my first all grain brew

[hungrymonkey]

Well I finished up my brew sculpture last week. I decided to brew a cream of 3 crops as my first, since it was a cheap recipe and I wanted to see how it went with the design.

Grain bill was

5.5 lb pale malt 2r us
2.5 lb flaked corn
1 lb minute rice

with willamette hops at 1oz for 60 and .5 oz per 20


So I downloaded beer smith and calculated out my strike temps and water quantities. I measured out my dead space and added water to compensate.

I ended up about a gallon and a half short. I realized after the fact that my 1 gallon measuring cup was actually 3.5 quarts (if that)

Well I doughed in with what I thought was 2.8 gallons
with the temp at 152 for an hour
sparged at 168. Doing a batch sparge.


I tasted the wort and it was extremely bitter. Right at the back of the tongue. My final gravity was 1.058 with an estimated 1.047.

 

[hungrymonkey]

I made a hop sock per the directions on thread at hbt. The plastic coupling became very flexible under the heat, and it dipped into the boiling wort. I am paranoid that is what caused the bitter taste.

 

[hungrymonkey]

Figure I will post the remaining brew day photos.

Sculpture

Heating the HLT.

Strike water was 165, after I dough in, it was 152. The cooler held 152 for an hour with no problems.

Prepped my hops, both first and second additions. These are homegrown organic

Hooked up the immersion chiller to check for leaks. I stuck a nozzle at the end of the discharge, which was helpful at clean up.

Drained the mash and vorlauf

 

[hungrymonkey]

Sparged

Draining the sparge

Sat on my hydrometer. Luckily I had recently become aware that the hippy whole foods store had brewing supplies. It saved me an hours worth of driving to get one.

Ready to boil

Hot break

Placed the hops in the bucket/bag.

Saw that the bucket/bag was failing, it had slipped down completely into the water. I fixed it with some pliers.

Added my second hop addition.

Started sanitizing, then freaked because I couldnt find a bung with a hole. Luckily I found one in the kitchen.

 

[hungrymonkey]

Placed the sanitized carboy into position. Then placed the chiller in for the last fifteen minutes.

Gravity was almost 1.060, Which I soon figured out was due to the low boil amount.

Started transferring the cooled wort to the fermenter, realizing I was low on wort.

 

[tangofoxtrot308]

I never taste my wort. The way I see it the yeast is at least 50% of the flavor so tasting it post boil isn't really telling much. Even my bottling taste is always different then the final beer. Just wait it out and do one taste there's nothing you can do now anyway!

 

[hungrymonkey]

Lessons learned.

Buy extra hydrometers. They are cheap, and break easily.

Fab a heat shield between mash tun and HLT. While heating the water, the MT plastic got a bit hot.

Fab a heat shield between second shelf and bottom burner. That shelf gets pretty toasty after an hour.

Everything is hot and it should be treated like so.

get a better water measuring device. My sight glass doesnt register until approximately 4 gallons of water has been added. Also, I need at least 6 gallons before the built in thermometer is submerged. I figured I would make it easy and just add the amount of water the recipe called for.

I am also wondering if my boil off is higher due to how large the pot is.

 

[hungrymonkey]

I ended up boiling 2 more gallons of water, chilled it, then added to the fermenter. The water and wort did not mix well, apparent by the way lighter colored fluid on top, and the darker on the bottom.

I took a gravity reading from the top and it was 1.030. Not sure what its really at. Hopefully the yeast will help mix it up a bit. I pitched and have activity after 4 hours.

 

[hungrymonkey]

I was expecting the wort to be super sweet, like when I was doing extract brews.
This was sweet, but definatly had an unpleasant bitter taste.

I just have to wait and see, especially since my wort volume was so low and I had to add water.

 

[DarkPhyre]

nice setup. I am diggin it.

time to wait and see.

 

[LandoLincoln]

Instead of using a 1 or 2 gallon strainer bag and bending the hop spider way down into the pot, buy a 5 gallon strainer bag and keep the hop spider up higher. That way the hop spider will stay out of the way of your chiller as well.

 

[BeerCrafter2011]

yeah, that melted or softened PVC scares me. I'm pretty sure it has some toxins like phthalates.

 

[BeerCrafter2011]

love the pictures though - well done!

 

[hungrymonkey]

Instead of using a 1 or 2 gallon strainer bag and bending the hop spider way down into the pot, buy a 5 gallon strainer bag and keep the hop spider up higher. That way the hop spider will stay out of the way of your chiller as well.

I built it last year, thinking the bag would sit low enough to be in the wort. Unfortunatly it was barely touching the liquid. I made the bends to make it sit lower, not realizing it would flex so much.

I think I will go with a stainless mesh next time. Although I was at the lhbs and saw they had a 1" stainless braid that they had welded some fittings together to make something similiar to the braid in the cooler mash tun conversion.
I need to get to the hardware store and see what I can dig up.

 

[hungrymonkey]

Might of fixed the hop straining problem.

3/4" stainless braid. I gave up on the drop tube, it was not very effective. I just have to tip the kettle to drain completely.