Damn, fooled myself!

[JeffLacoy]

So my first Ag batch I had a bunch of losses in the mash tun to dead space, and a ton of trub loss with nearly 7oz of hops in the boil/whirlpool. Tried making up for this fact in my equipment profiles in beersmith, and wouldn't you know it, the few mods I made to my MT, and fewer boil hops (porter vs neipa), I hit my volumes on the money, but killed my og! Oh well, knew my first few batches would be all part of the learning curve, but kind of bummed I tricked myself on this one.

Instead of an 8.2ish abv porter, I ended up down near 6.6, with an extra 3/4 gallon of usable wort post volume, which was my own fault, as I built this in as loss in the app! Oops! Increasing my respect level by the minute for you guys who have this down to a literal science.

 

[ChelisHubby]

HEY stick with it and dont worry about small mistakes you still made beer. it is not hard just give yourselve some time your beer can be very good and Yours!

 

[Sadu]

To be fair an 8.2% porter isn't a great choice for your first brew. You are far better starting with a 5% porter and applying what you learn next time. But, I'm sure most people here have missed their OG by 10+ points at some point and still got great beer out the other end.

 

[JeffLacoy]

It's my third beer, was only a 2.5g batch (ended up near 3.5g after my erroneous calculations). Was supposed to be a half batch copy of the Ballast Point homework #6. I went a little heavy on a few of the dark malts in the recipe to change to my preference a bit.

Was the first time I milled my own grains too, which I think had a huge impact. It's still beer, and the wort still tasted fantastic, so I'm not too upset. I learn more doing it the wrong way once than I do by stumbling across the right way the first time. Lots of variables, lots of room for improvement!

Also did the small batch, as it's not a huge $ investment, so hopefully a relatively cheap lesson, and plenty of grains left over to do it again.

 

[ChelisHubby]

dark hoppy beers can help cover mistakes just keep the gravity under 10.60 or so. lighter or paler beers will help you learn more faster. This is because there is less flavor to sort out.

 

[IslandLizard]

Great picture with all that steam under the roof!

The mash tun upside down with the wheels in the air adds extra mystique to it. The blanket...the car... there's a story here.

Looks like you hit all the numbers!

 

[Biscuits]

Sometimes you create the best beers when you flub some numbers....you might be in for a pleasant surprise.

 

[JeffLacoy]

I'd drink all 3.5 gallons of wort even if it didn't ferment. Pretty much what I was shooting for, sweet, slight bitter, roast. If it dries out a bit, it's gonna be awesome.

 

[PlexVector]

Just thinking out loud...I wonder if wort sherbet would be good?

 

[JeffLacoy]

Wort beer float. Mmmmm, rich porter over vanilla ice cream.

 

[schatzke]

FWIW It took me several batches to get my volumes figured out right with dead space, boil off, trub loss, hop absorbtion. Trying to make 6 gallons into the fermentor I was all over the map with as low as 4.5 gal and as much as 7 gallons(no that didn't fit!). Take notes and you will get in dialed in to a literal science also.