Making the Switch to AG!!

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bigmanbt

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Hi All. Normally, I'd be doing a bit of poking around in the search section, but I have a very busy day and I'd like to get this brew going tomorrow early morning. I've been doing lots of research and just have a few questions about the Nuances of All Grain.

I'm making, what I call, On the Fly Ale. I just picked up some grains and said "let's do it."

I got :
5lb Pale 2 row
5lb Munich
1lb 20L Crystal
1oz Noble
2oz Amarillo
I packet S-05

I plan on doing to decocting method with my ghetto plastic food bucket MLT.

So my questions are:
1. for first protein rest at 122, should I put the water in the MLT first? Or pour it on top of dry grains? If pouring on top of dry grains, do I do it slowly like a sparge? Or do i just dump it all on so the temp of the water keeps up? (I plan on heating the water to 135 to let it drop to 122)

2. For the second rest, I want a heavier bodied beer, so I rest around 156? After lautering and reheating, do I need to make that water much hotter than my target since the grains will still be wet and warm?

3. Do I really need to mash out? That means just letting the grains sit at 158-160?

4. I have 2 pots. a 5 gal stainless and a 6 gal granite ware. When it comes to all grain, the more water, the better, right? How much room do you think I should leave to prevent a boil over? I don't have a very strong stove, but it can boil large volumes...eventually.

5. I realize that the grains that I bought are probably going to produce a rather light colored beer. Can I boil for 90 mins to make it darker? I would still do 60 min hop addition.

6. I picked up Rye Berries (the stuff that looks like rice) from Whole Foods for the heck of it. Can I add that for some body/alcohol?

7. My food bucket MLT is on loan from a friend, i imagined that one should have a plethora of holes in the bottom, but there are maybe about 75 holes in it. Is the lack of holes going to increase my chances for clogging? I can make another one with more holes if need be. If it does clog, what's a good method for undoing it - stirring?

Thank you all for taking the time to read through this. Normally I'd be hunkered down on howtobrew.com, flipping through Charlie's book, and googling and hbt'ing, but I've had a lot on my plate. Thanks again! Wish me luck!
 
Here's a good freebie site for figuring your mash temps:

Green Bay Rackers--Mash Calculators

It's better to first pour your strike water in your mash tun, to stabilize the temperature as well as preventing dough balls. Your mash out, if you elect to do one is 168 degrees....158 is still mashing temp. As for size of boil kettle....I like having a 10 gallon aluminum pot: it was cheap and gives me plenty of room for boil overs. When I first started with the 7 gallon supplied in my fryer kit, I did wind up with a couple boil overs. Lastly, darker color with longer boil: yes, you'll get slightly darker color...but you'll also get less volume and more ABV.
 
1. No reason to do a protein rest with that malt bill. Why were you planning on one?

2. No lautering and reheating. Just make your strike water hot enough to bring your grain bed temperature to 156 degrees. If you don't do a protein rest, just add 170 degree water to your MLT. When it drops to 165, then add your grain. Stir well, and keep some extra boiling water on hand in case you are a little low.

3. A mash out is adding boiling water to get your grain bed temp from the rest temp (156) to 168. No need to do one, if you're batch sparging.

4. You can split your boil volume however it will fit. If you end up with 6.5 gallons (a good place to start), just add half to each pot so that it's pretty close to equal.

5. Huh? If you want a darker colored beer, use darker colored malts.

6. What would rye berries do? I've only used malted rye and flaked rye.

7. Should be ok. If it clogs, then you'll have some issues but if it worked for him, it should be fine.

I'd plan on mashing with 1.25 quarts per pound of grain, and then sparging to get up to 6.5 gallons. If you measure your first runnings out of the MLT, you can know how much sparge water you'd need. I'd say that I'd mash in with 13.75 quarts, and probably get out 2.25 gallons of first runnings. That means that I'd need 4.25 gallons of sparge water, and I'd break that into two additions. That should give you very close to 6.5 gallons.
 
Yoop. Thank you thank you thank you. There are things about AG that I just don't know, and thought that protein rests were necessary. The guy at the brew store (it's a liquor store that also sells homebrew things - and a guy who kinda knows what he's talking about), didn't know the difference between fully modified and undermodified grains and couldn't tell me if the grains he had were one or the other. I just thought that protein rests were necessary to do with AG.

I know that if I should want darker beers to get darker malts, but like I said, this was on the fly and I wanted to buy "safe" grains. I didn't want to buy pale malt and roasted malts. Thought that would just be weird. I just wanted to get stuff that I know will probably taste decent, and is easy to make. Then make notes and go from there. If it sucks, it still has alcohol.

I just bought the Rye because I saw it in the bulk section, not knowing what kind I was supposed to get...that's why I asked about it. I'll just eat it, and go pick up flaked rye for some other time.

Again, thank you yoop for taking time out for this AG noob. I really just wanted to jump in and get baptized by grains. They've been calling to me. I cook for a living, so this is just another cooking method that I have to perfect.

Question about the hops: I should split the hops according to volumes in each pot (if I split) right? Like if I did 50/50 in each pot, put .5oz bittering hops in each pot and so on to better utilize?
 
Question about the hops: I should split the hops according to volumes in each pot (if I split) right? Like if I did 50/50 in each pot, put .5oz bittering hops in each pot and so on to better utilize?

Yep. That's what I did when I had to split my boil. Put half of the first runnings in each pot, half of the rest (so they are about equal in SG and in quantity) and split the hops approximately in half. It closely approximates a full boil in one pot that way.

Good luck!
 
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