3 am... first all grain day

[RyRae]

After close to 2 years drooling over this site wanting to get into home brewing, I either had the extra money and no time or had the time but not the extra money. After a couple weeks of decent OT I finally took the plunge into all grain with minimal (READ - Mr. Beer) experience. My boss is pretty well versed in all grain and encouraged me to just jump right in. So I purchased everything I needed; brewersbest starter kit, 9 gal. SS brew kettle, a turkey fryer on CL, DIY wort chiller and a DIY 10 gal. igloo MLT. A buddy of mine wanted to join in on the fun so we chose March 29th as a brew day as that was when our schedules would allow us to do so. Around 3 PM today our wives decided to get together tonight as a last minute thing, so naturally we convinced them into letting us move our brew day forward to tonight. The last thing on my DIY build list was the MLT conversion, I had all the parts just haven't put it together yet at this point. After rushing home from work, and a trip up to my LHBS, I finally got around to converting the cooler. Our original start time of 7 quickly turned into 8 which quickly turned into 9pm, which is why im writing this at 3am local time (Detroit). We decided on a basic Centennial IPA as follows:

10# 2 Row
12oz Crystal 40L
2# Vienna
8oz Cara-pils
1oz Centennial (60min)
1oz Centennial (15 min)
1oz Centennial (5min)
1oz Centennial (1min)
Irish Moss
10oz Centennial (Dry Hop)

152 mash for 60 Mins

Est OG 1062 (beersmith)
Actual OG 1060

We ended up over shooting out mash in temp on accident without realizing it and mashed at 158 degrees. After that mishap the only other hiccup was seeing for myself what a boil over was. All in all it was a good night and I am beyond stoked that I finally took the plunge and got into home brewing :rockin:

 

[Pkrd]

My first all grain, I crawled into bed at 1am and commented to the Mrs "It better taste ****ing good".


It did!

 

[derbycitybrewer]

Congrats on your first all grain. Your def hooked now. Cheers my friend.

 

[mjdonnelly68]

All grain rules! Congrats on kicking off the training wheels.

Have fun.

 

[cluckk]

One thing that will help with the mash temps is to get something like BrewSmith to calculate them. It will tell you what temperature to raise your strike temp to before adding your grist. Since getting it I hit temp every time.

But congrats and welcome to the obsession.

 

[BridgeBrew]

Congrats on your first all grain!! Get used to a few things happening each brew that might not be perfect. It happens and probably wont be that big of a deal. Your IPA will just have a nice thick body to it! Im just looking at your recipe and wodering if 10 ounces of dry hops is what you meant to type in. If that is correct you might want to reconsider that amount. It may impart a vegetal or grassy aroma and flavor. If you love that aroma of Centennial you could do a split dry hopping session. Take 3-5 ounces of hops and dry hop with that amount for 3-5 days. Then rack off that hop matter and add another 3-5 ounces of dry hops.

 

[RyRae]

Good catch, it only calls for 1 oz not 10 oz. I definitely see how taking good notes during your brew day can make a huge difference on your next go around. I really wanted to be prepared for the first time and lay everything out but that just wasn't the case. A lot of running back inside for things and double and triple checking the recipe. Definitely hooked though.

 

[RyRae]

Cluckk - I did use beersmith, that software is amazing, my only problem was I mashed in with the correct water temp and then set a digital thermometer into the mash tun and closed it up and then it started reading 242 degrees? so after about 5 mins of fooling around with it I took it out and went with a basic glass thermometer and I thought it leveled out at 152 degrees. After the 60 min mash I checked the temp again and it was reading 158, so I just think I didn't give the glass thermometer time to level out enough. Noob mistake.

 

[cluckk]

I used to check my tun temp and have it adjust. Now I leave the box for "Adjust for equipment temperature" off. I heat the water to about five degrees over the recommended temperature and stir until it cools down. Once it drops to mash temp I mash in, stir well and verify temp after a two minute rest.