First AG brew day tomorrow...

[Hwk-I-St8]

Any last minute advice?

I have my carboy cleaned. Cooler MLT ready to go. Grains crushed and ready for mashing. HLT cooler ready. Fresh LP tank and burner. Hops (8 oz columbus, 8 oz Galaxy, but I won't need 'em all). Friend bringing 15 Gal kettle, water treatment). I'm headed to the store for RO water in a little bit. The Kegerator is set up with a Inkbird and heat belt for ferm temp control,

What am I missing? I'm totally stoked to get back into brewing.

 

[IndyBlueprints]

Your Brew Day Checklist:

Allen’s Brewing Checklist
Beer:___________________ Date:___________ Brew #:___________
Before Brew Day:
• Design recipe in BeerSmith
• Buy all ingredients
• Brew Day-4, Start Yeast Starter (24-36 hours fermentation time is enough)
• Verify you have 2 propane tanks
• Brew Day-2, Put yeast starter in fridge to cold-crash
• Purchase 15 gallons min Primo water for a 6 gallon batch, 20 gallons for a 12 gallon batch
• Calculate salt additions for this beer style
• Create Mash and Brew Schedule Checklist (See separate checklists)
Brew Day:
• Take yeast out of fridge to warm up.
• Set up Brew Stand
• Make sure all kettles and hoses are clean
• Set up accessory Table
• Weigh out grains and crush
• Place all ingredients and tools on table
• Tools for accessory table:
(2) pitchers
Small funnel
Temperature sensor
PH meter
Refractometer
Oxygen Tank
• connect all hoses in the “Pre-Mash Setup”
• Add full 6 gallons of water to Hot Liquor Tank (HLT), and heat to 165ºF
• Place grains in dry Mash Lauter Tun (MLT)
• Pump hot water from HLT into bottom of MLT
• Change hoses to “Grain-Mash Setup”
• Set PID to desired temp and start timer
• While grain is mashing, add 5 gallons water to HLT
• Heat HLT to 170ºF
• When mash timer is complete, bump PID to 170ºF
• Move MLT left onto propane burner to assist getting MLT to 170º
• Mash at 170ºF for 15 minutes
• Change hoses to “Fly Sparge Setup”
• Check Specific Gravity of “First Runnings”
• Watch to see when the volume in the brew kettle has reached the desired “Pre-Boil volume”
• Restart Brew Timer, go over hop schedule, go over Brew Addition schedule
• Take sample of Wort, check & log specific gravity, compare to target Pre-Boil SG
• Bring Wort to boil, watch for overflow at start of boil from protein break
• Add 60 minutes hops, watch timer for other hop additions
• Prepare sanitizing solution for any items that touch Wort, post-boil
• Sanitize fermenter/fermenters
• Clean out MLT, place grains in bucket, to dump in lake after dark
• Change hoses to “Whirlpool Setup”
• Drain fermenter
• Last 15 minutes of boil, add Irish Moss
• Last 15 minutes of boil, start circulating through plate chiller to sanitize (don’t turn hose on)
• At end of boil, turn on hose and start circulating SLOWLY in “Whirlpool” mode
• Whirlpool for 10 minutes, let rest for 15 minutes without circulating
• Change hoses to “Chill-Mode Setup”
• Transfer Wort into fermenter
• Run oxygen for 60 seconds through wort
• Add yeast.

 

[A2HB]

Sounds like you have it all covered, good luck to you on your first AG brew day!

 

[brewbama]

That's one helluva regiment. On brew day I simply crush grains, heat water, mix the two, wait, Vorlauf, lauter, batch sparge, boil, add hops, wait, add hops, wait (add hops and wait more as required), cool, refrigerate, wait, oxygenate, pitch yeast, wait.

 

[Stillraining]

Holy Hemorrhoids Batman that's some check list.

If brewing was that down to specifics for me Id quit and buy my beer....tongue in cheek....No I get it, its all in your head and automatic, no need to look at the list anymore. I just have never took the time to write every step down for a brew day is all. They all go pretty seamless even if there is a variable here or there.

Brewing beer is sort of like driving to the store in a manual transmission car... Every shift insist the focus...getting there is.

Here's mine.

1) Get crap out
2) Brew beer
3) Put crap away

Never forgot a step yet...only ground a few gears is all

 

[IndyBlueprints]

That's one helluva regiment. On brew day I simply crush grains, heat water, mix the two, wait, Vorlauf, lauter, batch sparge, boil, add hops, wait, add hops, wait (add hops and wait more as required), cool, refrigerate, wait, oxygenate, pitch yeast, wait.

Wow, your brew day sounds a lot easier than mine...

This comes from dozens of times of getting to the end and saying, "DOOOHHH!" I forgot _____"

 

[day_trippr]

[...]
Here's mine.

1) Get crap out
2) Brew beer
3) Put crap away

Never forgot a step yet...only ground a few gears is all

Must be funky 'round your place.
My almost as short list would include "Clean crap"...

Cheers!

