Did I ruin my beer? First all grain

[Zeppelin707]

Hey guys, new to the forum. Been doing extract brews for a while now and today decided to move onto a all grain brew.

My brew consisted of 16 pounds of grain total (Random recipe I found online). During my brew in a bag mash the kettle had about 5.5 gallons of water, once mash was over I squeezed as much as I could from the bag and was left with about 4.25 gallons of wort. So I put some tap water in and got it back up to 5.5 again since during extract brews I only evaporate about half a gallon for the boil.

During this time I also added about 3 pounds more of grain via steeping bag to offset any issues with not using enough water during the mash (I took the grains out once I hit about 185).

At the end of the boil stupid me only had 4.25 gallons again. I added water to get up to 5 gallons, cooled, racked to fermenter and pinched the yeast.

How badly do all the water volume issues impact my beer?

Cheers!

 

[Gnomebrewer]

It's fine. Use all the water measurements to hone in volumes for your future brews. Did you take gravity measurements? That's also important to work out your efficiency, which also helps with planning your future brews.

And congratulations on your first AG - there's always a bit of messiness with them that improves with practice.

 

[OceanBob5]

I'm hoping to skip the extract and try an all grain as my first attempt at brewing. I'm retired and have the time but just starting out and don't know if this is a crazy way to start, but I'm sure it's where I would end up if I kept brewing so why not just go right to all grain? Any tips

 

[Gnomebrewer]

It's doable, but definitely easier to progress from extract. There are a lot of steps involved in AG brewing that will all be new to you if you haven't brewed before. Starting with pre-hopped tins (mix with water in fermentor, add yeast) means you get practice with sanitation, fermentation (most new brewers worry that the ferment isn't working properly) and bottling or kegging. Moving on to extract (boil extract with hops, cool wort, pitch yeast) develops skills in the boil process. Once you're comfortable with that, going to all grain adds the mash process. You could go straight to AG, but most people would find the entire process overwhelming - there's a lot to remember and work out for the first time!

Edit: And all of the equipment you use for extract brewing will still be used in an AG setup.

 

[balrog]

Read.
Then read more.
Palmer's book is online, at least an old edition.
Take notes.
Then take more notes.
Measure things. Lots of things. Put it in the notes.
Use Priceless BIAB calc. Brewers friend or BeerSmith.

As far as "adding 3lb to make up for water" that has me puzzled. If you mash and get sugar from X pounds of grain, there is no need to add grain because the resulting liquid volume was something unexpected. If the resulting sugar content was unexpected, then ok, but you have to measure SG with hydrometer or refractometer to know that. Grain will absorb water. See note about using a calculator and taking notes to find how your system reacts. If you had 22 qt and 16lb you had a 1.375 mash ratio which is fine, a little thinner than normal for "standard" mashing and thicker than normal for BIAB mashing. You "added water" but did not say you sparged/rinsed. That would be normal. There's just a lot going on there.

 

[mongoose33]

I'm hoping to skip the extract and try an all grain as my first attempt at brewing. I'm retired and have the time but just starting out and don't know if this is a crazy way to start, but I'm sure it's where I would end up if I kept brewing so why not just go right to all grain? Any tips

I usually suggest new brewers start w/ extract for the first two or three brews so they can learn the process from the boil forward. That includes doing the boil, adding hops, chilling, making a starter (maybe), pitching yeast, monitoring fermentation, then eventually bottling.

If you add all-grain to that mix, and something doesn't turn out right, to what do you attribute that? Hard to say. Too many variables means too hard to track things down if they go amiss.

If you can find someone to mentor you through it, that would be different. I taught a local buddy to brew all grain from the start. He watched me do one brew day with all-grain. Then I watched him do one, making suggestions and correcting as we went forward. The third brew he did on his own, though there were about six texts and one phone call.

But the key was that I made the decisions about water, mash temp, recipe, and all that. He had only to learn the process. Once he had that down, then he could start thinking about water, crush, yeast starters, and so on.

My 2 cents.

