Finally brewing my American wheat/rye with caraway seeds.
I've had the grain in the freezer for months... Didn't think I was going to be able to brew today, it was supposed to rain, but I checked the forecast again early this afternoon and it was clear.
This is my first all-grain batch. Everything went beautifully except one thing. I hit all my temperatures dead on, and beat my efficiency goal. I had BeerSmith set for 70%, and actually hit 73%. Not bad for the first time.
The one thing that I screwed up on was that I had a stuck sparge (2nd round of sparging) and didn't realize it. I was about 0.9 gallons short on boil volume, so I went ahead and added that much water. Then I looked in the MLT and saw there was still liquid in there. I was all set to add some DME, but I took my pre-boil gravity and was actually .002 over the target even with having added the water.
My calculations show that I would have been .004 over with what was left in the MLT instead of the water I added.
I guess I'll add some DME to the rest of what I collected from the MLT and use it for starters.
I'm a pretty happy camper.
[Edit: Wow, I think I screwed up the equation the first time around. I think I actually got 82% efficiency. If I hadn't added .9 gallons of water (1.000) but instead added the .9 gallons stuck in the MLT (1.029), I would have ended up with a pre-boil gravity of 1.050, and post-boil gravity of 1.061. Don't know how I managed that.]