Yet another First All Grain thread

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AndrewD

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So, getting back into brewing and told myself I would not do extract brews anymore, and that I would start kegging. So, several hundred dollars later, my setup is this:

Mash:
10 Gallon Rubbermaid with SS Braid

Boil:
Blichmann Floor burner on 24-inch rims (leg extensions)
30qt Boil Pot (No valve)

Primary:
6 Gallon Better Bottle w/ Racking adapter

Secondary:
Corny Keg

I'm brewing a NB Scottish 60 kit to start easy, and I'm using a BeerSmith trial for added fun. This kit has 6 pounds of malt. BeerSmith defaults to 1.25 qts/lb for mash water, which gives me a paltry 7.5 qts. I'm concerned about having such a small volume in the 10 gallon cooler.

Should I up my ratio to 2 qts/lb, giving me 3 gallons of mash water? If so, is there still going to be an issue with such a small mash in the 10 gallon cooler?

As far as the sparge, I think I am doing a batch sparge. The NB instructions call for a 60 minute sacch rest at 154, then a 10 minute mashout at 170. So what I think I should do is conduct the 60 minute mash with whichever water ratio I settle on and lauter, then add an appropriate amount of sparge water, let it sit at 170 for 10 minutes, then sparge into my boil pot with the lauter wort. BeerSmith has me adding a mere 4.2 qts of 207 degree (!) water, yet this is based on a supposed ratio of 1.95 qts/lb, which doesn't make sense to me. I think dialing in and getting used to BeerSmith is something I can do over the course of several brews, so I'm not too worried about technical help there.

My main questions are:

What is an appropriate quantity and temperature of mash water for this small batch in a 10 gallon cooler?

What is an appropriate quantity and temperature of sparge water?

Does the 10 minute mashout at 170 degrees in the instructions mean to raise the temperature of the mash to 170 and hold it for 10 minutes before sparging?

Also, I will be starting with a sub-5 gallon quantity of wort, so I imagine I should top up to boil volume with more water. Should I add cold water, boiling water, or equal temperature water to top it off?
 
Most people suggest splitting your mash water and sparge water into equal figures that give you your desired pre-boil volume varying between 6-7 gallons depending on how much your system boils off and your desired quantity going into the fermentor. I put my strike water in my cooler about 10 degrees higher than I want it to "pre-heat" my tun so I avoid temp loss during the mash. When the water gets to about 1 degree over my desired strike temp I dough in and stir like mad until I am at my desired temp and then close the lid till it is time to sparge. If you are batch sparging, there is no need to do a mash-out. You can sparge with 180-190 degree water to get the same result (getting the grain bed up to 170 to stop enzymatic activity). You cooler will be a little large for your grain bill and you might lose a degree or two over the length of the mash but you will be ok. Placing some aluminum foil over the top of the mash will help this. Keep notes and have fun! It's not as difficult as it seems right now.
 
You can increase the water ratio if you want, it won't hurt. I have no experience over about 1.7 qt/# but I think you would be fine at 2. But you won't loose too much heat if you preheat your mash tun even at 1.25.

To preheat raise the mash water to 10-15 F above strike temp. Add that hot water to your tun and then close the lid for 15 minutes. After 15 min is up open the tun, measure the temp and then stir until the temp drops to your strike temp + 3F (room for error). Then add your grain and stir until the mash temp drops to your target mash temp (maybe 5 minutes of stirring).

To mash out I add 2 gallons of boiling water to my mash. You may want to stop at 1.5g since you only have 6# of grain. You don't need to let it sit. Just stir it good (several minutes) then vorlauf and drain.

After draining measure how much wort you have in your kettle. Then sparge with desired boil volume minus the amount collected so far. So if you got 3 gallons first runnings and want a 7 gallon boil volume, sparge with 7-3=4 gallons. Heat the sparge water to 175F. Pour it in, stir several minutes, vorlauf, and then drain.

That should get you all the boil water you need. If not you can add water at whatever temp it comes out of the tap. If you add water after boil then I recommend cold water since that will help cool the wort faster.

Good luck. Also, I recommend a larger grain bill (8-10 #) the first few AG brews. That way if you have efficiency problems you still get enough gravity points for a decent beer. Also check your gravity before boil. If it is low you can add DME or just adjust your hops down and enjoy a session brew.
 
Well, it went great. Thanks for the help. I have about 5.5 gallons of 1.032 gravity wort fermenting, which is exactly on target. The Blichmann floor burner really is nice, quiet, and powerful. Brewing outside beats stickying up the kitchen like I used to do. No more extract!
 
AndrewD said:
Well, it went great. Thanks for the help. I have about 5.5 gallons of 1.032 gravity wort fermenting, which is exactly on target. The Blichmann floor burner really is nice, quiet, and powerful. Brewing outside beats stickying up the kitchen like I used to do. No more extract!

Good work. Glad it went well for you. I should try that kit myself. I love beers around 40 gravity points. Maybe 32 would be even better an I am guessing it would help waistline.
 
Sounds great! That's a nice kit, and I love that beer.

Good work. Glad it went well for you. I should try that kit myself. I love beers around 40 gravity points. Maybe 32 would be even better an I am guessing it would help waistline.

It's cheap too. With the S-33 dry yeast, I think it was about 22 bucks.
 
Racked to secondary today. Visible fermentation stopped 2 days ago. Gravity reading at this time is 1.012, which is just a little high, but not bad at all for my first all grain. I don't know if it will drop any more, but even if it stays here, I am happy. Taste was good, if a little grainy which will probably mellow a bit after conditioning and cooling to serving temp. I don't know if I have ever had a commercial Scottish 60 so I have little to compare it to. I racked onto some properly prepared gelatin and have the secondary in my freshly cleaned and sanitized garage fridge. I am going to calibrate my dial thermo with a digital one and place that in the fridge in a large jar of water. I plan on serving out of kegs from this fridge, so what is a good temp to look for?
 
Fridge gets down to about 38 F, so I guess it's a good fridge. Unfortunately its a side by side so there is not really room for more than 1 keg and my tank without some shelving I would have to build. So I racked it to a keg today and force carbonated it in about 10 minutes. I know it should age more, but dammit I was excited about my first all grain and my first keg. All in all I consider it a success. I'm not sure how it would rate against professional scottish 60s, but it is a nice session beer. It will likely improve with some aging in the fridge given the style notes for scottish beers, but it probably wont last that long. Excuse me, I have to check on my second all grain, an american wheat which is bubbling away in primary.
 
A true scottish 60/- is tough to find on the shelves. Sounds like you did it justice! The impatience will get better (maybe- I'm opening a real brewery and my homebrews do have a tendency to get turned around super fast to this day!). Low gravity beers don't benefit as much from aging, so I think you're probably good. Buy some more fermenters and get that pipeline filled! I've got about 50 gallons going right now, taking up about 200 of the 580 square feet of my tiny upstairs condo.

Also, it sounds like you have an EXCELLENT Fridge- I would love to have not had to get a temp controller for mine. Get that shelving built and maybe drill a hole to relocate your CO2 outside the fridge for maximum homebrew awesomeness on the inside. You won't regret it. Cheers!
 
I did an -80 without kettle caramalization and was disappointed. Next time will be different. Did you kettle caralamize a portion of your wort?
 
I did an extract version of this one for one of my first brews. I carbed it low, to style, and was surprised how good it was with such a small bill. It tasted the best once it warmed up from fridge temps a bit, maybe high 40's/low 50's.
 

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