Sir-Hops-A-Lot
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- Jul 4, 2012
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Hey everyone,
I'm sharing the details of my first all-grain brew to get some insight from the veterans out there.
On Friday I brewed "Ol' Bitter Bastard" from the recipe on this form https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f64/ol-bitter-bastard-2013-nhc-gold-medal-419766/
I bought all the exact ingredients for the recipe. Here is the epic tale of woe and revision as it went:
9:40 AM First I screwed up the strike temp, heating the water to the target mash temp of 152 instead of 169. This put me at 144. Still a good dry temp; not the goal but some ordinary betters mash at 144. Then the digital thermometer suddenly read 171 in my mash tun. I think it rested on some metal from the drainage system that must have been hot from the mash tun preheating. So I switched to the floating thermometer that takes a few minutes to get the measure. Yes, still 144.
10:25 AM by now I have heated up more water at a boil to get the temp up higher. After a few minutes, I checked at it was at 148.
11:00 AM I drained the first run into a food grade bucket. Nice nut brown. mmmm....
11:28 AM By now I have got the sparge water at 178 to do the sparge (next time I'll think ahead). I open my nice 15 Gal pot's lid and see the temp on the Blichmann's needle drop suddenly. "Oh", I thought, "I guess the steam was 178 because the temp gauge is above the water level." Then I put the sparge water into the mashtun and my slow brain made a connection: "So if the temp gauge on the pot didn't measure the water, how hot was it?" It was 158. After boiling some more water for the sparge it got up to 162.
11:45 AM started burner to heat wort with FWH added. There is 20 L in the boil. Less than I will need to end up with 19L but it's easy to add some water and not possible to remove it.
12:25 AM nice rolling boil. Added 60 mins hops.
At 1:15 I put my newly made 1/2" copper wort chiller in the pot to sterilize itself in the boil.
1:25 I turn off the burner, place the 0 min hops in, and turn on the hose. There is a leak at the hose connection that sprinkles some water on the water. I think, "That can't be all bad. After all, it will just cool faster." I feel the water coming out of the hose end... warm but not hot. I'm seeing a problem. I've only got 5 G in a 15 G brewpot so the wort chiller is only 1/2 in the wort. Oh...
1:45 The wart is still 40 Celcius but there is a LOT more water in it from the slow sprinkling leak at the hose connection. I now have a 6 G wort. I turn off the hose and transfer the wort into a 6G carboy that I place in an ice bath. Yep... too much water. I take a SG reading and it's at 1.024 which is pretty far from the modest goal of 1.037. I'm thinking my mash temp and extra water are to blame.
2:00 I hastily heat up a little water to a boil, add 1.2 # of pale LME to it, cool it and pitch it into the wort. I guessed the amount to add. I transfer the over-sized wort into a sanitized food grade bucket, very large sized. I pitched the 1469 Wyeast smack pack.
Yesterday I couldn't see any top-foam action through size of the translucent bucket.
Today I could see a 1/4" of foam. I conclude that there isn't enough maltose in there. I calculate what would result in a 1.024 wort on the Brewtoad site and then calculated what I'd need to put in to get it up to about 1.040. I boiled a small (1.5 L) batch with some extra Goldings for an hour to get the IBU back up (.5 Goldings at 60, .5 # dark DME, 1.4# pale LME). I opened the bucket to see that the krausen is now 1/2" with a golden brown topping. I pitched in the extra wort.
Tomorrow I hope to see a thicker layer of krausen that I think will tell me that the yeast is off to a healthy start.
Any thoughts!?!https://cdn.homebrewtalk.com/images/smilies/drunk.gif
SHAL
I'm sharing the details of my first all-grain brew to get some insight from the veterans out there.
On Friday I brewed "Ol' Bitter Bastard" from the recipe on this form https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f64/ol-bitter-bastard-2013-nhc-gold-medal-419766/
I bought all the exact ingredients for the recipe. Here is the epic tale of woe and revision as it went:
9:40 AM First I screwed up the strike temp, heating the water to the target mash temp of 152 instead of 169. This put me at 144. Still a good dry temp; not the goal but some ordinary betters mash at 144. Then the digital thermometer suddenly read 171 in my mash tun. I think it rested on some metal from the drainage system that must have been hot from the mash tun preheating. So I switched to the floating thermometer that takes a few minutes to get the measure. Yes, still 144.
10:25 AM by now I have heated up more water at a boil to get the temp up higher. After a few minutes, I checked at it was at 148.
11:00 AM I drained the first run into a food grade bucket. Nice nut brown. mmmm....
11:28 AM By now I have got the sparge water at 178 to do the sparge (next time I'll think ahead). I open my nice 15 Gal pot's lid and see the temp on the Blichmann's needle drop suddenly. "Oh", I thought, "I guess the steam was 178 because the temp gauge is above the water level." Then I put the sparge water into the mashtun and my slow brain made a connection: "So if the temp gauge on the pot didn't measure the water, how hot was it?" It was 158. After boiling some more water for the sparge it got up to 162.
11:45 AM started burner to heat wort with FWH added. There is 20 L in the boil. Less than I will need to end up with 19L but it's easy to add some water and not possible to remove it.
12:25 AM nice rolling boil. Added 60 mins hops.
At 1:15 I put my newly made 1/2" copper wort chiller in the pot to sterilize itself in the boil.
1:25 I turn off the burner, place the 0 min hops in, and turn on the hose. There is a leak at the hose connection that sprinkles some water on the water. I think, "That can't be all bad. After all, it will just cool faster." I feel the water coming out of the hose end... warm but not hot. I'm seeing a problem. I've only got 5 G in a 15 G brewpot so the wort chiller is only 1/2 in the wort. Oh...
1:45 The wart is still 40 Celcius but there is a LOT more water in it from the slow sprinkling leak at the hose connection. I now have a 6 G wort. I turn off the hose and transfer the wort into a 6G carboy that I place in an ice bath. Yep... too much water. I take a SG reading and it's at 1.024 which is pretty far from the modest goal of 1.037. I'm thinking my mash temp and extra water are to blame.
2:00 I hastily heat up a little water to a boil, add 1.2 # of pale LME to it, cool it and pitch it into the wort. I guessed the amount to add. I transfer the over-sized wort into a sanitized food grade bucket, very large sized. I pitched the 1469 Wyeast smack pack.
Yesterday I couldn't see any top-foam action through size of the translucent bucket.
Today I could see a 1/4" of foam. I conclude that there isn't enough maltose in there. I calculate what would result in a 1.024 wort on the Brewtoad site and then calculated what I'd need to put in to get it up to about 1.040. I boiled a small (1.5 L) batch with some extra Goldings for an hour to get the IBU back up (.5 Goldings at 60, .5 # dark DME, 1.4# pale LME). I opened the bucket to see that the krausen is now 1/2" with a golden brown topping. I pitched in the extra wort.
Tomorrow I hope to see a thicker layer of krausen that I think will tell me that the yeast is off to a healthy start.
Any thoughts!?!https://cdn.homebrewtalk.com/images/smilies/drunk.gif
SHAL