 

[seatazzz]

+1 to reading. Jon Palmer's How to Brew will take you from extract, to partial mash, to all grain in an easy to read format with lots of hints along the way. The version available online is an older one, but Amazon (and many brick&mortar bookstores) have the later editions with updated information. My 5th edition lives in my brewery and gets read at least every other brewday. I've been brewing for 3 years and actually work at a brewery, and I still have questions that I find answers to there or elsewhere online.

From what you said above, you need to do some more work on calculating your volumes. There are many online calculators out there (Brewers Friend, AIH, etc.) that you can use; some will cost you $$ and some are free. There are also literally TONS of recipes out there for you to try. I would suggest, find a clone recipe of a commercially available beer you like. Brew it a few times in a row to get as close as you can to the original. Then, once you have that down pat, play with recipes a bit once you understand what the different grains and hops will do.

Homebrewing is a learning process, as are many hobbies. I know homebrewers of many years experience who are still learning, as the ingredients and processes available to us constantly change. You will never get bored with it!!!

 

[VTX1300]

OceanBob5, while I usually agree with mongoose33 that most people should start with extract brewing, you can go all grain to start. I did it and made a very good beer the first time. preparation and education are the key to successfully brewing all grain.
I spent two months reading and watching videos on every aspect of a brew. Get a copy of John Palmers book. I like having a hard copy so I can make notes in it and highlight important sections.
I wrote out a brew day plan to follow. Step by step instructions to follow so I didn't forget anything. I still do this for very batch so I don't have so many things to remember on brew day. That also gives me a record of every batch for my notebook for when I do that same recipe again.
When I had all of the equipment ready and a brew day plan ready I set everything up and did a practice run with just water to get an idea of how long heating and cooling would take. And how best to move wort from HLT to MT to fermenter. I learned a lot doing that practice run that made my first brew day go a lot easier.
If you are willing to do your homework and enjoy a challenge then go for it.

 

[rabbitburger]

How badly do all the water volume issues impact my beer?

Water volume lost to evaporation is just that - water. You can top up to get your desired post boil volume, but you must use filtered (even better: distilled) water if it's post boil.

Topping up with tap water pre boil will hurt your efficiency and lower your OG. I'm guessing that's why you added more grain? For BIAB, you can have a separate sparge pot, and adjust the sparge volume to give you your calculated pre boil volume (pre boil - actual wort from mash = required sparge volume).

 

[Druman07]

I'm hoping to skip the extract and try an all grain as my first attempt at brewing. I'm retired and have the time but just starting out and don't know if this is a crazy way to start, but I'm sure it's where I would end up if I kept brewing so why not just go right to all grain? Any tips

It depends on your approach. If you are organized, and careful in following the steps to do all grain, then you should be fine. Its nice to at least to try the extract approach, to see if you like the process, and the time savings that comes along with it. I did start out doing all grain, but also did an extract to see what it was like, and the beer was excellent.
It turns out that in my case I just like the all grain process better, maybe because I also like to cook, and there are many similarities be tween cooking and brewing. Good luck regardless which you choose.

 

[mongoose33]

OceanBob5, while I usually agree with mongoose33 that most people should start with extract brewing, you can go all grain to start. I did it and made a very good beer the first time. preparation and education are the key to successfully brewing all grain. I spent two months reading and watching videos on every aspect of a brew. Get a copy of John Palmers book. I like having a hard copy so I can make notes in it and highlight important sections. I wrote out a brew day plan to follow. Step by step instructions to follow so I didn't forget anything. When I had all of the equipment ready and a brew day plan ready I set everything up and did a practice run with just water to get an idea of how long heating and cooling would take. And how best to move wort from HLT to MT to fermenter. I learned a lot doing that practice run that made my first brew day to a lot easier.

It's not like it can't be done. It certainly can, and you're an example of that. I've always thought of it more as a question of what process is mostly likely to succeed initially, and from which one can grow.

But is starting with all-grain the way to bet?