 

[Stillraining]

Right!

Nope, mine "is" part of "brew beer"...90% of everything is cleaned "and put away" by the time I pitch yeast. Brew kettle, chiller and yeast slurry jar is the last things and that takes 3 or 4 min.

Bing Bot-ta Boom

 

[MrBJones]

Holy Hemorrhoids Batman that's some check list.

If brewing was that down to specifics for me Id quit and buy my beer....tongue in cheek....No I get it, its all in your head and automatic, no need to look at the list anymore. I just have never took the time to write every step down for a brew day is all. They all go pretty seamless even if there is a variable here or there.

Brewing beer is sort of like driving to the store in a manual transmission car... Every shift insist the focus...getting there is.

Here's mine.

1) Get crap out
2) Brew beer
3) Put crap away

Never forgot a step yet...only ground a few gears is all

You forgot:

1½) SWMBO complains that crap is out
2½) SWMBO complains that crap is still out

 

[Saxon]

Any last minute advice?

I have my carboy cleaned. Cooler MLT ready to go. Grains crushed and ready for mashing. HLT cooler ready. Fresh LP tank and burner. Hops (8 oz columbus, 8 oz Galaxy, but I won't need 'em all). Friend bringing 15 Gal kettle, water treatment). I'm headed to the store for RO water in a little bit. The Kegerator is set up with a Inkbird and heat belt for ferm temp control,

What am I missing? I'm totally stoked to get back into brewing.

How did it go? I also had my first AG day this weekend . I discovered I have a lot to learn, but the pale ale is happily bubbling away in the fermenter! Can't have screwed up too badly!

 

[PurpleJeepXJ]

Holy Hemorrhoids Batman that's some check list.

If brewing was that down to specifics for me Id quit and buy my beer....tongue in cheek....No I get it, its all in your head and automatic, no need to look at the list anymore. I just have never took the time to write every step down for a brew day is all. They all go pretty seamless even if there is a variable here or there.

Brewing beer is sort of like driving to the store in a manual transmission car... Every shift insist the focus...getting there is.

Here's mine.

1) Get crap out
2) Brew beer
3) Put crap away

Never forgot a step yet...only ground a few gears is all

This is how I look at brew day as well!!

 

[Redtab78]

I get super excited about 4 days before my brew day when I make my starter, then I get disappointed after about 3 hours into my brew day, mostly because that means its almost over.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

How did it go? I also had my first AG day this weekend . I discovered I have a lot to learn, but the pale ale is happily bubbling away in the fermenter! Can't have screwed up too badly!

It went very well. Transferred the strike water to the cooler too early and had to reheat. Ultimately hit the mash temp perfectly. Had a lot of trouble with the ph test strips...will have a better ph measuring method next time.

One other issue with water quantity calcs...had way less loss than planned so I ended up with more post boil wort than expected. Not really a "problem" per se, but I want to figure that out more as I use my stuff.

Yeasts are happily consumer sugars as we speak. First dry hop addition is Wednesday.

 

[Redtab78]

It went very well. Transferred the strike water to the cooler too early and had to reheat. Ultimately hit the mash temp perfectly. Had a lot of trouble with the ph test strips...will have a better ph measuring method next time.

One other issue with water quantity calcs...had way less loss than planned so I ended up with more post boil wort than expected. Not really a "problem" per se, but I want to figure that out more as I use my stuff.

Yeasts are happily consumer sugars as we speak. First dry hop addition is Wednesday.

What I did to figure out my boil off rate was put a measured 6 gallons of water into my brew kettle, and boiled it for 60 min, then ran the water through my chiller and into a ferm bucket so that I could measure how much I had in the end, which was just a tad bit over 4 gallons. then I carefully dumped the remaining water in my brew kettle into a marked pitcher and found that I had just a tad over 1/2 gallon....

so now I know that I will always leave 1/2 gallon behind in my brew kettle due to how my dip tube is placed, and my boil off rate is 1.4 gallons.......so knowing that, I know exactly how much I need in my brew kettle if I want to get exactly 5 gallons of wort....but since then I have switched to 6 gallon carboys, and allow myself a little over 5 gallons to account for the trub left after fermentation as I want as close to exactly 5 gallons as I can get into my kegs. Maybe this will help you figure out your boil off rate

 

[Saxon]

It went very well. Transferred the strike water to the cooler too early and had to reheat. Ultimately hit the mash temp perfectly. Had a lot of trouble with the ph test strips...will have a better ph measuring method next time.

One other issue with water quantity calcs...had way less loss than planned so I ended up with more post boil wort than expected. Not really a "problem" per se, but I want to figure that out more as I use my stuff.

Yeasts are happily consumer sugars as we speak. First dry hop addition is Wednesday.

Yeah I goofed on some of my water quantity stuff as well. I way overestimated grain absorption and ended up with 7.5 gallons pre-boil instead of 6.5. 90 minute boil took care of that.

My efficiency wasn't too great, but it was my first time out so I wasn't expecting much. Continuous process improvement and all that.