kcstrom
Well-Known Member
I did my first all grain today and was really excited about it. Unfortunately, I did something really wrong that resulted in terrible efficiency.
Things to note from my notes below are that I had trouble getting the mash to be the temperature I was shooting for: 152F. I had two thermometers that didn't agree and disagreed the opposite way when I put them in a small pot of boiling water. I also forgot to account for the fact that the grain will typically hold .1 gallons of water - so that's where I was missing one gallon. I'm not sure where the other half gallon I should have had before the boil went to.
Recipe: First American Wheat
Brewer: Ross
Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 6.94 gal
Estimated OG: 1.054 SG
Estimated Color: 4.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 21.0 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
0.50 lb Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct 5.00 %
5.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 50.00 %
4.50 lb White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 45.00 %
0.50 oz Cascade [5.40 %] (60 min) Hops 10.3 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [5.40 %] (40 min) Hops 4.5 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [5.40 %] (20 min) Hops 6.2 IBU
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale
Mash Schedule: My Mash
Total Grain Weight: 10.00 lb
----------------------------
My Mash
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
90 min Step Add 12.50 qt of water at 163.7 F 152.0 F
01-17-2009
American Wheat
Recipe:
Procedure:
* Brought 2 gallons of water to 180F
** Put in cooler mash tun to preheat it
* Brought 12.5qt of water to 170
* Dumped preheat water from cooler mash tun into old brew pot
* Put the 12.5qt of 170F water into cooler mash tun
* Stirred and let cool to ~165F before doughing in
* Slowly poured in grain mixing well
* Temperature was down to almost 140F
* Poured in ~3 cups of water that I had boiled and let sit in microwave
** This brought temp up to about 150F
* Heated up ~3 more cups of water in microwave and poured in
** Thermometer still said that it was at about150F
* Headed up 4 more cups of water in microwave to boiling
* Poured in
** One thermometer went up to 152F and back down to 150F when stirring
** Other thermometer stayed about 153-154F even when stirring
** I stirred a lot of try to get consistent temperature
* Poured two gallons of pre-heat water in pot for sparge water and added another 1.75 gallons
* Brought to 190F
* Stirred until it came down to 180F
* Put into larger cooler with hose and vavle on output that is acting as HLT
* Vorlaufed about three gallons of water because I wasn't sure what I was doing
* Let sparge water go into MLT on top of one gallon ice cream bucket lid so it wouldn't disturb grain bed
** Was at about 11:45-11:50AM
* Cracked open American Wheat extract homebrew (frist homebrew)
* Sparge water ran out at about 12:06AM
* Measured specific gravity coming out of MLT after water had disappeared below grain bed top for about 5 minutes: 1.009
* SG: 1.030 at before wort boil - should be about 7 gallons - 5 inches deep in (60qt -
18in diameter) brewpot
* Boil start at ~12:35PM
* Added .5 oz Cascade (5.4% AA) hop pellets directly to wort when seeing boiled has started
* Added .25oz Cascade (5.4% AA) hop pellets direclty to wort at 12:55PM
* Added a little less than .5oz Cascade (5.4% AA) hop pellets directly to wort at 1:23PM
* Used immersion chiller to bring temp down to ~72.5F
* Boiled 1-2 gallons of water earlier in case any was need to get the volume back up to 5
gallons in the fermenter
** Used immersion chiller to bring this down to ~75F
* Tried to whirlpool wort in boil pot
** This didn't really help much as lots of gunk came out when I siphoned to the Better
Bottle
* Siphoned to 6.5 gallon Better Bottle
* There was only about 3-ish gallons of water
* Dumped in all the other water I had boiled
** Was still about 1 gallon or so short
* Boiled some more water and brought temperature down to 73F with immersion chiller
* Filled Better Bottle to the 5 gallon point
* Specific gravity of beer for the 5 gallon in volume liquid was 1.040 - 14 points lower than desired
* Agitated by rolling BB back and forth aggresively for 10 minutes
* Pitched washed Wyeast 1056
Misc:
* Found out that the labels on the CPVC connectors on the manifold aren't ink, they are decals and come off
Efficiency:
* Pot is 18 inches wide
* Wort depth before boiling was 5 inches
* This is a volume of 1272.3 cubic inches which is 21.7 quarts which is 5.4 gallons
* Specific gravity of the 5.4 gallons was 1.030
* Points per pound = (5.4 * 30)/9.5 = 17
* Efficiency = 17/37 = 46% - TERRIBLE
Can anyone offer some advice to an all-grain noob on how to increase his efficiency based on this first brew?
The mash-tun and manifold that I made worked pretty well. It didn't get stuck at all while fly-sparging and I wrapped a blanket around the cooler as well as put one on top since I wasn't sure how it would hold the heat. I think I lost a fair amount of heat from stirring every 90 minutes and trying to inspect the temperature.
