1st AG....whew!

[Onescalerguy]

Coulda gone better but it'll be beer and we're proud none the less!I cobbled all the gear up hill-billy style.The cooler conversion worked well.The homemade wort chiller blew us away!!That sucker chilled 6gal in 15-20 min.,we just couln't believe how fast the temp dropped.The 58qt pot that SWMBO brought into the relationship worked great on the gas range.The mash went well with 1 vorlauf but we did it too fast,flow-wise,i think.Same with the sparge.Also i ground the grain with a rolling pin and apparently did a poor job with that.I'm guessing about 20% efficiency hopefully.Heres what i used;
10# Amer.2-row
1#Flaked wheat
1oz Cascade 75min
1oz Cascade 20min
1oz Saaz 1min
Boiled 7gal
Final vol 5.25gal
OG............1.032
Screwed up 1st pitch,added s-56 but forgot to aerate so 30 min later(when we thought about it)we opened it back up and agitated the heck out of it and repitched a packet of s-04 which was all i had.16 hours later there's no airlock activity but we peeked and there's big time Krausen(sp?)foam.

I'm supposing then that this will be low alcohol beer.I was gonna call it LongBlondeAle but now I'll call it ShortBlondeAle.I'll hope for a low FG.
So that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
Comments please.........

 

[boo boo]

Be proud, you made an all grain brew!!!

Little mistakes that you made you'll learn from so brew on.

Find a way to crush better and you'll get a higher efficiency.

Good luck and cheers

 

[Bernie Brewer]

Coulda gone better but it'll be beer and we're proud none the less!I cobbled all the gear up hill-billy style.The cooler conversion worked well.The homemade wort chiller blew us away!!That sucker chilled 6gal in 15-20 min.,we just couln't believe how fast the temp dropped.The 58qt pot that SWMBO brought into the relationship worked great on the gas range.The mash went well with 1 vorlauf but we did it too fast,flow-wise,i think.Same with the sparge.Also i ground the grain with a rolling pin and apparently did a poor job with that.I'm guessing about 20% efficiency hopefully.Heres what i used;
10# Amer.2-row
1#Flaked wheat
1oz Cascade 75min
1oz Cascade 20min
1oz Saaz 1min
Boiled 7gal
Final vol 5.25gal
OG............1.032
Screwed up 1st pitch,added s-56 but forgot to aerate so 30 min later(when we thought about it)we opened it back up and agitated the heck out of it and repitched a packet of s-04 which was all i had.16 hours later there's no airlock activity but we peeked and there's big time Krausen(sp?)foam.

I'm supposing then that this will be low alcohol beer.I was gonna call it LongBlondeAle but now I'll call it ShortBlondeAle.I'll hope for a low FG.
So that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
Comments please.........

A rolling pin?!? You've got WAY too much time on your hands! Time to invest in a mill, and in the meantime have your grain crushed for you at the LHBS or wherever you order it from. BTW at what temp did you take your gravity reading at?

 

[Onescalerguy]

I think it was 70degrees when i checked the grav.I didn't write it down though and i don't believe i mentioned that we were drinking some high-test(PIKE'S KILT LIFTER 6.7% Scotch Style Ale)during the brew process .

 

[Bsquared]

Good stuff!
I have two words for you though " Turkey Fryer ", I will never go back to the range after using a turkey fryer. you can get 6gal of wart to a boil much faster than on thte range.:rockin:

 

[disaffected]

You must have been following Charlie Papazian's directions for home brewing. In The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, he has you drinking another homebrew at each step in the process. I figure if you can manage to lift the bucket or carboy after draining your cooled wort into it and before pitching your yeast, and can still clean your equipment when you're all done, then you did good!

I brewed an AG version of Shakespeare Stout last night, and I must say I didn't quite make it all the way through the equipment cleaning part.

 

[disaffected]

Good stuff!
I have two words for you though " Turkey Fryer ", I will never go back to the range after using a turkey fryer. you can get 6gal of wart to a boil much faster than on thte range.:rockin:

Agree. I got exactly four brews out of a 20lb bottle, and one of those was a 90 minute boil that turned into 2 hours while I tried to boil down the volume. The others were 60 minute brews, plus the heating for mash and sparge water. Not too expensive, but if you have natural gas, running a line out to your preferred brewing location would be even cheaper than propane (less than 1/2 the cost). Of course, you need a different regulator, and maybe a more efficient burner.

 

[alemonkey]

If you're looking to go cheap, pick yourself up a Corona mill. You can get them for 15-20 dollars on ebay. They're not as nice as a good roller mill, but they get the job done. And they're a heck of a lot easier than a rolling pin.

