1st all grain boiling

[Brasco20]

My first all grain is boiling right now. Its a 5 gallon kit from northern brewer, surly bender. It has 12.5 pounds of grain. I used 1.25 quarts of water per pound for the mash, and 2 quarts of water per pound for the sparge. I also used about a gallon for the mashout, which by the way didnt get to the temp i needed to. I have way too much wort! I filled the 10 gallon boil kettle as high as i thought i could without having a boil over, i also have about a gallon of wort boiling on my stove right now. Beersmith said i should have used 3.22 gallons for the sparge. So, if i were to do this recipe again, what should i do? Its going to take me forever to get this boiled down to 5 gallons.
Whats the longest time i can boil for?

 

[Brasco20]

No insight?

 

[Golddiggie]

I would trust Beer Smith to get the volumes right, for the mash and sparge... Or at least close enough for government work. You can adjust it to match your boil-off rate, so that you don't have too much left over.

With my last batch, using the propane burner, I had very little left in the kettle once I got about 5-5.25 gallons into primary. I mashed 13.375# of grain, using 18.5qt in the mash, and 3.25 gallons for the sparge.

You're really only supposed to sparge with enough water to get your pre-boil volume, once you have the mash wort collected. With how you did it, I'm not surprised that you have way too much to boil.

For how long you can boil for? As long as you like. Just don't add the hops until their designated time from the end of the boil. So if you're first hop is for 60 minutes, wait until the volume is what you would normally boil off in an hour.

Get it? Got it? Goood...

 

[Brasco20]

So the first wort hops went in right away, and the 60 min hop went in at the first bubble. I didnt add the 0 min hops till the end. I had to boil 90 min, and ended up with about 5.5 gallons. I boiled the **** out of it.

After mashing when i tried to recirculate, nothing would come out, so i dumped the mash into my boil pot, which was a pain in the ass by myself, and found that some grain had gotten underneath the false bottom, must have hit it while stirring in the grain. My wife stirred while i dumped the grain, so im blaming it on her. After clearing the grain, i was able to sparge. Do you think dumping the mash back and forth screwed anything up?

All in all everything went ok, it was a good learning experience.
OG was supposed to be 1.060, and i hit 1.058, not too bad.

How much water do you use for mash out, and how hot do you heat it?

 

[Golddiggie]

I use the single infustion, no mash out model for my batches... I do recirculate a quart, or two, until it runs clear, then it's into the kettle so that I can add the sparge water.

I'm using a 70qt Coleman Xtreme (green model) cooler converted into a mash tun... I went with the bazooka screen inside, and it's working out great so far. This way, I don't need to worry about false bottoms and such.

Have you figured out your efficiency with the rig yet? Since I've changed a decent amount with mine, I'm still dialing it in. Sounds like you might have hit about 70% there.

I would be a bit concerned about the mash temps more than anything else for this batch. With all the moving around, you could have messed that part up. You probably won't know until it's done fermenting. If you just hit a bit lower, at the end, then it shouldn't be that big of an impact.

Oh, and I'm heating my sparge water up to about 168-170F before pouring it into the mash tun (right after the last of the mash wort comes out... I drain it closed, so I keep a decent amount of heat in there. Once the sparge water is in, I leave it alone until it's time to drain (I do give it one fast stir to make sure everything is happy)...

Look at it all this way... If was your first all grain batch, you had some bumps in the road, but you got through it. Now you can adjust your hardware to make the next batch come out better/easier and keep improving things as you see fit...

BTW, is that a 10 gallon cooler? I'm working on re-brewing my old ale recipe.. Looks like it's going to be around 18.5# of grain for that 5 gallon batch (5.25 gallons into primary)... Still tweaking the percentages of the grains other than the base malt... The grist is ~91% base malt (all UK 2 row)... Still, I won't have an issue with my mash tun... If you have a 5 gallon cooler, you wouldn't be able to brew this recipe. With the 10 gallon, it could be tight, depending on how much you lose to the false bottom... I can safely mash 44# of grain if I needed/wanted to... I'd probably draw the line around 40-42# though...

 

[Brasco20]

I have the 10 gallon AG kit from northern brewer. I havent fig my dead space yet, just wanted to jump in and try things out, i figured i would make some mistakes. The banjo burner i bought kicks ass, had the 9 gallons boiling in no time. I forgot to preheat the mashtun. My target temp was 153, i started around 154, and at the end of the mash i was at 152. I havent fig my efficiency yet. With my setup i am fly sparging. Took me around 6 hours, but without the mistakes should take me about 5.

 

[Brasco20]

So its been a week since i brewed this, i just took a hydro reading and its at 1.018, started at 1.058. Its very thick and cloudy, like an unfermented wort, is this normal. I know its only been a week, but ive never seen a beer this thick and cloudy after the main part of the fermentation had stopped. Is surly bender a thick beer, or did i do something wrong, or do i just need to wait longer? Just doesnt seem normal.

