Another First All Grain Post! YAY!

Been waiting awhile to post about my first all grain experience, and of course I have alot of fun stuff to share. And ALOT of questions as well. SE Michigan has been hit with a nice warm spell (50 degrees @ Midnight) and I wanted to brew two batches on Wednesday. Well, mother nature was not going to be all that kind to me as it is supposed to rain all day. So I got the bright idea of starting my 1st AG at 9pm LOL! I left the Barley Crusher at the factory default and ground away. The drill thing didn't work so well for me, it seemed that the rollers were getting stuck or something. So after I hand cranked 12 lbs. of grain I got my mash going. I pre-heated the MT, doughed in @ 150 as planned. I hit my temps dead on, I was pretty pleased about that.

So after the mash was ready for vorlauf I started running it and I thought it was clear. I ran it for about 3-4 minutes just to make sure. It was pretty dark outside and I really couldn't tell but I thought I remembered that would be sufficient. Did my first of two batch sparges @ 180 and forgot to vorlauf! I couldn't believe I forgot to do that!!! So not knowing what to do, I ran the contents of the BK back into the MT (I know, probably alot of sugars left behind) and commenced vorlauf. Did one more batch sparge, this time not forgetting the vorlauf, and got my contents in the BK. All my numbers were spot on from BS. Did my boil, used my new therminator and cooled 5 gallons of wort to 67 degrees in literally 2 minutes. I was very impressed!! I got some really great cold break and right now I'm looking at my carboy with 5 gallons of AG wort.

The thing I'm not crazy about is the 1 1/2 inch layer of sediment on the bottom. My efficiency (all three) ended up being 70%, not bad for my first AG I think. It seems like there is too much, and here is where the questions begin.

- March Pumps, is there a way to get all the liquid completely out of the hoses? It seemed like I lost a little liquid every time I disconnected a quick disconnect. I'm sure that brought my efficiency down a little. Also, how long can you run them dry without damaging them?

- Barley Crusher, I left it on factory default settings and I'm thinking that all that sediment at the bottom of my fermenter is because the crush was too fine? But if that was the case shouldn't my efficiency be better? Or is it because I didn't vorlauf enough until the runnings went clear?

- I feel like I'm going to lose out on alot of beer because of all the crap at the bottom of the carboy. I have false bottoms in my BK and MT, used whole leaf hops (I know they have more absorption) ans so I know alot of that sediment is grain from my MT.

- When doing the recipe in BeerSmith I set my Brewhouse Efficiency at 70%, does this make a difference at all? I didn't know my efficiency and so I put what I thought would be a reasonable goal for a first time AG. If I had put 90% would that have changed the numbers or anything?

Please, any help and/or feedback is greatly appreciated. I am determined to get my efficiency up next time I brew. Although, that might be for at least 4 weeks when the weather gets warmer!

schweaty said:

- I feel like I'm going to lose out on alot of beer because of all the crap at the bottom of the carboy.

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I think you'll find that the trub will settle and compact under the yeast cake quite well. RDWHAHB! Once you have your Fermenator to match your Therminator (OBTW, I'm also jealous of your Barley Crusher), you can dump it before you even pitch.

You hit your numbers on your first AG -- that is an accomplishment!

Heh, RDWHAHB, now there is something I haven't heard before! This feels like my first batch ever, all over again! Come to think of it, in batches past, whenever there was alot of trub the yeast did a good job of pushing all that crap to the top of the carboy. And like you said, hopefully the rest gets compacted under the cake.

By the way, I'm out of homebrew! That's why I had to brew tonight! Thanks for the help.

Do you usually sparge at 180? It seems a little hot. I've read that if you sparge over 168-170 you risk tannin extraction from the grain.

It's a really really common misconception. You sparge at whatever temp it takes to raise or maintain the overall grainbed at 168F. That takes hotter water than 168. If you use a mashout infusion to get it there intially before the "sparge" then you use water right around 170 to maintain it. In batch sparging, the mashout infusion is not used all that often depending on who you talk to.

Hey Bobby, hows it going? I know you have alot of experience with the march pump and I was wondering a few things. Last night I go 70% efficency, it would have been alot better had I not lost liquid each time I disconnected and end from a valve. I was wondering how you avoid making a mess with the liquids and also, can you run the pump without any liquid going through the line? Any feedback about fluid transfer would be most helpful.

(Also, I probably lost about 1/2 gallon of wort on my first runnings, I took the hose off and left the valve open on accident lol)

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Hey shweaty, I hope you don't mind me quoting your PM here so that you might get others to chime in as well.

First 70% is not bad at all. I'd call that an average and respectable baseline. The first thing regarding loss when disconnecting the pump lines is to make sure you have a ball valve on the output of the pump. Before you disconnect anything, close that valve. It will restrict the losses to nothing more than a drip here and there.

You can't run the pump dry, but if you close the valve on the output of the pump, you can leave it running for a reasonable amount of time. For example, if I'm going to switch from vorlauf pumping to sparge water pumping, I close the pump valve and then all the vessel valve, swap the disconnects, open the vessel valves and then the pump valve. I do NOT shut the pump off during this operation.

Don't worry, I've disconnected and shot hot HLT water on my leg at least twice already. It kinda helps beat it into your brain to double check the valves before you touch the disconnects.

One additional thing to note, wort shrinks when it cools (I think 7% was the figure between 212 and 70F so don't boil down to 5g. Boil down to about 5.75 as you'll lose about .25 to kettle trub and then the remaining .5 to contraction.

Nice, thanks for the tips Bobby. Between losing a little wort/water every time I changed the QD. Between that and forgetting to close the valve on my MT I bet I lost atleast .50 to .75 gallons.