First AG, how did I do?

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TheBigBrit

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Having been hanging out here over the last couple of months absorbing as much as I could, it finally came time for me to make my first homebrew. I followed in other peoples foot steps and decided to make EdWort's Bee Cave Brewery Haus Pale Ale.

I doughed in and hit 151 F, close enough for me to be happy and not mess with anything. Added the extra water before doing my first run off and hit 157 F, I'm not sure what temperature I should have hit at this stage?

Everything seemed to be going fine until I realised that I had no easy way of keeping my sparge water at the right temperature, while my boiling pot contained my first runnings. So I ended up using water that was around 168 F instead of 175 F, and hit 162 F in the grain bed for the batch sparge. What temperature should I have hit here?

I got lucky with my 10 gallon cooler, with stainless steel braid and didn't have problems with a stuck sparge.

Continued with the boil, and had a couple of boil overs, I can see I will need a larger pot at some point!

All said and done my pre boil gravity was 1.049, OG 1.052 giving an efficiency of around 76%, can't complain about that.

I believe EdWort uses 1.33 quarts per pound of grain, having had good efficiency using that amount of water should I continue to use it for future brews?

Thanks EdWort for the great recipe!
 
TheBigBrit said:
I doughed in and hit 151 F, close enough for me to be happy and not mess with anything. Added the extra water before doing my first run off and hit 157 F, I'm not sure what temperature I should have hit at this stage?

the extra water is called a mashout, and anything below 170F is good. i usually mashout with the same amount of water i mashed in with, and so i need the water to be somewhere in the 195F range. there are online calcs and calcs in beersmith/promash that will help you figure this temp out.

TheBigBrit said:
Everything seemed to be going fine until I realised that I had no easy way of keeping my sparge water at the right temperature, while my boiling pot contained my first runnings. So I ended up using water that was around 168 F instead of 175 F, and hit 162 F in the grain bed for the batch sparge. What temperature should I have hit here?

again, any temp below 170F is good for mashout and sparging. getting the grain bed higher than that and you begin to risk tannin extraction.

TheBigBrit said:
I believe EdWort uses 1.33 quarts per pound of grain, having had good efficiency using that amount of water should I continue to use it for future brews?

sure, that's a good amount. i typically round up my grain weight and mash in with 1 qt/lb, just to make sure to have enough room to adjust the temp and mash out with the same volume. anywhere from 1 - 1.5 qt/lb is good. i've never heard any arguements for more or less water giving better efficiency.
 
I agree, it sounds like a smooth first AG to me. Good Job!

Now get busy planning your next brew. :mug:
 
SenorWanderer said:
again, any temp below 170F is good for mashout and sparging. getting the grain bed higher than that and you begin to risk tannin extraction

Am I correct in thinking that I am trying to get the grain bed to 168F for my sparge? In other words I should mash at around 152F, add my mash out water which should be around 175F, then use something like beersmith to calculate how hot my sparge water should be to get the grain bed to 168F?

Thanks for your help!
 
TheBigBrit said:
Am I correct in thinking that I am trying to get the grain bed to 168F for my sparge? In other words I should mash at around 152F, add my mash out water which should be around 175F, then use something like beersmith to calculate how hot my sparge water should be to get the grain bed to 168F?

Thanks for your help!

I use boiling water for mashout, stirring constantly. I have 7 gallons of water boiling in my HLT, and it takes me about 3 of those gallons to bring a 152° mash to 165° for mashout. After that I add 3 more gallons of hot tap water to the HLT, which gets the liquor to almost exactly to 168° for the sparge. Your mileage may vary....
 
It's handy to have 2 pots when brewing all grain because you can use one for heating water. If you are trying to mash out after the 60 minute mash you will have to add boiling or near boiling water to raise the temp significantly. I don't think you have to get it to 168 when batch sparging though but raising it above 160 is a good thing.
Here is a nice online calculator >> MashCalculator
 
ohiobrewtus said:
Now get busy planning your next brew. :mug:
I already have the ingredients, next up will be BierMuncher's Centennial Blonde, having found some Cascade I wanted to see what difference the slightly different grains, and using Centennial makes :)
 
TheBigBrit said:
Would you recommend a 2nd pot, or a 2nd cooler to use as a HLT?
A second pot is what I use. My boiling kettle sits on the ground with the first runnings while the 2nd pot is on the burner heating to temperature. How big is your current kettle?
 
Blender said:
How big is your current kettle?

Not really big enough, it's your run of the mill turkey frier, so around 7.5 gallons, thus the couple of boil overs. Unfortunately cost is an issue, I can buy a 10 gallon cooler for $46, if I was to buy another kettle I can't see being able to get one that is bigger for less than $100.

Also thinking of future expansion most people seem to use a 10 gallon cooler as their HLT on top of a three tier stand. Of course a second pot makes sense if I move towards the safer but more expensive single tier stand.

Decisions, decisions....

I guess I need to start saving for a keggle :)
 
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