First All Grain Brew a success!

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hout17

Crush it REAL Good
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Hi All,

I've been brewing extract for a few years and finally jumped in to all grain.

I told myself I wouldn't go this route until I got a water report as I wanted to adjust water chemistry as well if I were going to do all grain.

I brewed an Irish Red and made water chemistry adjustments based on a balanced amber water profile.

I use the batch sparge method and fashioned a 48qt coleman cooler as my mash tun.

Anyway everything went very well and as planned I even hit a ph of 5.35 I was going for 5.38 during the mash and held 152 degrees for most of the mash (I lost a degree over 60 min). My mash efficiency came out to 80%!

Anyway I just wanted to thank everybody on this forum the things I have learned here in regards to water chemistry and mashing technique are priceless.

Also big shout out to Martin @mabrungard and his great Bruin Water Spreadsheet.

I bottled my Red last night here is the last little bit out of the bottling bucket (tastes super balanced and very good). I can't wait for it to carb up.

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Brew On!

I
 
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That sounds like a huge success for a first all-grain brew! 80% is great for any all-grain brewer. Congrats!
 
it took me years to even find out my efficiency was low (60's)..and another to get 83.... :mug:

I wasn't expecting that efficiency but the crush from my HBS looked pretty good and I've read adjusting mash ph helps with efficiency as well. I also made sure I stirred my grains in real good. Those dough balls can be a pain to break up lol.

Also I had a good time playing with the ph meter and weighing out my brewing salt additions and seeing the ph meter read close to what I was expecting when I pulled a sample after about 20 minutes in the mash (of course letting it cool down to room temp).

Hopefully I can maintain this efficiency but it might be beginners luck as well.

Next steps for me might be looking in to grabbing a grain mill so I have complete control over my crush.

There are also some really good looking recipes in the Homebrewtalk database that I want to try!

Cheers!
 
might want to step up the mash to 162f for alpha, after 30 minutes...helped me pull better. might get you to close to 90%! :mug:
 
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