My 1st All Grain Brew

Well, I have just done my first mashout and am getting ready to do my first sparging.

I was a bit high on my initial temp, 158 and so far I am at 160 for my first sparge. I am chalking this all up to a learning experience and am not going to trip if the gravity and effeciency is off- I expect it to be.

Will have pictures, stats and everything else posted up either as I go or when I am done.

Wish me luck and cheers on this Happy National Homebrew Day!

1st all grain is under my belt.

Lessons learned:

1). LHBS guy gave the wrong advice- he told me that a 12.75 grain bill would fit in a 5 gallon mash tun...WRONG. I am going to stick with my original plan and mash out of the 10 gallon I had intended, then use the 5 gallon as my HLT.

2). My temps need to be better. I ended up having to add 1/2 cup of DME to bump up the gravity. My mash out plus 2 sparges gave me 1.052 (that includes temp adjustment) and the target was 1.063. I should lower the strike water and up the sparge water.

3). My water measurements worked out perfectly. Boiled down to 5.5 gallons like I had planned. Pretty sweet.

4). Gott coolers are SOLID. I lost maybe a degree if that. I could benefit from having thermometers in the sides of them tho.

5). Most important lesson- I am diggin AG brewing. Cannot wait to get into a house as so to get my system down pat.

Here are some pix...

Boiling the Strike water...



The mash...smells so gooooood...




Sparge water boil and transfer



Yeast Starter!!

More pix...sorry about the resolution, I will try and fix that.


Three tier at the ready



Vourloff settling of the grain bed



Vourloff for the first time, after the bed settled.



My very first 2.5 gallons of sweet wort. 1.058 gravity

Last 2 pix from today..

Once I got 7 gallons, I did my boil



Yep, in a month or two, it will be a good IPA...i hope!



All in all, a great experience and I cannot wait to capitalize on doing more of it!!

Congrats... looks like you had a positive first experience.

You have done well. You will get good eff when you use a 10 gallon cooler/mash-tun and can use 1.25 to 1.5 qts per LB grain. Use 180 to 185 F sparge water and that will help too.

Congratulations, and thanks for posting the pictures! Glad to see it all went smoothly for you.

Thanks fellas...

Here is some additional info that I put into BeerSmith.

Brewhouse Effeciency Based on Target Volume
Actual OG: 1.051 (Estimated:1.063)
Actual Effeciency: 60.71%

Effeciency into Boiler
Volume into Boiler: 7 Gallons
OG into boiler: 1.047 (I bumped up the OG with 1/2 cup DME)
Effeciency into Boiler: 71.20

Effeciency into Fermenter
Actual Batch Volume: 5.5 Gallons
Planned: 5.5 Gallons
Effeciency as Calculated from Actual Volume: 60.71%

I went into this know I was not going to hit my targets and so I went in with lowered expectations. However, the numbers I got exceeded those expectations and as such I am quite pleased.

Ok, so after thinking about how things went, lessons learned, and reviewing the pictures I posted, I have decided that I AM HOOKED.

BAD.

Good thing I am on vacation this week with nothing to do...so I got myself set up with another 12# grain bill and some hops. Here is to another AG!! WOO!