First All-Grain today: I was really optimistic

So, after much preparation I finally tool the plunge today. In the past few months I've slowly collected my gear. I've been an extract brewer for 6 years, but only have about a dozen brews under my belt. So I got me a 15 gallon pot, an outside burner, giant all copper cfc, pump, MLT with ss braid in a rectangular cooler...and the all grain IPA kit from NB. So...here's how it's gone so far:

Pretty much used the recommendations from NB for mash thickness (1.3 quarts per pound [12.5lbs x 1.3= about 4gallons and a pint] at 175f to mash in to bring temp to @ 153f)

Preheated MLT with about 2 quarts boiling water and let sit for while my strike water heated to 175...added 2 tsp gypsum and 1 tbl 5.2...was confused by 5.2 label here: do i treat for total gallons used or total into fermenter...what about the gypsum?

dumped out the boiling water and added my strike water and doughed in...temps seemed a little high about 159 so i added a few pints cold water to bring down to about 154 then i closed the lid and didn't open for about 45 minutes (1st mistake) at which point the temp was more like 149ish.
In the meantime i had been heating my sparge water: .5 gallons per pound = 6 gallons and a quart to 200 to bring temps up to mashout.

But since my temp was low i needed to bring it up first. Thus began my semi frantic attempt to raise the temp to 153 again by adding water at @ 200f little by little to raise the temps. This took me quite a while...wound up mashing for a bit longer than an hour. However, it was when i attempted to raise temps to mash out that things got quite hectic: i was adding hot water plus was draining into a pot, heating to boiling and returning to the MLT. My note taking process broke down somewhat at this point.

Anyway, finally got it up to about 168-170 and let rest for 15 minutes. I then vorlaufed and drained into my kettle (1st running were 1048 at 104f...did i mention my target OG is supposed to be 1064?)
Then i added about 2 gallons to sparge stirred and drained, then added about 2 gallons more, stirred and drained a second time. My final runnings were about 1014. So i wound up with almost 7.5 gallons at (compensating for temp) 1040.

So i need to boil down this big time, but from what i can tell just by playing with promash and beersmith, i'm not going to be able to boil down anywhere near enough to concentrate the wort enough to hit my target gravity. So here i am, about 7 hours into it, my kettle is sitting on the porch boiling away for about an hour now. In about another 25 minutes I will add my 1st hop additions and begin my 60 minute countdown to flameout and chill.

I would really, really, really appreciate as many comments, thoughts, ideas and whatnot to guide me here. During the process my wife asked if i was liking this any better than extract brewing: hell yeah i told here: i'm making beer %100 from scratch and i just thinks thats the bomb.
I already have 2 more AG kits ready to go (hoping to brew those over the next 2 weekends...is it ok to have had my grains crushed if not using right away?

well, i'll be up for quite a while...hope to hear from some of y'all kind folks soon!:fro:

First AG - consider it a learning experience, regardless of what it tastes like. It only goes up from here. That's my .02 cents...

Wow...use this to tell you how much water to use: http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/sparge.html

twst1up said:

So, after much preparation I finally tool the plunge today. In the past few months I've slowly collected my gear. I've been an extract brewer for 6 years, but only have about a dozen brews under my belt. So I got me a 15 gallon pot, an outside burner, giant all copper cfc, pump, MLT with ss braid in a rectangular cooler...and the all grain IPA kit from NB. So...here's how it's gone so far:

Pretty much used the recommendations from NB for mash thickness (1.3 quarts per pound [12.5lbs x 1.3= about 4gallons and a pint] at 175f to mash in to bring temp to @ 153f)

Preheated MLT with about 2 quarts boiling water and let sit for while my strike water heated to 175...added 2 tsp gypsum and 1 tbl 5.2...was confused by 5.2 label here: do i treat for total gallons used or total into fermenter...what about the gypsum?

Click to expand...

First off, congratulations. It's a big step.
For 5.2, you add 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons of finished product, regardless of how much water actually goes into the mash. (based on the label). I think gypsum is similar in that it must be added to the mash.

twst1up said:

dumped out the boiling water and added my strike water and doughed in...temps seemed a little high about 159 so i added a few pints cold water to bring down to about 154 then i closed the lid and didn't open for about 45 minutes (1st mistake) at which point the temp was more like 149ish.
In the meantime i had been heating my sparge water: .5 gallons per pound = 6 gallons and a quart to 200 to bring temps up to mashout.

Click to expand...

