1st AG yesterday

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RickWG

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Busted the membrane on the new system yesterday.
It was a Pale Ale (Haus Pale Ale)


it was a little disorganized but it was my first time.
Lessons learned.
1) Mash tun takes a long time to stabilize at strike temp.
2) A little high on the mash temp, wanted 152 but got 154 and the mash was a bit thin. Iodine test showed no starch....
3) Got a bit more wort in the kettle than I wanted
4) boil off wasn't as high as I had figured and ended up with 6 gallons of 1.060
5) Damn oxygen tube is curved and won't straighten out and don't know if I got enough oxy in there. Gotta heat gun the tube to straighten it next time.

If that's all I guess it wasn't too bad for a first time. Just don't want astringency in there and I'll be happy.
 
Glad to hear it. Did you find that once you ran through a session, a lot of your concerns were answered in a bunch of "Oh yeah!" moments? Let us know how the beer turns out.
 
All in all it sounds like your first AG went pretty well. Did it end up being easier than you thought it would be?

Congrats! :mug:
 
Congratulations!

The great part is that it will still be a great beer. And in the great words for Charlie Pap..."Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew."

Now you can start planning your next session! :mug:
 
If you got 6 gallons at 1.060, your efficiencey must have been phenomenal, assuming the standard Bee Cave Pale grain bill. What was your pre-boil gravity?

I brewed the same batch yesterday. Missed the pre-boil target gravity by two points, and missed the OG by the same two points. So my efficiency is just shy of 70%. I think I'll try a double crush next time and see where that gets me.
 
nope, Used 11 pounds of 2 row instead of the 8. I cheated.
Calculated efficiency was around.....77% give or take a decimal or two.
Brand new barley crusher and used it out of the box. Crushed it well. watch the drill speed.
easier? Well, I kept feeling like I forgot something. yeah easier than extract cause there was a lot more time to do other stuff. strike water temp is the biggest issue.

Harder to hit the proper temp was my biggest problem. Need a sight glass on my HLT, need to finish my brew stand too. Gravity feed without gravity sucks. (yee old pitcher method.)

Fricken O2 tube pissed me off too. I'm a chemist and shoulda done something about it first. Just stupid.

Need PH stabilizer for the next batch. Gonna do a Scottish Ale loosely based on the heavenly homebrew one. I did one of their extracts and PM'd some 2 row and it turned out magnificent.

Like I said I'm an organic chemist so it was all process. Had time for a sammich and a pepsi even. :)

considering ALL the equipment was NEW and foriegn to me it went.....acceptable, for a first time.

Anyone know what the heat content of a 10 gallon rubbermaid is?
 
Well, I guess there was enough O2 in there as it's been going for 2.5 days pretty constant. Krausen just started to fall this am and the frequency of bubbles is slowing. Nice color. Never had this color out of an extract batch.

Looks like it will at least have alcohol in it. :) Taste.............Now that's gonna be the question.
 
Congrats. I am sure everything will be fine. My first AG has been in primary for just over a week, I sampled at around 6 days and it was excellent. I felt the same way about the color, it was one of the best looking beers I've made.
 
RickWG said:
Anyone know what the heat content of a 10 gallon rubbermaid is?

I am NOT a chemist, but have the same MLT as you. I heat the strike water to about 5 deg above temp, which for me is 180. Then put it in your 10 gall rubbermaid and let it sit until it hits 175. Then toss in the grain, slowly, while stirring to avoid dough balls. Mine stablizes at 152-153 nearly every time, if the grain bill is 10lbs or so.

Once you do a few batches you'll get the feel of your system and can adjust the temp at which you put in the grain to arrive at your mash temp. Have a little extra 180 water ready to adjust temp upwards if necessary. If I want to adjust the mash temp, I'll put in a 1/2 quart of hot/cold water(depending on the direction I want to go), stir well, then check again.

Sounds like your first AG went great, though. You're going to love the Haus Pale, it's good stuff, even after 1 week in the bottle.
 
blacklab said:
I am NOT a chemist, but have the same MLT as you. I heat the strike water to about 5 deg above temp, which for me is 180. Then put it in your 10 gall rubbermaid and let it sit until it hits 175. Then toss in the grain, slowly, while stirring to avoid dough balls. Mine stablizes at 152-153 nearly every time, if the grain bill is 10lbs or so.


Sounds like your first AG went great, though. You're going to love the Haus Pale, it's good stuff, even after 1 week in the bottle.

Thanks. Appreciate the numbers. got nowhere near 180 when I was putting it in. Plonked in the grain pretty fast too but no dough balls I could see. maybe if I give'r another stir before I vorlauf to get all the sugar out. Biggest concern was did I even get conversion. I guess since I got fermentation I got conversion. Can't wait to see what the FG is. Always got a little high on the FG for extracts and have been jealous of those that got closer to 1.01ish.

the bug has really bitten me since the all grain thing. Never this stoked about extracts. gotta do another one now.
 
Well I think your issue was that your were drinking Pepsi instead of a homebrew while the process was going on!
 
It is amazing how busy you can find yourself on your first ag, with all the new equipment, reading in between steps, checking this and that, questioning yourself if you did that last bit right..

And then you fast forward 20+ ag batches from you first, and all of a sudden you find yourself playing Guitar Hero III for Wii in between steps!

As the process becomes second nature, you really begin to see how easy it is to make good beer from scratch.

Welcome to AG...and if you haven't already done so, get yourself a brewing program like Beersmith...great program, easy to use, and helps a lot with strike temperature, recipe conversions, hops additions...basically everything.

Rhino
 
wedge421 said:
Well I think your issue was that your were drinking Pepsi instead of a homebrew while the process was going on!

I generally don't start drinking until the cooling process. Don't wanna screw it up specially since it was the first time.

And it was DIET PEPSI. :)
 
Rhino17 said:
It is amazing how busy you can find yourself on your first ag, with all the new equipment, reading in between steps, checking this and that, questioning yourself if you did that last bit right..

And then you fast forward 20+ ag batches from you first, and all of a sudden you find yourself playing Guitar Hero III for Wii in between steps!

As the process becomes second nature, you really begin to see how easy it is to make good beer from scratch.

Welcome to AG...and if you haven't already done so, get yourself a brewing program like Beersmith...great program, easy to use, and helps a lot with strike temperature, recipe conversions, hops additions...basically everything.

Rhino


Yeah, I did find that most of the stuff I was doing was "make work" and didn't REALLY need to be done. Still felt like I forgot something as it was kind of easy really.

got a trial of promash and the beersmith trial ended. never really got to try it out.
Which is best?

The color of this beer is amazing! never seen anything like this with extract. Truly going to be a pale ale this time.
 
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