First all grain brew day! (And first brew ever!)

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Dgratiot

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Hey guys! Saturday my dad and I will be doing our first all grain brew, first brew period for that matter! We decided to jump in head first and dive into all grain. I've got a buddy at work who brews a lot, and he has given much advise, and browsing around here has been more than helpful! just wondering if you guys have any tips or tricks for us to make things easier! Wish us luck! For what it's worth, well be brewing Centennial Blonde, in a 5 gallon batch
 
With BIAB and a fine milled grain, if you hit your calculated strike temperature and the right amount of water you will make beer with no real "gotchas".

Well, that isn't really true, the "gotcha" that you may have to deal with might be higher efficiency than planned. My first all grain beer was predicted to have an OG of 1.050 but I got 1.072. That beer had plenty of kick, but it tasted fine.
 
I like to plan everything in advance. I measure out hop additions to the boil in labeled cups during the mash. The labels will read "60 mins", " 30 mins", etc.

I would consider making a yeast starter. Even putting it in a container with water and DME that you shake every now and again will help get the cell count up before you pitch. I use a stir plate now, but I didn't have one when I first started.

Use multiple thermometers all the time. This rule has hurt me twice. Never trust a single thermometer.

Let's, see, sanitize everything that your wort will touch after boiling like a crazed fiend.

Measure OG before pitching yeast.

Clean equipment immediately after you finish. It is easier to get the sugars off then as opposed to next week.

And remember, blondes are easy.
 
The biggest piece of advice that I can impart to you, and the one that when I haven't followed it has drastically altered the beer, is DON'T DRINK TOO MUCH while making your beer. I can't tell you the number of silly mistakes I've made because I was too buzzed. [emoji53]
 
Thanks guys! I'm most worried about the sanitizing of everything! I've read and re read the recipe about 100 times now, so I've got it figured out. I've gone over the process a lot, so I think I got that covered. And I'm worried enough about everything getting sanitized correctly that I'm sure I'll be anal about it and it'll be fine! Thanks for the replys so far guys!
 
One question I do have...I've read I need to mash with aprox 1.5qt per lb of grain. We will have 8.75lb of grain, so well need 13.125 qt of water, or 2.3 gallons of water. Now, when the mast is complete, how much water do I need to sparge?
 
I usually add however afterwards that will get me the pre-boil amount, depending no absorbed by grain amount.
 
One question I do have...I've read I need to mash with aprox 1.5qt per lb of grain. We will have 8.75lb of grain, so we'll need 13.125 qt of water, or 2.3 gallons of water. Now, when the mast is complete, how much water do I need to sparge?

Please double-check your math.

:pipe:
 
Your right sly! Got typing to fast and did the numbers backward! 3.2 gal should be correct! So just mash with 3.2 gallons and sparge to get my boil kettle up to 6.5 gallon?
 
A monkey can make wort, yeast make beer. Taking care of beer post boil is 90% of the battle. Do everything you can to keep yeast happy and healthy and you will have good beer. Pitch rates / o2 / ferment temp (not ambient temp) etc all are big factors in making or breaking beer.
 
A monkey can make wort, yeast make beer. Taking care of beer post boil is 90% of the battle. Do everything you can to keep yeast happy and healthy and you will have good beer. Pitch rates / o2 / ferment temp (not ambient temp) etc all are big factors in making or breaking beer.

While I do strongly agree with this statement, try to keep it simple for the first batch. Focus on the most important: sanitization after boil and hitting the OG. In future batches, you can add a complex thing one brew at a time. Complex things like making a yeast starter to get pitching numbers right, oxygenating your wort before pitching the yeast, controlling the temp of fermentation even though you have billions of yeasties chomping away at sugars, generating heat, and adding yeast nutrient. These will improve the beer majorly, but I don't think not using them will ruin a batch. Sanitization will though. When I started out I didn't do any of those things, besides sanitizing. Now, I do everything. It has definitely improved my beer, but trust me, my beginning beer was consumed and was ample delicious to motivate me to keep brewing.

As a side note, one of the things I'd like to do now is brew my first beer: a bock. I controlled temp from the beginning, but I bet it would taste even better as an all-grain recipe, with a yeast starter and nutrient, and oxygenated wort. Maybe this time, I won't even freeze it(my temp controller had some kinks in it in the beginning. Froze about 4 gallons of bock while I was away at my grandmother-in-laws funeral).
 
Also, that bock was still delicious as all get out, though I did have to add more yeast to bottle carb. Something told me the original yeast died in the freeze. Thankfully, the freeze was just during the lagering stage.
 
Put sanitized water in the airlock. I learned the hard way, ended up with all vinegar two batches in a row before I figured out the problem thanks to HBT.
 
Definitely do the yeast starter. If you have never brewed before, it'll essentially be a trial run. It's basically the same as making a tiny batch of beer.

It will simultaneously sate and whet your appetite for brewing the full batch.

Welcome to the obsession!

:tank:
 
Your right sly! Got typing to fast and did the numbers backward! 3.2 gal should be correct! So just mash with 3.2 gallons and sparge to get my boil kettle up to 6.5 gallon?

yep.

like they said, make sure and keep up proper sanitation + temp control if you have the ability.
 
