So I brewed my first batch of all grain yesterday and had a couple questions about how the day went and about the finished product. Again this was my first AG batch so the mash tun and brew kettle were new as well and I think that might have something to do with the "hiccups" I encountered.
First my Mash Tun. I am using a converted 72 qt Coleman xtreme with a SS water heater hose as my filter. The problem I encountered with that is it was so slow to drain. I was batch sparging so once I had the runnings clear I opened the ball valve up all the way and was surprised to see just a thin stream of wort coming out. This happened with the sparge as well
I had a 1/2 in ID tube draining the wort, could this be to big of an ID to keep a solid siphon going and that's the reason for the very slow drain? Or is the cooler just to big and the grain bed too shallow to keep up a high flow?
Second, As a result of the very slow drain, as the wort level got to 5 gal it pretty much was just a trickle. It took about 25-30 min to get the 5 gal level and I shut the valve and called it done. The problem is that Beersmith said I should have about 6 gal pre boil.
Should I have just added another 1 gal of plain water to top off to the pre-boil amount? Or would have been better to add another gal or so to the MT and drain it through the grain bed to extract more sugar?
The last problem was post boil. I started with ~5 gal and sent only 4 gal to the fermenter after the 90 min boil, with an OG of 1.082 :smack:! Is this even going to be drinkable? It was supposed to be a simple PA with only a little Magnum to bitter and 1 oz Ahtanum at 15 min for flavor. It seems like the wort got concentrated so much in the boil that this may be way to harsh once it is done fermenting.
Any advice would be great, Again I know that this is my first attempt and it can only get better from here so I hope that the advice I get from you guys will help iron out some of these finer details.
Thanks!!!
First my Mash Tun. I am using a converted 72 qt Coleman xtreme with a SS water heater hose as my filter. The problem I encountered with that is it was so slow to drain. I was batch sparging so once I had the runnings clear I opened the ball valve up all the way and was surprised to see just a thin stream of wort coming out. This happened with the sparge as well
I had a 1/2 in ID tube draining the wort, could this be to big of an ID to keep a solid siphon going and that's the reason for the very slow drain? Or is the cooler just to big and the grain bed too shallow to keep up a high flow?
Second, As a result of the very slow drain, as the wort level got to 5 gal it pretty much was just a trickle. It took about 25-30 min to get the 5 gal level and I shut the valve and called it done. The problem is that Beersmith said I should have about 6 gal pre boil.
Should I have just added another 1 gal of plain water to top off to the pre-boil amount? Or would have been better to add another gal or so to the MT and drain it through the grain bed to extract more sugar?
The last problem was post boil. I started with ~5 gal and sent only 4 gal to the fermenter after the 90 min boil, with an OG of 1.082 :smack:! Is this even going to be drinkable? It was supposed to be a simple PA with only a little Magnum to bitter and 1 oz Ahtanum at 15 min for flavor. It seems like the wort got concentrated so much in the boil that this may be way to harsh once it is done fermenting.
Any advice would be great, Again I know that this is my first attempt and it can only get better from here so I hope that the advice I get from you guys will help iron out some of these finer details.
Thanks!!!