I made this mistake on my first AG brew as well. It's VERY easy to overcool a too-warm MLT, and end up with too-low temperatures. I really have to force myself to give the MLT a minimum of five minutes to equilibrate PER ADJUSTMENT before deciding if my temperatures are on the mark. Anything less, and you end up overshooting, then undershooting, then overshooting, and so on. My first AG brew, I ended up dumping my entire mash out into a big pot and direct-heating it to get back to temperature. The beer turned out delicious.

twst1up said:

But since my temp was low i needed to bring it up first. Thus began my semi frantic attempt to raise the temp to 153 again by adding water at @ 200f little by little to raise the temps. This took me quite a while...wound up mashing for a bit longer than an hour. However, it was when i attempted to raise temps to mash out that things got quite hectic: i was adding hot water plus was draining into a pot, heating to boiling and returning to the MLT. My note taking process broke down somewhat at this point.

Click to expand...

Yep. I've done that too.

twst1up said:

Anyway, finally got it up to about 168-170 and let rest for 15 minutes. I then vorlaufed and drained into my kettle (1st running were 1048 at 104f...did i mention my target OG is supposed to be 1064?)
Then i added about 2 gallons to sparge stirred and drained, then added about 2 gallons more, stirred and drained a second time. My final runnings were about 1014. So i wound up with almost 7.5 gallons at (compensating for temp) 1040.

Click to expand...

If that's an adjusted gravity, then you're on the right track. 7.5 gallons at 1.040 is 340 gravity points. Concentrate those 340 points in 5.5 gallons, and you have an OG of 1.061. Good work.

twst1up said:

So i need to boil down this big time, but from what i can tell just by playing with promash and beersmith, i'm not going to be able to boil down anywhere near enough to concentrate the wort enough to hit my target gravity. So here i am, about 7 hours into it, my kettle is sitting on the porch boiling away for about an hour now. In about another 25 minutes I will add my 1st hop additions and begin my 60 minute countdown to flameout and chill.

Click to expand...

Check your numbers. I think you're on track.. Boiling 7.5 to 5.5 gallons shouldn't bee too bad. I can do that in about 90 minutes, but I live at 5400 feet in a (normally) dry climate.

twst1up said:

I would really, really, really appreciate as many comments, thoughts, ideas and whatnot to guide me here. During the process my wife asked if i was liking this any better than extract brewing: hell yeah i told here: i'm making beer %100 from scratch and i just thinks thats the bomb.
I already have 2 more AG kits ready to go (hoping to brew those over the next 2 weekends...is it ok to have had my grains crushed if not using right away?

Click to expand...

Crushed grains will keep at least a month with no ill effects (at least to my palate).

twst1up said:

well, i'll be up for quite a while...hope to hear from some of y'all kind folks soon!:fro:

Click to expand...

My first AG a couple years ago was a total F- UP..stuck sparge...yelling for anti-beer wife to come help... and i trying to strain/drain the wort through a hop-bag..a planned 9% Imp stout turning into a 5% wussy stout.........funny thing is we are moving to a new house now, cleaning out the cellar..i came across the last bottle from that 1st AG today, now almost 2 years later..opened it tonight and is is damed tasty. But when the 1st AG disaster happend, i Almost never brewed again. But 15 batches later am damned glad i did not quit....the moral is..you may need many failures before you succeed. Hell, Albert Eintsein was 4 before he could even walk!!!

First thing is, if anyone has done their first all grain and hasn't gotten frazzled, they were high. It's a high task load activity that needs getting used to.

+1 on giving temp adjustments a little time. You overcompensated a couple times. I'd really advise against preheating with boiling water. You'll end up buckling the plastic in the cooler. Heat the entire strike to 10F over your software recommended temp and let it sit in the cooler until you get it down. Once you dough in, it will take about 10 minute for the grain to fully pull the heat.

Don't get caught up in the mash out temp. Take your first runnings and then just use 185F sparge water. You'll get the same efficiency but you won't be freaking out.

Good luck with the next one. If you were still in Jersey I'd come supervise.

+1 Bobby, follow his advice and you will have a very good session next time. You do not need a mashout at all.

fat x nub said:

Wow...use this to tell you how much water to use: http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/sparge.html

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ya know, I think one of my probs was consulting several diff online calculators and getting different suggestions. And of the ones i tried, the one at tastybrew i found particularly confusing

Bobby_M said:

First thing is, if anyone has done their first all grain and hasn't gotten frazzled, they were high. It's a high task load activity that needs getting used to.

+1 on giving temp adjustments a little time. You overcompensated a couple times. I'd really advise against preheating with boiling water. You'll end up buckling the plastic in the cooler. Heat the entire strike to 10F over your software recommended temp and let it sit in the cooler until you get it down. Once you dough in, it will take about 10 minute for the grain to fully pull the heat.

Don't get caught up in the mash out temp. Take your first runnings and then just use 185F sparge water. You'll get the same efficiency but you won't be freaking out.

Good luck with the next one. If you were still in Jersey I'd come supervise.

