AG Lesson Learned

For those new to AG and not hitting efficiency and targets don't get frustrated and give up. Did several AG brews and hit horrible efficiency numbers at first approx 50% the first time (was an Irish red I was looking forward to, choked down the last "lite Irish red" this weekend) then 60% and settled out at 63% and I figured OK can live with that but the flavor and ABV were not where I wanted it to be. I did try to adjust the grainbill to compensate. brewed some partial mash and extract with grain that I really liked and said yeah this may be the way to go and forget the time and energy (mental) to go AG. In my Sig the future brews are what I have already predone and waiting to be brewed they are in airtight buckets so that when the time arises and the mood hits I can pull out a bucket of whatever grind up the grain and pull out the hops dme and yeast and brew a batch. Well this weekend pulled out Biermunchers Cream of 3 Crops ale bucket. this was set up as an all grain. I figured I had enough light DME if I didn't hit my numbers would add it to get the right OG. am just starting with making starters for yeast etc so had been reading "How to Brew" so decided to double check everything as I go as for once had the whole day to brew with nothing else to do. did the starter sat night. Also thought what the heck will condition the malt as it had a good bit of corn and rice and I didn't want a stuck sparge so thought that conditioning would help the sparge drainoff. ground the grain and realized that my converted corona mill was slightly off and one side was closer than the other spent 10 minutes and reset it and made sure the crush was ok and figured, as many posts here said, a finer crush is better until you start getting astringency. ground everything and set up the mash. thought I should double check my dial thermometer and found it is 6 degrees off!!! (so do not assume, as I did in the past, that because the thermometer says it is 152 it really is) corrected for this and began the mash, first time doing 90 minutes. in the process and excitement of getting started with AG I had purchased a refractometer and finally had a chance to use it the whole way threw. ended up exactly with my preboil at 6.3 gallons but the gravity was actually higher than I had calculated 1.39 OK started the boil and everything went well ended after an hour with 4.75 gallons as I used my seafood pot and had a more aggressive boil than prior with my 7.5 Gallon turkey fryer pot. cooled it and transferred to carboy and topped off to 5.25 gallons. took a reading and OG is 1.050. damn, I overshot :rockin: 85% efficiency just from a few changes and taking my time and going back to basics. (will need adjust my grainbills again, or just have stronger beer). so lesson learned, instead of looking at one specific thing and tweaking it then moving on to the next and the next, beer brewing is a whole process and the process needs to be looked at as a whole. if it is not working as well as you want and you have tried several things go back to basics and you can be pleasantly surprised. now just to repeat it.

Congrats! I've pretty much got my numbers/efficiency/volume dialed in - get close to what I'm shooting for, have a consistency that is reassuring. Now, of course, I've jinxed myself and the next brew day will be filled with disaster and impending doom.