Though I felt pretty ill-prepared... I squeezed in my first brew day yesterday, 2/15/2016.
I used a slightly modified version of this AHB Blue Moon Clone recipe on brewtoad, scaled out to 12 gallons:
https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/belgian-wit-ahb-blue-moon-clone
Here is a very detailed log of the brew day:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZA08SJtpg8HkYX_J4OPBXh6GD22gfKLyo3f_m9vQCQ4/pub
Summary of Brew Day:
Though I had a very large hiccup, I was able to improvise and in my opinion, it turned out extremely well.
When I went to add the grain to the 10 gal mash tun, I completely filled the vessel to the top, and I still had 6.2 lbs of grain left.
After freaking out for a few minutes, I decided to do the 6.2 lbs of grain in a brew in a bag setup on the stove. I adjusted my recipe, figuring all the grain water loss, etc... to get my total boil volume around 12.5 gal to 13 gal, using both mash setups (see brew long for details).
I ended up right at 12.9 gallons pre boil volume which ended up being perfect, and about all my boil keggle can hold.
I lost more water than anticipated during boil (12.9 gal down to 11 gal). I lose 1 gal from boil kettle to the fermenters, so my total final volume was right at 10 gallons. I was hoping for 11 gals to account for loss in the fermenters. I believe what I will try to do next time, is A) run a thicker mash, and B) make the boiled wort a little more stout, to allow enough gravity to top off with .5 gal of water in each fermenter when done.
Target OG was 1.053, and I hit a tad low at 1.050, which I wont complain about, being it was my first all grain brew.
Next thing to purchase... a larger mash tun... I believe I might invest in a 20 gallon boil kettle, and move my current boil kettle over as a mash tun. Stay tuned...
Pictures from brew day:
It was a pretty ****ty day outside, in the 50's, and raining... a lot... but I sucked it up, and stood out in the rain and got everything cleaned and prepped:
Grain Bill:
Note: The LBS only gave me 1 lb of flaked soft white wheat instead of 1.2 like the grain bill calls for, and I also used 2.6 lbs of flaked oats instead of the 2.4 called for.
Transferring strike water to MLT from HLT:
You can see how full the mlt was, with 7.8 gal of strike water, and 20 lbs of grain. You can also see my jerry rigged "low profile" sparge arm (aluminum foil with holes in it) lol...
With 166 F strike water, I hit my target mash temperature right on the head, 150 F
Vorlaughing:
Transferring from MLT to BK
After the brew in a bag mash was complete, I simply took the bag of spent grains and threw it on top of the grain bed in the MLT. I poured the 1.0 gallon or so of wort from the brew in a bag, into the HLT, with my sparge water. I then did a double batch sparge over biab grains, and my mlt grain bed.
Total pre-boil volume: 12.9 gal
This is what 13 gallons looks like... it was only about an inch below the top of the whirlpool arm. I dont have a ball valve on the camlock connected to the whirlpool arm, so if I go any higher, water will definitely flow out. I handled the hot break extremely well with a spray bottle and controlling the gas.
I had planned on recirculating ice water from the HLT through the chiller, but realized I didnt have enough female cam locks to create enough hoses (need 2 more hoses). Instead, I removed the water-out cam lock from the shirron chiller, and put a 1/2" barb there, and just ran a 4 foot hose to the driveway. I used a 1/2" female garden hose to 1/2" male npt adapter, coupled with a female camlock with female 1/2" threads to make a garden hose to cam lock adapter.
Chiller setup
Whirlpooling and chilling:
It took about 25 minutes to go from boil to 71 F. I then bypassed the chiller for a stronger whirlpool.
I dont have any more pictures, but after I whirlpooled without the chiller for a bit, I then just disconnected the return line from the boil kettle, and used it to fill the fermenters.
All in all, I was extremely pleased with the setup. For now, I will have to continue doing a supplemental brew in a bag until I can get a bigger mash tun.