The only thing I can add to what's been said here is this:

If despite all your attention to detail, something goes wrong, don't get too flummoxed. You're jumping into all-grain your first time out. Just take decent notes on your process, and it'll allow you to take a good post-mortem in case anything goes haywire. That way, you can learn from the experience for next time and not get too discouraged.

Happy Brewing!
:tank:
 
One question I do have...I've read I need to mash with aprox 1.5qt per lb of grain. We will have 8.75lb of grain, so well need 13.125 qt of water, or 2.3 gallons of water. Now, when the mast is complete, how much water do I need to sparge?

This number is a reasonable choice but don't get too concerned about the exact amount. You'll want to be over 1 qt per pound of grain because it gets hard to stir with any less and if you go far over 1.5 qt per pound you won't have much to sparge with. I've gone quite a bit over that 1.5 qt per pound and still get good conversion.

When your mash is over, drain your tun and measure carefully how much wort you collected. Sparge with the difference between that and what you want for pre-boil. Your grain is already saturated so any water you use to sparge will come back out as wort. If you misjudge the amount, no big deal. You can do a second sparge if you are short or boil off more if you got too much.
 
The key is to make absolutely everything that comes in contact with the wort after the boil is sanitized. If you do that and you screw up mashing, adding hops at the wrong time or whatever, you'll still have beer. Relax, take the time to spend some quality time with your dad and enjoy the aromas. Taste everything (except for the hops) at each step and relax. It really isn't that hard.
 
Guys! You've been great so far! Cant wait for Saturday to roll around, I've got all of our stuff out, and our order from northern brewer is scheduled to arrive today! I shall report back soon on how things went! Curious how many of you have brewed the Centennial Blonde before!?
 
A couple other things...

1. Cool your wort as fast as possible when boil is done. This is the 'cold break' which will precipitate proteins out of suspension that may potentially create off-flavors down the line.
2. Aerate the wort well prior to pitching; shake/rattle/roll your fermenter for 30-60 sec.. Oxygen encourages yeast propagation.
3. Take an OG reading; important!
4. When you read, "fermentation temperature", it means the temp of the wort, not the ambient temp. The yeast eating the sugar will create an exothermic reaction and raise the temp inside your fermenter 5 - 10 degrees.
5. Do your best to keep ferm temp steady; no wide swings.
 
Well guys, thought I'd let you all know the first brew day was a success! We had a few very minor inconveniences, but nothing terrible, we were almost spot on the batch size (4.8 gallons) and our OG was 1.044! On top of that according to a calculator online our overall brew house efficiency was 89.44%! So it's sitting in the fermenter now! Hopfully I see some bubbles in the am!

image.jpg
 
Okay guys starting to worry! I put my beer in the fermenter on Saturday around 4pm. Rehydrated my Nottingham yeast at 82 degrees, and pitched it. I didn't see much action in my air lock, and all the liquid was pushed over to the output side, I got worried and looked in the bucket, and saw a thick later of krausen on Sunday night. No worries! But now the layer of krausen has dropped out and it seems my airlock has started to even out...is this normal? My temp of the fermenter has been between 61-65 the whole time!
 
Okay guys starting to worry! I put my beer in the fermenter on Saturday around 4pm. Rehydrated my Nottingham yeast at 82 degrees, and pitched it. I didn't see much action in my air lock, and all the liquid was pushed over to the output side, I got worried and looked in the bucket, and saw a thick later of krausen on Sunday night. No worries! But now the layer of krausen has dropped out and it seems my airlock has started to even out...is this normal? My temp of the fermenter has been between 61-65 the whole time!

Yes, this is normal. Krausen is the result of the production of CO2 by the yeast and they only give off CO2 while there is a lot of sugars for them to eat. My krausen would normally fall by the 4th day and the airlock would quit bubbling or slow drastically as no more CO2 is being produced. In about another day you can let the temperature rise to room temp as the time where you need to keep the beer cool is the first few days when the yeast want to go crazy eating all the sugars. Now they are just breaking down the intermediate products of fermentation and they do that more efficiently when it is a bit warmer.

A lot of buckets will leak a little around the lid so you may never see bubbling in the airlock but the fact that you have krausen says that fermentation is happening. You're beer is coming along fine. Now all you need to do is let the yeast clean up and settle out. I usually leave my beers in the primary fermenter for 3 weeks or more so I don't get all that suspended yeast settled in the bottle and longer won't hurt if you have the patience for it.:rockin:
 
Just wanted to give an update! I checked gravity today, since I have not had any activity in my air lock in 24 hours, it's down to 1.008ish! I have the sample in the fridge cooling, can't wait to give it a taste!
 
Just wanted to let you all know how progress goes! We kegged wednesday, and bottled 12. Let me say I'm glad we kegged. Bottling sucked! Anyways, got it all kegged up, carbonated and left in the kegerator till Saturday...the first pour was amazing! Tasted great! My dad and I just kept em coming! Had a few people over Saturday night and it was a big hit all around! Everyone loved it! We ended up finishing the keg today haha. Guess it's time to brew again! Man I love this hobby! Thanks for all the help guys!
 
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