Gonna try an AG tomorrow, I hope.

[Grimster]

Oh tested my water today, my Ph is lowish in the 6.0-6.5 range out of my drinking filter, and my hardness (both measurements) are pretty damned hard. This is an imperial stout, is it going to like the hardness and Ph or should I consider running to Lowe's for 5 gallons of bottled water to use?

Please see if I have the basic steps down.

Equipment: 10G pot, 4G pot, gas stove, chiller.

Doing a 5 gallon imperial stout AG recipe from NB, this one actually

So here's the basic plan feel free to critique:

Bring 5 gallons of water in my 10G pot up to 165F turn off heat.

Put my grain in a 5 gallon paint strainer mesh bag, put it in the pot it should fall to right around the 150 to 155 mark, if too low heat it back up to 153.

Stir it about every 12-15 minutes for at least an hour but an hour and a half won't hurt even 2 hours from what I've seen?

Bring 2 more gallons in my 4 gallon pot up to around 185F.

After the mashing, "sparge" doing what I gather is a "batch" sparge by dunking my grain bag into the smaller pot and more or less rinsing the grain with the fresh water to get out the last of the "goodness". Do this for about 10-15 minutes.

Mix the sparge water and the mash water together in the big pot (now called wort) and bring to a boil.

Here's where I'm a bit unsure.

There's only one packet of hops, I'm not quite sure when to put it in? 1oz Galena? Boil this hops for the whole 60 minutes?

Finish boil.

Turn off heat and top it off to right at 5 gallons assuming it needs it.

Drop my chiller in, and cool the wort to about 72-75F and put it into my fermenting bucket.

Pitch yeast, stir vigorously to aerate it up good, cap, airlock, put in my 63F basement and let it do it's thing.

Sound about right? Anything major out of wack with this process?

 

[jamesnsw]

Before you start heating the water, I'd suggest putting your grains in the paint strainer bag, and making sure they fit, and not too tightly. My first AG was with a paint strainer bag, and it was definitely too tight to have good water flow.

But I know a lot of people use these bags, so don't panic. I think mine were just smaller or something...
But I do wish I had figured out before I had filled the bag...

 

[gtpro]

I just did my first AG BIAB yesterday, heres what I have to offer:

How big is your grain bill? Use (lbs of grain) x 1.25qt to determine your mash volume. Account for .15gal absorption per pound of grain during mash, so figure our your post mash volume and subtract it from your pre-boil volume to determine sparge volume.

Example:
Mash- (11.75lbs grain) x 1.25qt = 14.68qt/4 = 3.6gal mash water
Absorption- (11.75lbs) x (.15)= 1.76gal absorbed
Post mash volume- 3.6gal-1.76gal= 1.83gal
Sparge- (6gal preboil volume)- 1.83gal = 4.16gal sparge water

Use http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml to determine your strike temp, to get 153 you'll start with something more like 171, just enter your room temp for your grain temp. Getting this right is important because once you miss it, its tough to get it back to where you want it.

Add your grains slowly and stir them into your mash tun rather than just dunking a bag full of grain in there, to avoid clumping.

Find a bigger sparge container, 10+ lbs of soaking grain and 4 gallons of water wont fit in your 4gal pot. I used my extra bottling bucket with the following setup:
http://img15.imageshack.us/i/sdc10154by.jpg/
http://img215.imageshack.us/i/sdc10155v.jpg/

I got like 70% efficiency with this method.

Good luck!

 

[Grimster]

Grain bill = 16.5 lbs (it's an Imperial Stout, go big or go home, that's just how I roll!)
16.5 x 1.25 / 4 = 5.15 so I put 5 gallons into the kettle.

Strike temp for my mash is 169F so I'll shoot for 170 or 171 since it's easier to cool it as it is to heat it if I miss by a couple degrees.

Ok so since my 4g pot isn't big enough for sparging here's my idea, I'll bring 2 2 gallon batches up to 177F each (strike temp to reach 170F after adding 150F grains to the pot at 1qt per lb of grains).

Put my grain bags (I have them in 2 bags one won't hold it) into a 5 gallon bucket each, pour the 2 gallon of sparge into each bucket, and then sparge in 2 batches of 2 gallons each.

My kettle is 10G so I should be ok for that.

Now one thing I haven't discovered yet is, the hops? Boil the single pack of hops for the whole hour?

How big is your grain bill? Use (lbs of grain) x 1.25qt to determine your mash volume. Account for .15gal absorption per pound of grain during mash, so figure our your post mash volume and subtract it from your pre-boil volume to determine sparge volume.

Example:
Mash- (11.75lbs grain) x 1.25qt = 14.68qt/4 = 3.6gal mash water
Absorption- (11.75lbs) x (.15)= 1.76gal absorbed
Post mash volume- 3.6gal-1.76gal= 1.83gal
Sparge- (6gal preboil volume)- 1.83gal = 4.16gal sparge water

Use http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml to determine your strike temp, to get 153 you'll start with something more like 171, just enter your room temp for your grain temp. Getting this right is important because once you miss it, its tough to get it back to where you want it.

Add your grains slowly and stir them into your mash tun rather than just dunking a bag full of grain in there, to avoid clumping.

Find a bigger sparge container, 10+ lbs of soaking grain and 4 gallons of water wont fit in your 4gal pot. I used my extra bottling bucket with the following setup:
http://img15.imageshack.us/i/sdc10154by.jpg/
http://img215.imageshack.us/i/sdc10155v.jpg/

I got like 70% efficiency with this method.

