So my brother and I, after having a grand total of 2 partial mash beers brewed under our belts (in which neither had made it out of the fermenter yet) we decided we no longer needed the training wheels and was ready to move from using extract to doing all grain brewing.
I did a lot (but not enough) reading around here, put together a cooler mash tun and found a well reviewed Irish Red recipe here, printed it out and then my brother and I headed down to the brand new LHBS in town to get our ingredients. This is where everything started to go downhill. Here is everything that went wrong.
- LHBS didn't have 4 out of the 5 grains we were looking for. So we just grabbed whatever had a similar sounding name and went with it.
- LHBS also didn't have one of the hops the recipe called for. Again, just winged it with a random hop with a similar name.
- Didn't know to pre-heat the mash-tun. Came in ~12-degrees below target temp.
- Tried to fly-sparge using 170-degree water and a colander as a sprinkler. Pretty sure we never actually raised the temp of the grain bed at all.
- Also think we had a really bad crush from the LHBS. If a BC gap is supposed to be about as wide as a credit card, theirs could probably fit my whole wallet.
So we totally missed our target S.G, had no idea what kind of beer we were now making or if it would even be alcoholic but decided the throw it into the fermenter anyways. A month later when I cracked the fermenter it had such a strong fruity, cider-y aroma that I nearly dumped it right then and there. But I threw it in the keg, and about a week later I had my first glass...
... and actually it was pretty good! Checked in at 4.0% ABV (so ya, a "session" beer) and had a nice smooth dry start with a great taste of the bittering hops on the back end. Still not even sure what to call it, maybe an ESB. But either way, I will actually probably brew it again. So, I present you with Amateur Hour, our first all-grain brew!
I did a lot (but not enough) reading around here, put together a cooler mash tun and found a well reviewed Irish Red recipe here, printed it out and then my brother and I headed down to the brand new LHBS in town to get our ingredients. This is where everything started to go downhill. Here is everything that went wrong.
- LHBS didn't have 4 out of the 5 grains we were looking for. So we just grabbed whatever had a similar sounding name and went with it.
- LHBS also didn't have one of the hops the recipe called for. Again, just winged it with a random hop with a similar name.
- Didn't know to pre-heat the mash-tun. Came in ~12-degrees below target temp.
- Tried to fly-sparge using 170-degree water and a colander as a sprinkler. Pretty sure we never actually raised the temp of the grain bed at all.
- Also think we had a really bad crush from the LHBS. If a BC gap is supposed to be about as wide as a credit card, theirs could probably fit my whole wallet.
So we totally missed our target S.G, had no idea what kind of beer we were now making or if it would even be alcoholic but decided the throw it into the fermenter anyways. A month later when I cracked the fermenter it had such a strong fruity, cider-y aroma that I nearly dumped it right then and there. But I threw it in the keg, and about a week later I had my first glass...
... and actually it was pretty good! Checked in at 4.0% ABV (so ya, a "session" beer) and had a nice smooth dry start with a great taste of the bittering hops on the back end. Still not even sure what to call it, maybe an ESB. But either way, I will actually probably brew it again. So, I present you with Amateur Hour, our first all-grain brew!
Also I was unintentionally no sparge mashing for my first 5 batches. Long list of mistakes I am just trying to not repeat them.
