Moving Forward...

So tonight I made my first yeast starter. I don't have the White Labs vial near me, but I believe it was a California Ale Yeast. Brought 4 cups of water to a boil and added a cup of Light DME. I boiled for 20 minutes, chilled, and pitched the liquid yeast.

Two weeks ago, I bought a 2 liter beaker from the LHBS, and my starter looks so tiny in there.

Saturday, I will be doing my first and possibly last partial mash (plan to go all grain after this). It will be an American Pale Ale (Cascade Pale Ale PM kit from midwest).

I'm pretty stoked to be moving forward with brewing. Last weekend, I picked up a converted chest freezer, and I'm in the process of updating that and buying my first two kegs.



:rockin:

It shouldn't look too tiny in the 2 liter flask. It should be about half full

I'm in the process of moving to all grain myself. I have never taken the partial mash step though. Everything up until now has been extract and some simple steeping of various grains. I bought a grain mill, built my MLT, and I have the ingredients sitting here ready to brew my first AG batch. I really have the itch to brew, but I'm doing some remodeling in the basement converting it into a den / man cave. That will hopefully be finished this weekend and then I'm going to have a brew party and invite friends to come by and hang out, sample some home brews, and just generally have a good time

Is that a 2L beaker or Erlenmeyer flask? The flask is conical, the beaker is cylindrical. Because of the shape, a half full by volume flask only looks to be about a third full. If it is graduated, your volume should be about 900ml.

JohnnyO said:

I'm pretty stoked to be moving forward with brewing. Last weekend, I picked up a converted chest freezer, and I'm in the process of updating that and buying my first two kegs.



:rockin:

Click to expand...

You are screwed! lol. I went from "I'll just slowely ramp up Dear SWMBO" to 15 gallon kettles, 5 carboys, 6 plastic buckets and 8 kegs in 2 months.

You will love All-grain!

P.S. lesson I learned moving from Partial Mash to All-Grain was to lower my efficiency calcs early on. I was undershooting OG's, but, got that fixed I think. Also, I am not sure how you sparge for PM, but I went to fast on my batch sparge method right away on All-Grain. That helped too. I went from 80% efficiency with PM to 68% with All-Grain during the first couple batches. Now I am at 75%. Just a fyi that you may consider as you look at recipes and boil amounts once you start.

Beerkrump: I bought an Erlenmeyer Flask. Thanks for the correction. I had forgotten exactly what it was called. Thank you for the information and the uncomfortable flashback to my high school science days. LOL!!!

Brocster: Thanks to you too. I start my Saturday with a laugh and some good points to be thinking of as I plan out my AG career.

Today, I will be doing my first and only PM. I only have my 5 gallon pot and a smaller stock pot that might be 2 gallons. I will be "making it work" today so efficiency might not be the best. I did not want to buy another 5gallon or so stock pot if I only plan on doing 1 PM batch.