I made a great 4 gallon beer.....maybe..

[bherder]

My first post on HBT and my first all-grain.

Was trying to make this on the American Ale forum

All-Grain - Bee Cave Brewery Haus Pale Ale - All Grain
Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Nottingham
Yeast Starter: Nope
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter: Nope
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.5
Original Gravity: 1.051
Final Gravity: 1.011
IBU: 39
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 5 SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 10 Days at 68 degrees

Grain Bill
8 lbs. 2-Row Pale Malt
2 lbs. Vienna Malt
0.5 lb. Crystal 10L Malt

Mash
Single Infusion mash for 60 minutes at 152 degrees.



I used 10.5 quarts of water for the initial mash at 152 deg for 60 minutes. Then once I collected the first runnings, added 5.25 gallons of 180 deg water and collected that. Once I did my 60 minute boil I ended up with 4 gallons of liquid with an OG of 1.0525 (that included a 0.0025 correction since I was at 76 degrees).

What did I do wrong? I thought I used enough water. Am I wrong? I ended up 1.5 gallons short, which a slightly higher OG than expected 1.0525 vs 1.051.

Please give me some pointers so I can improve upon my first experience.

Thanks.

 

[RLinNH]

From my calculations here, I see that you used 7 3/4 gallons of Water. Even with the grain soaking up about a gallon, that should land you at 6 3/4 gallons, Pre Boil. Is that what you had Pre Boil?

 

[bherder]

From my calculations here, I see that you used 7 3/4 gallons of Water. Even with the grain soaking up about a gallon, that should land you at 6 3/4 gallons, Pre Boil. Is that what you had Pre Boil?

I'm no use. I should of created a measuring stick so that I could stick it in my keggle pre-boil to see how much liquid I had. I will do that next time.

Would my OG be 15 points lower and on "the money" if I had another 1.5 gallons of liquid?

 

[weirdboy]

I totally hate guessing how much liquid I've got at each stage, because if you don't know how much you've got, you cannot really tell what's going on. It could be you didn't collect enough runnings, or it boiled off way faster than you anticipated, or a number of other reasons.

I used someone else's keggle system a while back to make a quick extract recipe and they had no way to measure the volume...I ended up with like 1.5-2 gallons more beer than I had designed the recipe for. It didn't even fit in my fermenter.

 

[Colby]

I had neighbors come over at the end of my first all grain session with this recipe. I think I'm short a gallon, but failed to measure anything at the end. Why? Good question, I was a little flustered with the audience and just assumed I'd end up with close to what I expected.

Oh well, it's homebrew...it doesn't have to be perfect

 

[kanzimonson]

You MUST measure your preboil gravity, which entails knowing what your preboil volume is. If you had boiled down to 5.5gal, your SG would have been 1.037. If you had known this before you started boiling, you could have added DME to reach the appropriate gravity.

But don't worry about it - practically everybody has a terrible first all grain experience. Just learn from the mistakes and plan better next time.

 

[Colby]

You MUST measure your preboil gravity, which entails knowing what your preboil volume is. If you had boiled down to 5.5gal, your SG would have been 1.037. If you had known this before you started boiling, you could have added DME to reach the appropriate gravity.

But don't worry about it - practically everybody has a terrible first all grain experience. Just learn from the mistakes and plan better next time.

I did measure my preboil gravity, it was right on at 1.043. I'll know next time that my 105,000 BTU burner doesn't need to be fired as high.

 

[jturie]

I did measure my preboil gravity, it was right on at 1.043. I'll know next time that my 105,000 BTU burner doesn't need to be fired as high.

Yep, I discovered a while ago that "rolling boil" does not mean raging maelstrom. Just get it bubbling and turn down the propane as much as possible. Even then I seem to get some variability with my boiloff rates.

Not to worry...it's taste, not quantity or ABV that is important.