Jiffster
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2015
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My first AG brew day was a disaster. Well, disaster may be too strong of a word but I know it's close.
I realize I had to get the first one under my belt but man.... I thought it would have went better!
Here are some issue highlights that I need to work on:
The Mash
(Note: I should have followed BierMuncher's advice instead of the path I followed below)
Was targeting a mash temp of 150F. Heated 2.75 gal of strike water to 180F and put in 10 gal Igloo MLT. Let sit for about 10 minutes and then stirred to get temp down to 152F. (I read a head where a member had great success in following this method so I tried it).
Temp after coughing in was 141F!
Heated up 2 Qts water to 175F, added to mash to get temp up. Brought it up to 142F.
Heated up 2 more Qts water to 180F, added to mash to get temp up. Brought it up to 144F.
Emptied 1 gallon mash running, heated it to 180 and added back to mash. Brought temp up to 154F. Stirred until temp was 150F. Put lid back on.
This all took 1 hour!
Increased mash water volume by 1 gallon.
Started the timer for 75 minutes.
First Runnings
Vorlauf went well and collected (I think) 3 gal from first runnings.
The Sparge
Original estimated spare volume was 6.5 gal. I subtracted 1 gallon due to using an extra gallon in the mash and heated 5.5 gal of water - Target 168F.
I overshot my target temp by about 15 degrees. It took a while to get the temp down to 168 to sparge.
Spare seemed to go well. No stuck spare, vorlauf went well.... nice and clear.
Collected 2nd running to achieve 7.5 gal boil volume. What I didn't do was collect a preboil sample of the 2 runnings mixed. The 2nd runnings did have a refractometer reading of 1.008 (measured later).
The Boil
Everything went well with the boil until the 60 minute timer went off and I collected a sample to measure SG.
1.030!! Target was 1.040.
So I kept boiling hoping to boil off some wort and get my SG up. After 30 additional minutes and several sample test later I was at 1.035. I did some quick googling and calculations and determined I needed to add 8 oz of DME to bring SG up to 1.040.
I added it, stirred it in for about 10 minutes and shut her down. SG is 1.038. Gonna have to do.
Fired up the Immersion Chiller (yes, I did have it in the boiling wort) and it took longer than usual. I didn't add bagged ice like last time,just frozen jugs. Note taken.
Fermenter
I ended up with ~5.12 gal in fermenter. Target was 5.5 gal. Not bad.
Pitched the yeast and stuck it in my fermentation chamber. The bummer is, I just realized this morning I forgot to oxygenate the wort before pitching yeast!
The yeast is taking off this morning so hopefully that won't matter.
Sigh
This brew took me 8 hours from the time I started up the burner until general cleanup.I say general because I rinsed everything down and started it soaking and I'm going to finish it now.
Man..... so many lessons learned and so many questions. I gotta do better next time.
I hope this batch turns out half decent. I think I'll brew it again for my next batch so I can work on my process and not have to be concerned with a different recipe.
This was the recipe I was using.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=42841
I realize I had to get the first one under my belt but man.... I thought it would have went better!
Here are some issue highlights that I need to work on:
The Mash
(Note: I should have followed BierMuncher's advice instead of the path I followed below)
Was targeting a mash temp of 150F. Heated 2.75 gal of strike water to 180F and put in 10 gal Igloo MLT. Let sit for about 10 minutes and then stirred to get temp down to 152F. (I read a head where a member had great success in following this method so I tried it).
Temp after coughing in was 141F!
Heated up 2 Qts water to 175F, added to mash to get temp up. Brought it up to 142F.
Heated up 2 more Qts water to 180F, added to mash to get temp up. Brought it up to 144F.
Emptied 1 gallon mash running, heated it to 180 and added back to mash. Brought temp up to 154F. Stirred until temp was 150F. Put lid back on.
This all took 1 hour!
Increased mash water volume by 1 gallon.
Started the timer for 75 minutes.
First Runnings
Vorlauf went well and collected (I think) 3 gal from first runnings.
The Sparge
Original estimated spare volume was 6.5 gal. I subtracted 1 gallon due to using an extra gallon in the mash and heated 5.5 gal of water - Target 168F.
I overshot my target temp by about 15 degrees. It took a while to get the temp down to 168 to sparge.
Spare seemed to go well. No stuck spare, vorlauf went well.... nice and clear.
Collected 2nd running to achieve 7.5 gal boil volume. What I didn't do was collect a preboil sample of the 2 runnings mixed. The 2nd runnings did have a refractometer reading of 1.008 (measured later).
The Boil
Everything went well with the boil until the 60 minute timer went off and I collected a sample to measure SG.
1.030!! Target was 1.040.
So I kept boiling hoping to boil off some wort and get my SG up. After 30 additional minutes and several sample test later I was at 1.035. I did some quick googling and calculations and determined I needed to add 8 oz of DME to bring SG up to 1.040.
I added it, stirred it in for about 10 minutes and shut her down. SG is 1.038. Gonna have to do.
Fired up the Immersion Chiller (yes, I did have it in the boiling wort) and it took longer than usual. I didn't add bagged ice like last time,just frozen jugs. Note taken.
Fermenter
I ended up with ~5.12 gal in fermenter. Target was 5.5 gal. Not bad.
Pitched the yeast and stuck it in my fermentation chamber. The bummer is, I just realized this morning I forgot to oxygenate the wort before pitching yeast!
The yeast is taking off this morning so hopefully that won't matter.
Sigh
This brew took me 8 hours from the time I started up the burner until general cleanup.I say general because I rinsed everything down and started it soaking and I'm going to finish it now.
Man..... so many lessons learned and so many questions. I gotta do better next time.
I hope this batch turns out half decent. I think I'll brew it again for my next batch so I can work on my process and not have to be concerned with a different recipe.
This was the recipe I was using.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=42841