Click to expand...

thanks bobby, i've learned much from your posts. Hadn't thought about buckling my cooler but that makes sense. I'll be sure to take your advice on my next brew next week. If i were still in south jersey it would be quite a haul for ya, but you'd sure be welcome...(is wv too far?)

jds said:

First off, congratulations. It's a big step.
For 5.2, you add 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons of finished product, regardless of how much water actually goes into the mash. (based on the label). I think gypsum is similar in that it must be added to the mash.


I made this mistake on my first AG brew as well. It's VERY easy to overcool a too-warm MLT, and end up with too-low temperatures. I really have to force myself to give the MLT a minimum of five minutes to equilibrate PER ADJUSTMENT before deciding if my temperatures are on the mark. Anything less, and you end up overshooting, then undershooting, then overshooting, and so on. My first AG brew, I ended up dumping my entire mash out into a big pot and direct-heating it to get back to temperature. The beer turned out delicious.

Yep. I've done that too.


If that's an adjusted gravity, then you're on the right track. 7.5 gallons at 1.040 is 340 gravity points. Concentrate those 340 points in 5.5 gallons, and you have an OG of 1.061. Good work.



Check your numbers. I think you're on track.. Boiling 7.5 to 5.5 gallons shouldn't bee too bad. I can do that in about 90 minutes, but I live at 5400 feet in a (normally) dry climate.

Crushed grains will keep at least a month with no ill effects (at least to my palate).

Click to expand...

thx for the point by point JDS...much appreciated

i use my bottling buckets for my mash tun and i don't have to preheat them. i wrap the buckets up in like 3 towels to keep the heat in, mash with 170 degree water and usually hit 152 and it keeps that temp just fine over an hour. but thats my system, everyones is gonna be different. i'm used to using my ghetto bucket system so i know what i have to do to make it work. its just gonna take a bit of time to figure out what your gear likes and what it doesn't like.

Don't stress! I had a complete disaster a couple brews ago with my all grain IPA. My braid in the MLT clogged up, and I ended up pouring my grain back and forth between bucket and MLT trying to fix it. Can you say "Hot side aeration" ??? Anyways, after a horrible brew day and 4 weeks of fermentation and dry hopping, I ended up with a FANTASTIC brew! You never can tell how that beer is going to turn out, so there is no use stressing about it. As they say, RDWHAHB...and remember it's pretty hard to screw up beer .

...well, that remains to be seen i guess. Turns out my bayou classic burner (its round, on 3 legs, can't remember the model) must kick some ass...it was dark and hard for me to judge volume in my pot against the notches on my spoon. But when i added my 30 minute hop addition i was able to see that my volume dropped quite a bit...less than 5 gallons, maybe alot less
Oh well, gotta go with it right? So, put my immersion chiller in the pot to sanitize: about half the coils are not submerged because i've gone to a 15 gallon pot...no choice but to deal with it. Finally reach flameout (it's sooo late). I put the lid on (not a complete seal as the hoses from my IC are protruding) and turn on the hose for the chiller. I monitor the output temp but it's not hot at all, i attribute this to the fact that half the coils are above the surface, and i figure it will take longer than if they were. Then i open the lid to move the chiller around and see that my input hose clamp is loose and spraying water into the chilling wort (it's about 150f at this point). I sure hope this doesn't ruin my beer. Damn...why didn't i tighten those clamps?!?!? Nothing i can do but tighten the clamps and put the lid back on, right? I mean, this is supposed to be fun and dwrhahb so i'm gonna go with the flow, no sense in freakin'. So, back inside as i let the chiller do it's thing...play some COD4 and check the temp periodically. When it gets around 78f i hook up the hose to the valve, put the other end into my sanitized carboy (i'm not fearing the foam, which is good 'cause theres alot in there) and let her drain. I'm able to get all but about a pint out if i tip the pot.

Don't know how much got in the carboy but it's def less than 5 gallons, i'd say btwn 4-4.5, but that remains to be seen...i'll mark the level and measure after i transfer to 2ndary. Here's the kicker tho: after boiling off so much vapor my gravity was up to 1068-1070!!!! Given that i'm more than a couple points above my 1064 target I'm wondering if this is cause for concern? Is it going to be higher in alcohol now?

All the replies are very much appreciated, and i look forward to any comments on how my nite turned out

Shrinkage bit ya. If you boil down to 5 gallons (hot), after chilling you're going to have less. Does anyone remember how much volume reduction there is between 212 and 70F? For some reason 12% is coming to me but I'm not sure. If that's right, 5 gallons at 212F is like 4.4 gallons at 70F.

First off, let me say you are being pretty hard on yourself. I was ecstatic after my first AG when I did much worse.

