Lessons learned from first all-grain experience

1) exhaustive planning beforehand nets benefits (like hitting my mash temp dead-nuts on, being within .001 of my estimated OG, & coming out w/ 10 gallons exact into the fermenters.)

2) mistaking exhaustive planning for something not quite exhaustive yields surprises (like not realizing how long it takes to heat up sparge water and missing my mashout point by 1/2 hour, or realizing after-the-fact that the aquarium pump I was going to use to feed icewater into my IC wasn't up to the task.)

3) If you're brewing outdoors, it might help to check the weather forecast first. Boiling wort would have been a bit less stressful if I didn't have to stop in the middle of it to rig up a makeshift storm shelter from lawn chairs, cardboard boxes, a tarp and zip-ties. On the plus-side, I did get plenty of practice lighting my propane burner. And found out the sound it makes when the wind blows it out makes cats do funny things.

4) planning to drink a beer every hour probably wouldn't have been so bad if I wasn't brewing for twice as long as anticipated.

5) The burns hurt worse the next day.

6) These forums, which I've been lurking on for some time now, have been INVALUABLE to me, and I thank you all!!!!!!!

tunoffun said:

1) exhaustive planning beforehand nets benefits (like hitting my mash temp dead-nuts on, being within .001 of my estimated OG, & coming out w/ 10 gallons exact into the fermenters.)

2) mistaking exhaustive planning for something not quite exhaustive yields surprises (like not realizing how long it takes to heat up sparge water and missing my mashout point by 1/2 hour, or realizing after-the-fact that the aquarium pump I was going to use to feed icewater into my IC wasn't up to the task.)

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+1,000,000

I harp on that all the time. You NEED to test and measure your equipment before your first all-grain. Makes it soo much less stressful.

lol, i hear ya. I guess as is with most things in life, there is nothing better than actual experience.

The "lessons learned" are the ones never forgotten.

all-grain is really quite simple, if you do your homework and don't get sloppy about measuring stuff.

Call me whatever but I tend to not stress about measurements of this and that. I dont even know what my efficiencies are and what my evaporation rate is and so forth and have no desire to know really... I figure if I'm off by 1 point on my gravity or whatever else... I'll still make good beer as has been the case so far. Cheers!

mrduna01 said:

Call me whatever but I tend to not stress about measurements of this and that. I dont even know what my efficiencies are and what my evaporation rate is and so forth and have no desire to know really... I figure if I'm off by 1 point on my gravity or whatever else... I'll still make good beer as has been the case so far. Cheers!

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Man, are you going to get flamed for that.
Wait... you sound just like me.

mrduna01 said:

Call me whatever but I tend to not stress about measurements of this and that. I dont even know what my efficiencies are and what my evaporation rate is and so forth and have no desire to know really... I figure if I'm off by 1 point on my gravity or whatever else... I'll still make good beer as has been the case so far. Cheers!

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haha same here I'm with ya. At first i was real anal about measuring and testing everything. It all had to be exact. Then as I do more batches, and even the ones that I measured and tested perfectly, I still don't hit the desired marks. So screw it, the beer tastes great thats what matters.

Great.

Now, I'm doing my first All Grain on Sunday, I have half the crew saying be 100% exact and the rest saying wing it.

My plan was to try as be exact as possible, but don't stress it and don't stop.

Kind of like learning a song on the guitar- Just get through it, you'll get better.

if you just keep this little axiom in mind, it makes everything sooo much easier and less stressful: hitting number =/= good tasting beer. hitting your numbers is almost a sub-game or sub-goal in the pursuit of creating excellent beer.

i'm not saying it doesn't matter--if you don't hit your numbers you'll have a hard time being consistent. all i'm saying is just put on your Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses, and relax like the hoopy frood that you are

thewerx said:

Great.

Now, I'm doing my first All Grain on Sunday, I have half the crew saying be 100% exact and the rest saying wing it.

My plan was to try as be exact as possible, but don't stress it and don't stop.

Kind of like learning a song on the guitar- Just get through it, you'll get better.

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My advice is to at least get your volumes nailed down before you start. Mark your kettle, MLT, fermenters, etc......

You're prolly not going to nail everything the first or even second time you brew. What's important is to take accurate notes so you know how your process works. Then you can be consistent, then you can start to make tweaks. Without accurate note taking, your guessing. It's much better to know that you'll always get 75% efficiency doing it one way than getting 80%, 95%, 70% trying to mess with too many parameters every time you brew.

As for the "who cares, it makes beer" vs. "anal, measure everything" brewer, man it's your hobby, do what you want. Both philosophies make great beer.

I'm an engineer, so I've got this little devil in my head that demands to know why and how everything works that I put my hands to, so I'm the measure at every step guy.

Well, that sounds good.

I'm still figuring out what I formulas to use for temperature. Other than that, I think I've got it down.

The strike water temp calculator here works well for me with a 5 gallon round cooler and specifying the grain temp. I usually go half a degree hotter on strike water than specified and its worked ok for me.

http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php

burns hurt more the next day! LOL Mine was always: dont forget what youre doing again Im sick of cleaning up boilovers