If someone makes the initial decisions for a new brewer, as I did for my buddy, I think it can be done with careful instructions. But if you don't have a mentor, I think it's iffy as to what the outcome will be.

********

One example why is water. I read sometimes about brewers who went all-grain at the start, and it worked. But I think that oftentimes, they got lucky--they didn't adjust their water and it just happened to work out for them. My water, by contrast, is terrible for all-grain unless I'm doing a stout.

My buddy's water is the same. Had he tried to do all-grain without me making decisions about the water, his beer would not have turned out well--and he'd have been shaking his head as to why. We use almost all RO water in our beers, and that requires addition of various salts and sometimes lactic acid to the strike water.

Now, if you have a good chemistry background that stuff might all make sense. I don't, and have had to learn chemistry, such as it is, on the fly. I suspect most are in my boat, not the chemists' boat.

So my approach comes from the idea of A) since we're encouraging new brewers, we'd want them to get good beer from the get-go so they don't get discouraged, B) there are lots of moving parts to go wrong potentially, and C) the more moving parts there are, the harder it is to trace errors in the beer back to those processes.

*********

Some of this has to do with my background. I'm trained as a scientist, and the essence of the scientific method is reducing or eliminating alternative explanations for the results of our research.

So that tends to spill over to how I view brewing by newbies. The more alternative explanations for bad beer, the harder it is to track down what went wrong. Since I want new brewers to be successful (and who doesn't?), I tend toward processes that are most likely to reward them initially.

My 2 cents. Just a difference in philosophy, I suspect.

 

[VTX1300]

mongoose33, I agree with you, and I respect your advice. It's best to learn in steps and build on that experience. Just giving my thoughts and advice if that is the route OceanBob5 or any new brewer chooses to go. I chose that direction and made some mistakes along the way. I definitely wouldn't recommend it for everyone.

Industrial mechanic, not a chemist so water chemistry makes my brain hurt.

 

[mongoose33]

mongoose33, I agree with you, and I respect your advice. It's best to learn in steps and build on that experience. Just giving my thoughts and advice if that is the route OceanBob5 or any new brewer chooses to go. I chose that direction and made some mistakes along the way. I definitely wouldn't recommend it for everyone.

Industrial mechanic, not a chemist so water chemistry makes my brain hurt.

It's occurred to me to take a college chemistry class or two and just get it over with. What I'm afraid of is that I'll find I'm pretty much doing it right anyway, given the ability to use water calculators. And thus no need.... And yet.....

I always try to remind myself that people get to make their choices, and perhaps they just want to see if they can do something. Nothing wrong with that. Exploration can be its own reward. Lord knows I've done things like that in brewing and other places.

 

[kh54s10]

If you want to go straight to all grain. Read, read, read. Watch some YouTube videos. There are bad ones out there so look for common things done and probably ignore something seen in only one source.

Your first decision will be what type of all grain brewing you wish to do and what equipment you will need.

The biggest problem most have is with boil off rates. You can boil a pot of water for 15 minutes, measure how much evaporation occurred then multiply by 4 to get your full volume boil off rate.

I would suggest bottled water or at least using Campden tablets to eliminate chlorine/chloramine in tap water. Some municipal waters are not good for brewing, to many of the wrong dissolved minerals. Where I started brewing, apparently, my water was exceptionally good.

Some will talk about the need to measure pH. Ignore that for a while. I have been brewing good all grain beer for 7 years and have yet to measure pH.

That said, it is easier to learn most of the processes in all grain brewing by doing a few extract brews first.

 

[VTX1300]

My municipal water is just nasty so I knew I couldn't use it to brew. I don't have a reliable source for RO so buying distilled is my only option until I invest in a RO system.

I use one of the online spreadsheets to build my water but being older just learning how to use the spreadsheet was a challenge. Then trying to decide what I want in my water for the style of beer I am making. For me this was the most difficult part of learning to brew consistently good beer.
The nuts and bolts physical side of brewing comes easy to me but that is mostly from my background in industrial maintenance.