adhomebrew10
Well-Known Member
Yesterday I brewed my first all grain batch, an Irish Red. I spent a good 2 months planning the recipe and working though how I would make it all work.
The day went WAY better than I expected it would (it just took 9 hours due to lack of experience). I was shooting for a mash temperature of 154 but got just a little high. I put the lid on the mash tun at 155 and after an hour it was 154. So I assume I lost a degree or less during the hour.
When I went to sparge I was shooting for 170 and only got up to 162. The problem was that I thought I would fit more water in my 5G tun than I could and so my water was not hot enough for the lowered volume (plus my grains cooled more than I thought, down to about 140). I anticipated that may be the case, however, and had a plan to do a "hybrid" sparge by pouring the rest over the grain bed once I started sparging.
I was shooting for 65% efficiency and ended up with 71! My gravity was expected to be 1.052 and I ended up at 1.057 (Also, boiloff rate was higher than expected - First brew since moving to Florida).
All that said, I like AG WAY more than extract. I am very pleased with how everything turned out. Its in the fermentor and bubbling away (nottingham yeast @ 62 degrees). I am already thinking about what to brew next!
The day went WAY better than I expected it would (it just took 9 hours due to lack of experience). I was shooting for a mash temperature of 154 but got just a little high. I put the lid on the mash tun at 155 and after an hour it was 154. So I assume I lost a degree or less during the hour.
When I went to sparge I was shooting for 170 and only got up to 162. The problem was that I thought I would fit more water in my 5G tun than I could and so my water was not hot enough for the lowered volume (plus my grains cooled more than I thought, down to about 140). I anticipated that may be the case, however, and had a plan to do a "hybrid" sparge by pouring the rest over the grain bed once I started sparging.
I was shooting for 65% efficiency and ended up with 71! My gravity was expected to be 1.052 and I ended up at 1.057 (Also, boiloff rate was higher than expected - First brew since moving to Florida).
All that said, I like AG WAY more than extract. I am very pleased with how everything turned out. Its in the fermentor and bubbling away (nottingham yeast @ 62 degrees). I am already thinking about what to brew next!
