Well, after extract brewing for over 15 years, I finally decided it was time to try my hand at AG brewing. I am not sure why I never tried it before now, but I finally decided I couldn't wait any longer.
With that said, I have a few AG newbie questions. I have a 7.5 gallon pot, a 5 gallon pot and a 10 gallon igloo cooler (round). My initial plan is to brew a recipe I found online that sounded good (open to feedback if you are familiar with it). It is Joe's Irish Red Ale. I loaded it into a demo copy of Beersmith (I figured if I am going to go AG, I probably should do a better job of record keeping).
I wanted to verify that I understand the process correctly. My plan is to a batch sparge using the igloo cooler. My understanding is that I will mash the grains for 60 minutes in the cooler. Following this, after draining the wort, I will add additional water as specified for 5-10 minutes (stirring) and then pull off the additional wort, finally boiling the wort as with other brews.
1. Do I need to sparge a second time?
2. When loading the recipe into Beersmith, which Mashing Profile do I select for the process that I have outlined?
3. In Beersmith, if I select "Single Infusion, Light Body" for example, it has me using 12.96 quarts of water for the mash in and 8.3 quarts for the mash out. This is just over 5 gallons. Won't I need a lot more water when you consider grain absorption and boil off? Is this supposed to include the sparge?
4. Should I just forget about Beersmith for now and just find a simple recipe for my first AG brew? I don't want to over complicate things the first time around, but I also want to try out the software to see how well it works.
Thanks in advance for your help,
Acropolis
With that said, I have a few AG newbie questions. I have a 7.5 gallon pot, a 5 gallon pot and a 10 gallon igloo cooler (round). My initial plan is to brew a recipe I found online that sounded good (open to feedback if you are familiar with it). It is Joe's Irish Red Ale. I loaded it into a demo copy of Beersmith (I figured if I am going to go AG, I probably should do a better job of record keeping).
I wanted to verify that I understand the process correctly. My plan is to a batch sparge using the igloo cooler. My understanding is that I will mash the grains for 60 minutes in the cooler. Following this, after draining the wort, I will add additional water as specified for 5-10 minutes (stirring) and then pull off the additional wort, finally boiling the wort as with other brews.
1. Do I need to sparge a second time?
2. When loading the recipe into Beersmith, which Mashing Profile do I select for the process that I have outlined?
3. In Beersmith, if I select "Single Infusion, Light Body" for example, it has me using 12.96 quarts of water for the mash in and 8.3 quarts for the mash out. This is just over 5 gallons. Won't I need a lot more water when you consider grain absorption and boil off? Is this supposed to include the sparge?
4. Should I just forget about Beersmith for now and just find a simple recipe for my first AG brew? I don't want to over complicate things the first time around, but I also want to try out the software to see how well it works.
Thanks in advance for your help,
Acropolis