1st AG Batch up's and downs

[beerdaddy]

Well let me 1st say thanks to everyone here with all the helpful posts.

My recipe

12# pale 2 row
1 oz Amarillo 60 min
.5oz Amarillo 20 min
.5oz Amarillo 10 min
A simple SMaSH so i thought.

1. Drill wouldnt pull my mill with grain in it so i had to hand crank 12# of grain while Strike was was coming up to temp.( my arms was sore). LOL. more testing will be done before next brewday. Added some rice hulls to be safe since this was my 1st and its a corona mill. and it looked a little fine.

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2. I hit my mash temp 154 dead on with 4 gallon strike water. stirred closed the lid and waited 60 min. Lost maybe 1 deg over the hour. it was a little thick but it seemed to work out fine. Did a Fly type sparge it flowed perfect, not a problem during this step i thought. quit collecting wort when it hit 1.010, but i think i should have drained the MLT because when i went to fill my carboy (6gal) after the boil it was only half full and i used 6 gal of sparge water to rince the grains. i should have made a gauge to see how much was in the boil pot but i ASSumed it was going to be over 6 gal since i used near 9 gal of water total. Gravity was about 10 points over my expected and i could have added water to the carboy and brought it down but i let it ride and learn from my mistake.Any ideas on why i was short on water would be great.
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3. wort chiller wort great cooled the wort down to pitching temp in about 15 min. it a 50FT 1/2 inch copper chiller.

4. Pitched a starter of US-05 on top and it went to work with in an hour.

5. Even a bad brewday is a good day and it was fun and a little scarry not know what might happen or go wrong. but over all it was a great day. any help and ideas would be helpful.
Let me say thanks again.
Les:rockin:

 

[avidhomebrewer]

Glad to hear that your first ag went well.

I think you need to get a better drill. I had a Black and Decker 3/8" drill that powered my corona and the damn thing seized on the second batch! Went to a 1/2" De Walt (yes, owned by B+D), but hasn't seized in 6 years.

The grains will absorb some water, about a gallon or so with your bill. I would suggest using some specialty grains next time to enhance the flavor.

For a 12# grain bill, I would have used about four gallons of mash water, expecting to get about 3 gallons out, with a sparge of about 5 gallons.

Wort chillers are a great invention. I'm on my second chiller in over 10 years of brewing.

 

[SeaBass512]

Congrats on your first AG!...did my first yesterday as well. It was my LHBS owner's recipe for a pale ale. I used 10 lbs of grain total, mashed with 4 gal, sparged with a little over 4, and ended up with exactly 6.5 in the kettle. Everything went according to plan, got the cold break while chilling and everything and was pretty happy. It boiled down to just over 5 gal, and once I racked it, I have just barely over 4 gal in the carboy. It's pretty frustrating isn't it? There was alot of sediment in the bottom of the kettle, but I didn't think it would add up to a gallon.

As far as a guage, I use a copper pipe marked in gallon increments. I just used my Dremel tool to make the lines and used roman numerals (don't have the piece strictly for engraving)...it was easy and I know it'll last.

 

[beerdaddy]

My biggest mistake i have found in not hitting my total boil was

1. Not doing a mash out.
2. Taking a hrdo reading at 154 and not at closer to 60. which caused me to stop sparging when i was really at 1.030 not 1.010.
3.Not topping off boil kettle before the boil.( i had extra water also) LOL
4. Not haveing a way to measure the boil volume... Anything with gal marks for my boil pot. easy fix.
Now i have 3-3.5 of 1.080, with a IBU of around 50 Ale i'm sure the US-05 will peter out 1.030 -1.040. and im sure it will be strong!!!

The funny thing is that HBT has some nice info on sparging and only thought i had it down.. LOL.. Live and learn

Going to do the same recipe this weekend .:rockin: http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/1830/amarillopale.jpg

 

[Yankeehillbrewer]

My biggest mistake i have found in not hitting my total boil was

1. Not doing a mash out.
2. Taking a hrdo reading at 154 and not at closer to 60. which caused me to stop sparging when i was really at 1.030 not 1.010.
3.Not topping off boil kettle before the boil.( i had extra water also) LOL
4. Not haveing a way to measure the boil volume... Anything with gal marks for my boil pot. easy fix.
Now i have 3-3.5 of 1.080, with a IBU of around 50 Ale i'm sure the US-05 will peter out 1.030 -1.040. and im sure it will be strong!!!

The funny thing is that HBT has some nice info on sparging and only thought i had it down.. LOL.. Live and learn

Going to do the same recipe this weekend .:rockin:

All great things to learn from your first AG. You'll nail down your process in no time. Way to go