Planning first AG

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shoebag22

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Already have the AG recipe kit from NB for a cream ale (8 pounds of grain).
the mash schedule is as follows:
Mash Schedule

* 122° F for 20 minutes
* 153° F for 60 minutes
* 170° F for 10 minutes

I want to batch sparge using a homemade MLT...

the 122 degree step is throwing me off... is it necessary?
 
Kit Inventory

Fermentables


* 7 lbs. Rahr 2-Row Pale
* 0.75 lbs. Gambrinus Honey Malt
* 0.25 lbs. Dingemans Biscuit


* 1 oz. Willamette (60 min)


* Wyeast #1056 American Ale Yeast. Optimum temperature: 60-72° F.
 
What kind of mash tun are you planning on using? You'll probably have to start really thick if you're trying to do a 2 step mash using a cooler style mash tun; depending on the size of the one you use.

Some calculations (assuming cooler mash tun)on Tastybrew.com showed me a final liquor-to-grist ratio of 2.5 which sounds pretty thin to me; is there any problem with mashing this thin? Then again I might have done the calculations incorrectly... this is hard to read

Start Temp / Stop Temp/Infuse Temp / Infuse Amount / Water-Grain Ratio
70 °F 120 °F 130.0 °F 8.0 qts 1.00
120 °F 153 °F 210.0 °F 5.6 qts 1.70
153 °F 170 °F 210.0 °F 6.5 qts 2.51
 
ok the MLT is plenty big, but your grain bill doesn't 'need' a protein rest (120F)
I say skip it and do the single infusion at 152-153F (you'll need water about 163-166F to hit 153F, due to heat loss from the grain).

also pre-heat your MLT with several gallons of hot hot tap water. if its only room temp you'll lose more than 10 degrees when doughing in.

The first couple AG brews are tricky because you don't know how your setup is going to behave in terms of heat loss, etc. You may want to have a separate gallon of boiling water handy in case you lose too much heat. if you over shoot it, just stir and leave the lid off the cooler for a while.

I'd also do two batch sparges, of equal volumes. That'll help you get better efficiency usually.
 
+1 on preheating.

Use a strike temp calculator and you can hit your mash temps really close.

You enter the mash ration (qts/lb), temperature and weight of the grain bill, desired mash temp, and it tells you how many quarts of h20 and at what temperature.

If you preheated your MLT, you will have a nice mash with little temperature drop.

Google for mash strike temperature calculator - there are several of them out there.

Write down your steps, measure out your hop additions, and you'll be good to go.

Good luck.
 
thanks for the advice guys... still getting used to beersmith and promash. I calculated the total water needed but for some reason thought that I wouldn't have enough so I altered things at the last minute. I ended up with about 8 gallons of wort, so I obviously missed my OG. it'll be a weak beer, but it will still be beer.

anyone have any suggestions on how to get two equal run offs?
I figure I need to add water to the mlt 3 times. the initial strike to get the dough to 153ish... the ?sparge? to raise temp up to 170. Drain that then put more water in and let sit, then drain that again. I think I may be getting hung up on the terminology, especially the language used in beersmith. Seems that none of the mash choices made sense.
 
If you need 8 gallons for the boil measure how much you get from the first runnings; subtract that from 8 and divide it by 2.

Lets say you get 3 gallons of first runnings; you need 5 more... so just add 2.5 gallons for each batch sparge.
 
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