Thanks for the help!
kcstrom
Things to note from my notes below are that I had trouble getting the mash to be the temperature I was shooting for: 152F. I had two thermometers that didn't agree and disagreed the opposite way when I put them in a small pot of boiling water. I also forgot to account for the fact that the grain will typically hold .1 gallons of water - so that's where I was missing one gallon. I'm not sure where the other half gallon I should have had before the boil went to.
Recipe: First American Wheat
Brewer: Ross
Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 6.94 gal
Estimated OG: 1.054 SG
Estimated Color: 4.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 21.0 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
0.50 lb Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct 5.00 %
5.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 50.00 %
4.50 lb White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 45.00 %
0.50 oz Cascade [5.40 %] (60 min) Hops 10.3 IBU
0.25 oz Cascade [5.40 %] (40 min) Hops 4.5 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [5.40 %] (20 min) Hops 6.2 IBU
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale
Mash Schedule: My Mash
Total Grain Weight: 10.00 lb
----------------------------
My Mash
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
90 min Step Add 12.50 qt of water at 163.7 F 152.0 F
01-17-2009
American Wheat
Recipe:
Procedure:
* Brought 2 gallons of water to 180F
** Put in cooler mash tun to preheat it
* Brought 12.5qt of water to 170
* Dumped preheat water from cooler mash tun into old brew pot
* Put the 12.5qt of 170F water into cooler mash tun
* Stirred and let cool to ~165F before doughing in
* Slowly poured in grain mixing well
* Temperature was down to almost 140F
* Poured in ~3 cups of water that I had boiled and let sit in microwave
** This brought temp up to about 150F
* Heated up ~3 more cups of water in microwave and poured in
** Thermometer still said that it was at about150F
* Headed up 4 more cups of water in microwave to boiling
* Poured in
** One thermometer went up to 152F and back down to 150F when stirring
** Other thermometer stayed about 153-154F even when stirring
** I stirred a lot of try to get consistent temperature
* Poured two gallons of pre-heat water in pot for sparge water and added another 1.75 gallons
* Brought to 190F
* Stirred until it came down to 180F
* Put into larger cooler with hose and vavle on output that is acting as HLT
* Vorlaufed about three gallons of water because I wasn't sure what I was doing
* Let sparge water go into MLT on top of one gallon ice cream bucket lid so it wouldn't disturb grain bed
** Was at about 11:45-11:50AM
* Cracked open American Wheat extract homebrew (frist homebrew)
* Sparge water ran out at about 12:06AM
* Measured specific gravity coming out of MLT after water had disappeared below grain bed top for about 5 minutes: 1.009
* SG: 1.030 at before wort boil - should be about 7 gallons - 5 inches deep in (60qt -
18in diameter) brewpot
* Boil start at ~12:35PM
* Added .5 oz Cascade (5.4% AA) hop pellets directly to wort when seeing boiled has started
* Added .25oz Cascade (5.4% AA) hop pellets direclty to wort at 12:55PM
* Added a little less than .5oz Cascade (5.4% AA) hop pellets directly to wort at 1:23PM
* Used immersion chiller to bring temp down to ~72.5F
* Boiled 1-2 gallons of water earlier in case any was need to get the volume back up to 5
gallons in the fermenter
** Used immersion chiller to bring this down to ~75F
* Tried to whirlpool wort in boil pot
** This didn't really help much as lots of gunk came out when I siphoned to the Better
Bottle
* Siphoned to 6.5 gallon Better Bottle
* There was only about 3-ish gallons of water
* Dumped in all the other water I had boiled
** Was still about 1 gallon or so short
* Boiled some more water and brought temperature down to 73F with immersion chiller
* Filled Better Bottle to the 5 gallon point
* Specific gravity of beer for the 5 gallon in volume liquid was 1.040 - 14 points lower than desired
* Agitated by rolling BB back and forth aggresively for 10 minutes
* Pitched washed Wyeast 1056
Misc:
* Found out that the labels on the CPVC connectors on the manifold aren't ink, they are decals and come off
Efficiency:
* Pot is 18 inches wide
* Wort depth before boiling was 5 inches
* This is a volume of 1272.3 cubic inches which is 21.7 quarts which is 5.4 gallons
* Specific gravity of the 5.4 gallons was 1.030
* Points per pound = (5.4 * 30)/9.5 = 17
* Efficiency = 17/37 = 46% - TERRIBLE
Can anyone offer some advice to an all-grain noob on how to increase his efficiency based on this first brew?
The mash-tun and manifold that I made worked pretty well. It didn't get stuck at all while fly-sparging and I wrapped a blanket around the cooler as well as put one on top since I wasn't sure how it would hold the heat. I think I lost a fair amount of heat from stirring every 90 minutes and trying to inspect the temperature.
Thanks for the help!
kcstrom