Good luck!

 

[gtpro]

heres someone who used the whole ounce for bittering hops at 60min in a stout

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/galena-hops-2959/

 

[Adam78K]

sounds like you're on track, my first all grain was 4 batches ago and haven't looked back from there. Just make sure to heat your strike water more than you think because the grains will absorb a lot of the temperature.

 

[B33R]

Your going to want to put your chiller in during the last 10-15 minutes of the boil to sanitize your chiller.

By looking at the recipe I would say they want the oz of hops in for the 60 minute boil.

You should only have to mash for an hour but you could mash longer if you felt like it

 

[Grimster]

Ah I'll try and remember about the chiller.

Currently I'm holding steady after 20 minutes in the mash:

 

[Grimster]

Welp seems my stove can't quite bring 6 gallons up to a full rolling boil without a lid, even with wrapped aluminum foil and all that. Ended up putting 2 gallons into my 4g pot and I got a weak boil out of both.

Ended up with a weak 1.076@74F SG but I'll take it I guess. Next AG I should have my 5500W element hooked up with a PID/SSR so I can control (and create) a much nicer boil. Thanks to the crappy boil I ended up with more like 6 gallons or so of wart at the crappy SG. I pitched the yeast and put it in the basement and cursed myself for not having my electric setup ready yet.

I have 2 weeks till my next batch to get the pid/ssr and wiring done so I won't have THIS issue next time I hope.

Now, what to do with all these grains, I ain't just throwing them away, that's just silly.

Dog biscuits? Granola bars? Guess I can just do a basic compost pile.

Soon as the weather warms I'm gonna get some chickens, been seeing CHICKS just plain old chicks for $2 on CL and HENS for $7-12 what the hell? Anyway they'll eat this grain I bet Or the goats will.

 

[02fx4dude]

Ended up with a weak 1.076@74F SG but I'll take it I guess. Next AG I should have my 5500W element hooked up with a PID/SSR so I can control (and create) a much nicer boil. Thanks to the crappy boil I ended up with more like 6 gallons or so of wart at the crappy SG. I pitched the yeast and put it in the basement and cursed myself for not having my electric setup ready yet.

I'm curious, are you going to use a water heater element immersed in the wort for boiling. I'm thinking about trying AG but am stuck inside during the winter, and looking for possible ways to boil 5-6 gallons with electric.

Brian

 

[Grimster]

That's the plan, along with using a PID/SSR system so I can "dim" the element (or just set it for a certain temperature for sparging/mashing and a SPA GFCI breaker so hopefully it's safe-ish.

 

[02fx4dude]

That's the plan, along with using a PID/SSR system so I can "dim" the element (or just set it for a certain temperature for sparging/mashing and a SPA GFCI breaker so hopefully it's safe-ish.

Sweet! Can you post pics when it's ready?

I'm working on using a canning element, 2700W, with a Carlo-Gavazzi SSR that has 4-20ma input to control current. I might shift gears with your water heater element idea. Do you worry about an immersion heater burning the wort?

Sorry to hijack your thread.

Brian

 

[Grimster]

Sweet! Can you post pics when it's ready?

I'm working on using a canning element, 2700W, with a Carlo-Gavazzi SSR that has 4-20ma input to control current. I might shift gears with your water heater element idea. Do you worry about an immersion heater burning the wort?

Sorry to hijack your thread.

Brian

This is as good a place as any to brainstorm

Yes I do worry the bigger element will burn the wort, I figure with the PID/SSR cycling it on and off it won't get hot enough to do any damage. Only way to find out will be to do a few brew days and see how it works. You can bet I'll be ordering the CHEAPEST kits I can find for AG the first couple of goes. Rather scorch an $18 rather than a $50 kit!

If it fails I can use it to bring my water up to strike temp, also I can always replace it with a smaller wattage ULWD element. Hopefully I can order the PID/SSR this week. Gonna call a couple of local places first to see if I might get lucky locally but I ain't holding my breath.

 

[gtpro]

I just boiled 6.5 gallons of water on a crappy electric stove, by insulating with reflectix, you can find it here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/improved-boiling-stovetop-53683/.

Granted it isnt the strongest boil, but by finding a way to keep the heat from leaking out the sides I was able to make it happen.

 

[02fx4dude]

Gtpro,

I spotted that thread last week and picked up some reflectix from menards and experimented over the weekend. with two layers of reflectix and the lid partially on the brew pot I was able to get 4 gallons boiling in 2 hrs. But 5 minutes after I removed the lid the boiling stopped. That was with a 1500W element though.

I'm hoping to have the canning element operational this weekend and also some foil around the base of the pot and repeat the experiment. I think with a pot with a diameter 2x that of the element alot of heat is lost off the bottom of the pot. I think I need a 6.5 gallon pot that's 8 inches in diameter

Any idea what kind of wattage your "crappy" electric stove is?

Brian

 

[B33R]

Now, what to do with all these grains, I ain't just throwing them away, that's just silly.

Dog biscuits? Granola bars? Guess I can just do a basic compost pile.

Soon as the weather warms I'm gonna get some chickens, been seeing CHICKS just plain old chicks for $2 on CL and HENS for $7-12 what the hell? Anyway they'll eat this grain I bet Or the goats will.

I compost mine. Although I noticed my pile was gone because i think the deer ate it all. I just throw them on top of my pile. Some people have recipes for dog biscuits, bread and things of the sort. You can just do a search on here for spent grain recipes. I'm sure you'll get a few results.