Second, your target OG was 1.064, efficiency goes down with higher gravity beers. My efficiency peaks at 1.045-1.050 and falls off above that. It's inevitable because you are using more mash water and less to sparge. For a 1.064 beer I would plan for less efficiency than I usually get. So that is likely a factor as well.

The posts of "my first AG went like a dream" are few and far between. Murphy has a LAW named after him, after all.

twst1up said:

Preheated MLT with about 2 quarts boiling water and let sit for while my strike water heated to 175...added 2 tsp gypsum and 1 tbl 5.2...was confused by 5.2 label here: do i treat for total gallons used or total into fermenter...what about the gypsum?

Click to expand...

I use 1Tbsp 5.2 and 1-2 tsp gypsum in the mash. For a really light beer, you can use 1 tsp gypsum and 2 tsp of Calcium Chloride. Together they are an effective treatment if your water is hard up to 250 ppm bicarbonate. If it's worse you should mix your tap water with RO water as well to dilute below 250 ppm bicarbonate for the mash. 5.2 is pretty forgiving, I don't stress too much because as long as I dilute my water and use some gypsum I always measure the pH of the mash right at 5.2.

dumped out the boiling water and added my strike water and doughed in...temps seemed a little high about 159 so i added a few pints cold water to bring down to about 154

Click to expand...

I'm not in the preheating camp. I dumped in 12, 14, 16 quarts of strike water at a typical strike temp of 170 into my cooler, measured the temp loss over 5 minutes, and recorded that. So now I know if the tool says heat to 160 to hit my mash temp after dough in, I add 9 degrees because I know the cooler will suck up that much and heat., eg I'd heat strike to 169 and wait for it to drop to 160 before doughing in. Yesterday I nailed my temps for both infusion mashes of a double infusion mash using this method.

But since my temp was low i needed to bring it up first. Thus began my semi frantic attempt to raise the temp to 153 again by adding water at @ 200f little by little to raise the temps.

Click to expand...

Is your lid hollow? Insulate the lid. Or throw a blanket over it. I drilled holes in the lid of my cooler and sprayed foam insulation into the lid. It expanded and squeezed out the holes, after a few days I used a knife to cut off the excess. My temp loss is now 2-3 degrees in an hour and I don't care. Most of the conversion with well modified malt happens in the first 15 minutes. So, the drop of 3-4 degrees over an hour will have very little effect on the mash. RDWHAHB. Remember they made beer in the days before there were accurate digital thermometers!

Only other suggestion is to measure your mash efficiency. Your crush or (depending on your water) pH may need adjustment. You won't know until you measure the mash efficiency. (Thread linked in my sig below) Because you did a double batch sparge, I would expect at least 75% but you didn't post what your actual efficiency was versus what the recipe was formulated at.

Bobby_M said:

Shrinkage bit ya. If you boil down to 5 gallons (hot), after chilling you're going to have less. Does anyone remember how much volume reduction there is between 212 and 70F? For some reason 12% is coming to me but I'm not sure. If that's right, 5 gallons at 212F is like 4.4 gallons at 70F.

Click to expand...

I usually seem to be off by a quart on my stick-in-pot measure so I've learned to adjust versus what ends up in the fermenter. But that's just a wild *** guess based on my observations.

Bobby_M:

If the coefficient of volume expansion for water is:
207x10^-6 /K then the volumetric change should be
V1/V0=1+207x10^-6*(T1-T0)
For T1=20 C and T0=100 C, I get:
V1/V0=0.983, less than 2%.
(Unless the coefficient of thermal expansion is very nonlinear with temp.)

twst1up said:

So, put my immersion chiller in the pot to sanitize: about half the coils are not submerged because i've gone to a 15 gallon pot...

Click to expand...

You rock for going with the big pot. I shoulda gone bigger. I'm going to have to buy another pot to move up to 10 gallons.

Then i open the lid to move the chiller around and see that my input hose clamp is loose and spraying water into the chilling wort (it's about 150f at this point). I sure hope this doesn't ruin my beer.

Click to expand...

It won't. Happened to me. Three times. Beer came out fine. Finally a combination of wider worm clamps ($1 ea at Home Dpt) and a 25 psi pressure regulator solved it in my case. I've since switched to a pump recirculating ice water in a cooler through the IC since the tap water is too hot to get it to pitching temps in the summer.

Hey man, I don't have much in the way of words of wisdom. I'm still licking my first AG wounds from a few weeks ago. It happens. I had nightmarish visions of hot side aeration, infections, missed temps and gravities and 50% efficiency. I boiled off over 2 gallons and only had 4 into the fermenter. I distinctly remember feeling like all the wheels fell off the wagon at once. But, before all that I was having the time of my life. Take your medicine and consider this brew a down payment on your brewing education. I hope it turns out well for you!

+1 on not worrying about mash out temps in fact I don't even do a mashout