First AG done!

KillerKellers · May 24, 2010

Finally got a lot of my gear put together in time to brew today. First AG was 10 gallons of Ed's Haus Pale Ale. I've done this beer a couple times as a partial mash, so I think this will give me a good idea of how things turned out. I did make a couple of mistakes. First off, my final volume ended up a little more then I expected (~11.5 gal) and my OG ended up at 14.7 brix (1.060) when I was expecting 1.051. Not a huge deal, I am sure a little extra abv won't kill me!

I did have some issues with the sparging the first time. When I did the vorlauf, I did a couple gallons and had a hard time not disturbing the grain bed I think. I did get some floaties, but I hope not too much to cause any issues. After I did it the first time, I noticed that someone mentioned using a piece of foil. Since I was batch sparging, I gave it a shot on the second and it made a huge difference for me.

Had a blast, and here are a few pictures!

Ghetto gravity setup, until I can build my brew stand:

Vorlauf with foil:

Fermentation chamber:

boo boo · May 24, 2010

Instead of wasting foil, you could just use a small bowl to pour it in.

Congrats on you first AG.

HotbreakHotel · May 24, 2010

Sounds like a huge success!! Congratulations!!

chs9 · May 24, 2010

Congratulations dude! My first is coming up, I hope I have such good luck.

This is the first time i've seen the foil mentioned. If I have this right, pouring the vorlauf was digging holes in the grain bed or disturbing it somehow, so the foil is to spread that force over a larger area. Or is there something I'm missing?

KillerKellers · May 24, 2010

chs9 said:
Congratulations dude! My first is coming up, I hope I have such good luck.

This is the first time i've seen the foil mentioned. If I have this right, pouring the vorlauf was digging holes in the grain bed or disturbing it somehow, so the foil is to spread that force over a larger area. Or is there something I'm missing?

Yeah, pretty much.. my problem is the container I was using to vorlauf would not fit into my keggle so I had to pour with some distance. That was disturbing the grain I think. The foil just dispersed it a bit. The idea about the bowl is a good one too =)