AG, the Maiden Voyage

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*sniff* I'm sooo proud of you, Sheck. Our Shecky will soon have three testicles and an erection that lasts longer than 4 hours. (Don't forget to contact your doctor)

*sniff* He's.....he's......just not our little boy any more!! :(

This thread is useless without PICS!!!

There.. it had to be said. I need proof... ;)

[EDIT: Brewing pics shecky. I really do not need to see magnified photo's of your nether regions...lol]
 
BMW crush is default barley crusher 0.039 I get 82% consistently with a double batch sparge (Bobby_M style) at 0.039. So it's either water or doughballs IMO.

My first few mashes I didn't realize how bad doughballs can be, and I had a lot of deadspace in my mash tun. I also didn't treat my water. I was seeing 65-70%. Started treating my water with 5.2, stirring better but still deadspace in the tun and got consistent 76%. When I built a new mash tun I made sure I had no dead space for precious wort to hide and I can reach all the grain with the paddle to work out all the dough balls (takes about 5 minutes of stirring to get them all). I went from low-mid 70s to consistently 82%. Then I jacked up my crush to flour and rice hulls :) and now I typically get 88%. YMMV. Most municipal water is crappy for AG, I jump through a million hoops to treat my water.. I filter it with a Chlorplus 10 filter to remove chloramine, and blend it with Campden-treated RO water from Wally world to reduce the hardness, then I add stuff to adjust the mash pH. I used to use 5.2 but now I use brewing salts with Palmer's spreadsheet and try to aim for the level of sulfates appropriate for the style I'm brewing.

One piece of advice I can give is to try to manipulate only ONE variable every time you change your system. Don't tweak too much at once or if something actually gets worse you won't know which factor you messed up on. Consistency comes with experience, and for experience there are friends and neighbors to drink your experiments. :drunk: :D
 
Water is much more important for mash chemistry than it is when using extract. Do you happen to know the pH of the water you were using?
I do not. I'll have to find out, I supposed. I'm happy I didn't concern myself with these sorts of variables first time out. It'll still be beer, isn't that what they say?
 
Pics, finally, as if anyone cares.

Mash, kinda thin:

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Ghetto fabulous:

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Hot break:

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Je suis finis. That's French for, yes, I do brew:

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Paige, my assistant, was having a particularly bad hair day.
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Wow, you have ALL the equipment! (except the bucket...wut...no carboy?)

an particularly

shecky, shecky *tsk* *tsk*

My buddy has one of those Home Depot igloos. You guys both need to get some decals or something to cover up that abomination of a logo.
 
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