brews. I just heat to the strike temp beersmith tells me to hit, oh and I don't check that box because of my easy preheat method. I have done it w/out preheating and beer smith just adjusts the strike temp up to compensate for my equipment and all works fine this way too.

AG is way more work than Extract but we are making our own Wort, it is ours, not some malter's in God knows where. We can tune our water, tune our water to grain ratio's, tune our mash temps and times for dry or not dry brews, tune our IBU's using MT or first wort hopping, the beat goes on man. It takes me over 6 hours if you include the starter making and water tweeking for each AG batch and this is about 2 hours faster than it first took me. By the end of an AG session I have a neck, back, and headache... I need a shower, massage, homebrew, and a nap ... but - the feeling of accomplishment is amazing and through my pain and suffering I know others (and myself) will find inebriation and there is much joy in that :rockin:

Don't worry it will get better but it will always be worth it in the end!

You sound like a "girly" man. "I'm not going to do this anymore... "Wahhh..! Are you f-ing kigidn me???!! After 1 AG batch ! Watch the movie Apollo 13. "Failer is not an option !!!" Don't be such an f-ing perfectionist. Did it have alcohol? Then, you made beer! Drink Up ! As Edison said after about 1,000 failers, " I don't consider it 1,000 failers...I learned 1,000 ways not to do it." Something to this effect.... Keep on marching on, soldier. Try to enjoy the process and drink up!

Frank99 said:

You sound like a "girly" man.

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Now that's funny. But anyway, if you can't RDWHAHB you probably need a new hobby.

Eh, your first AG day went better than mine it sounds like.

I did hit my OG though.

I hit my mash temp, but maintaining it was another story. After setting the top back on the pot and checking it 20 minutes later, my temp was high 170's. I cringed and turned the burner down to low and immediately added about a half gallon of cold water. I never quite got my temp as low as it needed to be, but oh well.

I also managed to dump a ton of grains on the counter and kitchen floor.

Water volume was a friggin blast also. I had to boil for almost 3 hours before I got close enough to add some hops.

Horrible horrible horrible, but I'll be attempting again tomorrow.