 

[Brasco20]

Also, the only way i aerated was letting the wort splash on its way into the carboy, do you need to use an aeration system with all grain?

 

[asterix404]

So from my experiance you used WAY too much water. I too tried the 1.25qt for mash, 2qt sparge and wound up with a boil of about 20h over 2 days which was sort of crazy. I now follow the idea of between 1qt and 1.25 qt per pound in gallons on the high end so for a 12pound batch I would boil 4g of water and sparge with the same amount. If you think about the sparge, every single drop of water you put in you will get back out and possibly then some because the grain is already saturated. 1qt per pound is the minimum you need to get a mash to work properly, 1.25 is nice however as to guarantee that you don't get stuff like dough balls. The last batch I did I lost about half the mash water to the grain so from the mash in I had about 2.5g of water from the initial 4. I added 4g of sparge water and got back 4g. In total I had about 6.5g in the brew pot.

If you don't hit your marks exactly, this is what I think DME is for. I have done about 10 all grain batches now and can reliably hit about 75% but plan on 72% for all calculations. Surprisingly the efficiency doesn't matter, it's consistency. If you hit 70% all the time, you can build a recipe around that. If you are too low with your original gravity pre boil then add a bit of extra light or light DME to make the numbers work. It doesn't affect the flavour since it's a tiny amount of malt.

 

[Brasco20]

What do you think about the beer being thick?

 

[Yooper]

What do you think about the beer being thick?

Carbonation really changes the mouthfeel, so I suspect carbonation will fix that "thick" feeling.

 

[asterix404]

So I think a week is a bit short to hit FG so I would give it another week or so and take another reading. As for thickness, could you post a list of ingredients, that might shed some insight into that issue. As for aerating it, yes... always aerate your wort because that dissolves o2 into the wort and the yeast need that in the initial fermentation process. I literally use a huge 10$ strainer into the bucket. If you poured the beer in slowly into the (I assume) 6.5g carboy that should also add enough o2 to get a vigorous initial fermentation.

I have found that some of my beers look really thick and actually arn't at all. If you post the list I can take a look at it and see if I see anything glaring.

 

[Brasco20]

I use a tube from the brew pot to the carboy, and leave the tube at the top so the wort splashes on its way down.
Here is the recipe
8 lbs canada malting pale ale malt
2 lbs aromatic malt
.75lb simpsons medium crystal
.75lb belgian special b
.75lb simpsons golden naked oats
.75lb simpsons chocolate malt

.5 oz willamette first wort
.5 colombus 60 min
2.5 oz willamette 0 min

wyeast 1335 british ale yeast II

 

[asterix404]

Yea, I think that Yooper is right. There isn't anything that would make it thick or at least not overly so. I would wait until you bottle it and try it out but it looks like a great recipe.

 

[Brasco20]

Quick question, every extract brew i have done has always left a ring in the carboy from the krausen, my first ag has none. Is this normal?

 

[emjay]

Quick question, every extract brew i have done has always left a ring in the carboy from the krausen, my first ag has none. Is this normal?

Sometimes. It depends on a few factors, especially yeast-related like strain used, pitching rate, and fermentation temperature.

 

[Brasco20]

So i brewed my second AG tonight, and once again i go to recirculate and nothing comes out. Grain keeps getting underneath my false bottom. What the hell should i do? Very frustrating, thank god i bought the false bottom with my brew pot. I dumped my mash tun into the brew pot, cleaned the mash tun and false bottom, poured back in, and still nothing. This false bottom from NB is Bull****! I ended up lautering and sparging in the brew pot. You guys got a fix for me?

 

[emjay]

So i brewed my second AG tonight, and once again i go to recirculate and nothing comes out. Grain keeps getting underneath my false bottom. What the hell should i do? Very frustrating, thank god i bought the false bottom with my brew pot. I dumped my mash tun into the brew pot, cleaned the mash tun and false bottom, poured back in, and still nothing. This false bottom from NB is Bull****! I ended up lautering and sparging in the brew pot. You guys got a fix for me?

Get your money back, I guess?

Are you batch or fly sparging?

 

[Brasco20]

Fly

 

[Brasco20]

none, the grain blocks the flow of wort.

 

[RM-MN]

I have a trick for you for the next batch. Your false bottom is intended to filter out the grains but yours is leaking somewhere. Instead of swearing at it, buy a paint strainer bag and put your grain in that. This strainer bag will form a filter with a very large area of very fine holes. The grain won't get past your false bottom because they will be held inside the bag. If it looks like you have a problem with lautering, lift the bag and let the wort drain. Same if you have a stuck sparge, lift the bag and expose more area for the filter.

 

[Bobby_M]

Can you take some pics of the false bottom?

 

[Brasco20]

It shaped like a dome, but doesnt sit flush, ive been bending it, trying to get it more flush.

 

[Brasco20]

Does anyone else have the mash tun and false bottom from northern brewer?