 

[Onescalerguy]

10 min. into the grinding i stopped and got online and ordered a Porkert grain mill.
Rolling pin never again!


Pri.1-ShortBlondeAle(AG)
Pri.2-Air
2nd.1-NB Wheat
2nd.2-NB Dunkelweisen
Bottled/Aging-B3 stout,THB NutBrownAle,THB YellowDogAle,THB Oktoberfest

 

[Onescalerguy]

BTW,could someone out there figure out what my efficiency (or inefficiency!)is?Thanks

 

[Bsquared]

You did an Iodine test? Did you use a grain bag? If the grain was too coarse not all of the sweet stuff might have gotten out in the sparge.

I had the same problem my first few AG's I found doing the mash in a 5gal water cooler and stirring occasionally, then using the famous Zundap turn to free the sugars from the grain.

 

[Onescalerguy]

No iodine test,no grain bag and too coarse of a grind.I used a cooler and i did stir.What is the famous Zundap turn?I'm intrigued.

 

[Chairman Cheyco]

famous Zundap turn?I'm intrigued.

I think he means this:

Plastic: The least expensive lauter tun material is plastic. Two white, food-grade, plastic buckets are relatively easy to find and work with. Simply perforate the bottom of one bucket with hundreds of 1/8-in. holes (like a colander). Drill a single, 1-in. hole into the side of the other bucket, near the bottom. A plastic spigot (available at any decent homebrew shop) can be screwed into the hole. The bucket with the perforated bottom is placed inside the bucket with the spigot, and a lauter tun is born!

This arrangement, dubbed "Zapap" by Charlie Papazian in The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing, is simple, cheap, and effective. The design can be easily improved by wrapping some insulating material around the outer bucket. Together with an insulated lid, this lauter tun will preserve the temperature of the grains quite well. My first all-grain system used this type of lauter tun, and I made many excellent beers with it. Simple and cheap does not always mean inferior!

This vessel can also be used as a separate lauter tun or a combi-tun, thus adding flexibility to your system and cutting down on wort-handling time when doing simple, single-step infusion mashes. Of course, the major disadvantage to this system is that you cannot use direct flame on it if you undershoot your target temperature.

Taken from this article:
http://brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue6.5/depiro.html

 

[ajf]

BTW,could someone out there figure out what my efficiency (or inefficiency!)is?Thanks

According to ProMash (set up for my system) 54%

That's probably not too shabby if you wer cracking your malt with a rolling pin.

-a.

 

[Bsquared]

I think he means this:


This arrangement, dubbed "Zapap" by Charlie Papazian in The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing,
Taken from this article:
http://brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue6.5/depiro.html

Ha Ha, Thanks I think I Have old motor-cycles on the Brain...That’s exactly what I am talking about. I’ve had good experience with using my Zapap turn

 

[alemonkey]

I'd never heard of a Porkert mill so I got on line and looked it up - looks like it's pretty much the same thing as a Corona. That should work fine - I bet your efficiency will jump 10-20 points just by using that.

 

[casebrew]

Krausen and no buubler activity means a loose lid on a bucket fermenter?

 

[Chairman Cheyco]

Krausen and no buubler activity means a loose lid on a bucket fermenter?

Most likely.

 

[aweks]

If you're looking to go cheap, pick yourself up a Corona mill. You can get them for 15-20 dollars on ebay. They're not as nice as a good roller mill, but they get the job done. And they're a heck of a lot easier than a rolling pin.

I strongly advise against the Corona mill!!! I have one, and every time I brew, the settings have to be reset. It's too easy to bump the wing nut that sets the space between the grinders. Also, I invariably get about 1/4 of the grain as dusty flakes, and about 3/4 of the grain as either cut in half or not cracked at all. With this mill, it is impossible for me to obtain any sort of consistency regarding efficiency. I won't even drink Corona beer after using this mill!!! The name alone sends me into a blind, murderous rage! Fortunately, due to my lack of efficiency, I only kill about 1/4 of the people I leave in my wake. (Of course those are squashed into oblivion...like my grain)

 

[vanz72]

The homemade wort chiller blew us away!!That sucker chilled 6gal in 15-20 min.,we just couln't believe how fast the temp dropped.

Just made up a wort chiller recently and put it to use this past weekend. I observed the same thing you did, it cut the cooling time down by half. Hated to hack up a perfectly good garden hose, but after seeing the results, I felt much better.

 

[Onescalerguy]

I know what you mean about hacking up the garden hose.We did use the one that kinks though .Cheers