I've brewed twice, the last was a mini mash AHS nut brown ale. I plan to try the AHS Belgian Pale Ale next. I've spent the past several weeks reading up and would like to try to use a 5 gal cooler I set up with braided hose and valve to do my mini mash in the cooler instead of seeping in the grain bag as the AHS instructions say. Here's my plan based on what I think I learned:
- mash the ~3 lbs grains from the AHS kit in 1 gal water in the cooler.
- run this off (after clearing) into 1\2 gal boiling water in my brew pot
- batch sparge twice with 1 gal each, again draining into the brew pot
- this should give me ~ 3 gal boiling volume ( I have a 20 qt pot)
- add about 1 lb DME with heat off
- return to boil, start 60 min
- add hops per instructions
- add balance of DME at 15 min
- cool and bring volume in fermenter up as per instructions
Does this seem reasonable?
When bringing the volume up in the fermenter, should I simply add water to a volume target? Wouldn't it be better to add water to try to hit the SG target?
Thanks,
Steve
- mash the ~3 lbs grains from the AHS kit in 1 gal water in the cooler.
- run this off (after clearing) into 1\2 gal boiling water in my brew pot
- batch sparge twice with 1 gal each, again draining into the brew pot
- this should give me ~ 3 gal boiling volume ( I have a 20 qt pot)
- add about 1 lb DME with heat off
- return to boil, start 60 min
- add hops per instructions
- add balance of DME at 15 min
- cool and bring volume in fermenter up as per instructions
Does this seem reasonable?
When bringing the volume up in the fermenter, should I simply add water to a volume target? Wouldn't it be better to add water to try to hit the SG target?
Thanks,
Steve