Holecamels
New Member
I brewed my first extract kit about a year ago, and it came out pretty good. My second batch, I decided should be all grain. I did a bit of quick research, and apparently it was so quick the only thing that my brain processed was "AG isn't that much harder to do than extract". So I ordered an AG Blonde Ale kit from Midwest Supplies. It came in and I decided to jump right in.
I started brewing by the directions, and about half way through I realized that I was missing a few pieces of important equipment; a mash tun, and a pot that can handle a 5 gallon boil. I decided that my 6.5 gallon ale pail bottling bucket would be my mash tun, and my 4 gallon pot would boil my 5 gallons of mash. Little did I know, a mash tun needs some type of filter or it will clog. It did clog, and nothing came out of the spigot... until I decided to loosen it and let the mash drip from the fitting into a bucket. It took so long to drip (about an hour), that I decided that I didn't feel like waiting to use all the sparge water and just dumped what I had into my 4 gallon pot. Well I had more than 4 gallons of mash, so I ended up throwing out a gallon or so. After the boil I ended up with 3.5 gallons for a 5 gallon batch. I said F it, dumped it in the fermenter and split the yeast in half. Oh yeah and I forgot to take an OG reading. The FG was right where it needed to be though.
I just tasted the beer today and it definitely has way too much alcohol and tastes a little odd, but it's not that bad (but not that good). I guess the moral of this story is if you do things remotely right your beer will probably come out pretty good and if you totally mess up just finish making it anyway because it might not be that bad.
I started brewing by the directions, and about half way through I realized that I was missing a few pieces of important equipment; a mash tun, and a pot that can handle a 5 gallon boil. I decided that my 6.5 gallon ale pail bottling bucket would be my mash tun, and my 4 gallon pot would boil my 5 gallons of mash. Little did I know, a mash tun needs some type of filter or it will clog. It did clog, and nothing came out of the spigot... until I decided to loosen it and let the mash drip from the fitting into a bucket. It took so long to drip (about an hour), that I decided that I didn't feel like waiting to use all the sparge water and just dumped what I had into my 4 gallon pot. Well I had more than 4 gallons of mash, so I ended up throwing out a gallon or so. After the boil I ended up with 3.5 gallons for a 5 gallon batch. I said F it, dumped it in the fermenter and split the yeast in half. Oh yeah and I forgot to take an OG reading. The FG was right where it needed to be though.
I just tasted the beer today and it definitely has way too much alcohol and tastes a little odd, but it's not that bad (but not that good). I guess the moral of this story is if you do things remotely right your beer will probably come out pretty good and if you totally mess up just finish making it anyway because it might not be that bad.
