Completed first AG batch

[rollinred]

Went alright. I can say for sure that I don't have all of my principles nailed down yet and brewing with a completely new system is problematic in an of itself.

This is a Northern brewer kit, the Extra Pale Ale. 7.5 Rahr 2-row, 1lbs. Cara Pils.
Mash 152 degrees with expected original gravity of 1.045.

I know of a few things I did wrong and will change next time. One of them was forgetting to take a gravity reading pre-boil to calculate my efficiency.

I was low on mash temp, likely because I did not preheat the cooler well enough, next time that is going to change. I hit 147 on one thermo and 150 on another... looks like some thermometer calibration is needed. I fixed buy adding some hot water and ended up at 154-155.

Surprisingly I did not lose any temperature at all during the mash. I had so much dead space in the cooler I expected to lose some.

In the end I got about 5.25 gallons of wort at a corrected gravity reading of 1.047. Higher than the expected with slightly more wort volume.

From what I understand this seems correct because my mash temps were higher than called for.

And yes, while brewing I often drink a BMC because I do not want to feel while doing this. Not to mention I always seem to knock over the beer while brewing. Knock over a BMC is no big loss. But poke fun as necessary!

 

[Joedub]

Looks good. I will be attempting my first non Brew in a bag all grain tomorrow.

 

[petep1980]

Care to explain the Miller Lite?

 

[reim0027]

LOL. OP knew he would get flamed for the Miller Lite. Read his last paragraph for his reason.

 

[Whut]

And yes, while brewing I often drink a BMC because I do not want to feel while doing this.

Takes quite the pair to admit that around here. BTW, congrats on your first AG.

Trace

(Pssssst, don't tell anyone but I've got a 1/4 bbl of Miller Lite in my kegerator.)

 

[smack2000]

I use a cooler mash tun like yours, and I add the strike water first at 10 degrees or so higher than my strike temperature, then let it slowly cool down to the strike temperature I want. Then I add the grain to the water. I find that the temperature holds very well that way.

 

[rollinred]

I use a cooler mash tun like yours, and I add the strike water first at 10 degrees or so higher than my strike temperature, then let it slowly cool down to the strike temperature I want. Then I add the grain to the water. I find that the temperature holds very well that way.

This is what I intend to do next time. What I did this time was let my eden pure heater blast in to it for an hour, which heated the walls very well without having to heat the water higher. The biggest problem was that I had an unknown amount of heat in the cooler walls. I simply went a couple degrees above what I calculated the strike temp at and missed by a couple degrees. I think I could use this method of preheating but will need to figure out what my temps should be.

Yeah, I intentionally left my Miller Lite sitting there because people love to have fun with that on here. I know there is a significant number of us that enjoy a BMC for certain occasions. For me, it is when I want something with little flavor that won't get me drunk even after several of them. When doing something that requires my attention or where I am outside in dehydrating temps I will only drink something weak. And I damn well don't want to make a weak home brew.

Anyway, one question. Sparge water temp. I am using what I guess most people would call a fly sparge method where you let the sparge water slowly drain in to the mash tun and equal the output volume of the mash draining. I just went with what my blichmann kettle says for sparge temp which is somewhere in the 170's. Is this alright to do even though this water is in contact for the grain for extended periods?

 

[impur]

Yah i think thats fine. I batch sparge, but beersmith always says to sparge with ~170 water and I let it sit for 10min at that temp.

 

[Gridlocked]

Well done on the AG brew! It sounds like it was a very smooth afternoon!

 

[headfullahops]

It's funny. I can appreciate a BMC etc. beer every now and again. My palette has honed in so well, I can taste the corn in a Corona. BMC isn't bad beer, in fact its quite good for what it is. I couldn't brew a beer that light that is that clean but, its just not something I care to drink regularly.