First AG batch today

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SkiSoloII

Splitting the beer atom since 1996
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Settling the wort now. I can't believe how much break there is compared to extract and steep.

APA
14lb American 2-row
1 lb MO
.75lb Crystal 10
.25 carapil (all I had)
.4 Warrior pellets 15.8% Start of boil
1oz Perle Leaf after 15 min
1oz Cascade pellet 6.3% and Supermoss after another 45 min
1oz Cascade Leaf after another 10 min
Flameout 3 min later.

Immersion chill to 83deg
Whirlpool

Watching the trub settle.

Will pitch w/ 1056 in starter.

Haven't decided whether to dry hop yet. I'll taste the wort.

All excited! :ban:
 
Awesome dude! I did my first AG batch about a month or so ago. It seems like there's a lot more to do, but the end product was really good (even though I only got about 55% efficiency, lol). :)
 
Got about 6 gal at 1.052.

I'll try to figger ot efficiency later. Time to take my daughters to a movie.
:fro:
 
OK. I'm confused...

This group is great, and I thought I had this thing liked (of course, I did! :drunk:)

Used the above recipe. Bought water (refill machine at grocery - Culligan was the make of the machine).

Mash tun made from 10 gallon rubbermaid round cooler.

60min with grains, hit a little low ~148 intended 1.4 Q/lb.
Added boiling water - probably went to about 1.8Q/lb. to hit 153 degrees.

PH of the wort near the end showed slightly lighter than 5.0 on the test strips.

Vourlaffed (sp?) w/ 2 beer pitchers - got pretty clear.

Sparged w/ 170 degree water - dip from pot and pour onto pie tin to keep from upsetting the grain bed. Kept ~ 1-2 inches of water over grain bed (tried, anyway).

Got about 8 gallons into the boil pot - wanted to finish the boil w/ 6.5 gal originally, ended up with 6 gallons.

.4 Warrior 15.8% pellet at initial boil
1oz Perle 7.9 leaf after 15 min
1oz Cascade 6.3 pellet after 60 min
1tsp supermoss after 65 min
1oz cascade 7.4 leaf after 70 min
Flameout at 75.

Cooled relatively quickly w/ immersion chiller (~15 min)

Per the software (reciprocator 2.2) should have ended up w/ 1.066. Actually ended up with 1.052.

Looks like ~ 54% efficiency.

Can anyone tell me what I might have done wrong?


Thanks,

Dave

PS> I STILL MADE BEER!!! :ban:
 
How well mixed were the grains in your mash? How was the crush, fine or really coarse?

Sounds like you either should have had higher gravity or lower volume. Not low OG and low volume.


Pangea
 
LHBS had a little problem with their Barley Crusher. Had to get the technician to fix - adjusted the gap to get it to run. Didn't seem too different from most of the pics of proper crush I've seen here.

I put all the water in first, then slowly poured in the grains with minor stirring. Seemed to be all wetted. Not clumped.
 
Reading the other recent post on sparging, could the 170 degree sparge water have cooled too much instead of heating up the grain bed? Should I have used higher initial temp water to sparge? Would it have made a difference?
 
Reading the other recent post on sparging, could the 170 degree sparge water have cooled too much instead of heating up the grain bed? Should I have used higher initial temp water to sparge? Would it have made a difference?

I assume you fly sparged, since you kept a couple of inches of liquid above the grain bed. What did you use? It sounds like it either went too fast, or you had some channelling (or both). What kind of manifold/braid/false bottom do you have in the MLT?
 
Put a tin on top, poured water over it with a pitcher. Took almost exactly an hour. Used a braid I made from a hot-water heater line (larger diameter). About the same area inside and out (like Palmer's book says).
 
All I can figure is the PH, sparge temp, or the grind from the LHBS. Would those make that much difference? From previous posts, grind probably would.
 
Put a tin on top, poured water over it with a pitcher. Took almost exactly an hour. Used a braid I made from a hot-water heater line (larger diameter). About the same area inside and out (like Palmer's book says).

I wonder if you had some channelling. Would you consider batch sparging the next time, to see if that improves the efficiency?
 
Absolutely, though I need to re-rig my braid connection, as stirring too much would dislodge it. That would make life hard.....
 
Bottled today. FG. 1.006. I did dry hop. It's dry, but it's still beer, and it's still drinkable. Yellow, and hopefully fizzy (I like a good head!), but definately not a BMC.

I think I measured temp too high up in the MT. I'm guessing I either had clumps, or the temp in the lower part of the cooler was a lot lower.

I know from this board that lower temps increase fermentabilty a lot, but does it effect efficiency?

I did another batch this last weekend, and it was a lot closer - I also stirred a couple of times, and rechecked temps. Ran about 154 at first, dropped to 152. Much better efficiency - 70%.

Thanks all,

Dave
 
Did you get 6 gallons in your fermentor or 6 gallons in your boil kettle? If you say, left .5 a gallon in your boil kettle then you got 60%. Still not great, but just looking for the easy stuff.
 
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