First AG

[Axegod]

Wll did it it....

Kinda..had a few problems....mainly strike temp..very low. 152ish....
this was combination of some bad planning and a rubbermaid cooler that didn't hold stike water very well. Also, my Kolsch yeast smack pack barley expanded...so I made a starter..smacked on saturday, starter on sunday..but barely anything (maybe nothing today..Monday)

I learned a lot..and obviously have a lot more to learn.

If the yeast does not go by tomorrow, I will buy a Nottingham dry yeast (due to my temps).


I will post more tomorrow for more advice...had a few extracts after things started going wrong..so need to go to bed now.

I guess I need to learn promash better for strike temp...and have a bigger lauter tun to hold more water...that would have helped. I wiil get a 52 qt (used a 36 qt) lauter vessel and could barely add water to my 10 gallon (21 lb grain) batch.

Either way at least I got some beer, and got loaded doing it - so it wasnt a total loss.

Cheers.

 

[the_bird]

Did you pre-heat the cooler? I'm doing my first AG next weekend, but running some tests it made a HUGE difference in how the lauter-tun holds temp if I first had added some very hot water for 10 minutes or so.

 

[Axegod]

Yes, I preheated..but my problem was that the grist could not increase in temp too much as I could only add very little amounts of sparge water as i ran outta lauter tun room.


Cheers.

 

[the_bird]

Alright, fill us in in the morn. Very interested in hearing what went right and what went wrong for you.

 

[Axegod]

Thanks !
I gotta spend some SWMBO time now ( and try not to slurr).

I will have the details of the good, the bad, and the ugly, and the very good as well.

Cheers.

 

[the_bird]

Is the "very good" involving SWMBO? If so, you better get going, my friend...

 

[Axegod]

So I figured out my problem:
My cooler was to small. I was doing 10G batch, using 20lbs of grain, in a 36 Qt cooler. I was able to get the mash temp perfect ! ..but it went downhill from there. I added 180 degree water, but the cooler was almost to the top....I need to switch to a 52 qt so I can at least add 5 gallons of sprage water in order to get the mash upto 170F. No prob, my HLT rubbermaid was crap since it couldnt hold the temp very well..and i will use my 36 qt as the HLT. I hope I have the receipt for the rubbermaid.

The Good: my sabco keggle...awesome...my copper manifold..awesome...my burner and immersion chiller..both awesome.

The Bad: Too small of a lautertun..but can be returned...but it held the temp very well. My "sparge manifold"..bad. I need to redo this. Basically it was my first attempt at a copper mainifold for filtering before I used a dremmel. I used the old manifold upside down as a sparge manifold- and it worked..but needs to be more secure, and am sure it will perform better once I am able to maintain a water level above the grain with a bigger tun.

The Ugly: The HLT..my faucet was poorly designed and the cooler didnt hold the temp well. It didn't help that my makeshift sculpture wasnt good....too high for my garage and I battled the ceiling whilst trying to add hot water in a losing effort to bring the sparge temp. up to standard.

So the major failure was that the grain never reached 170...more like 155 (2 degrees above the mash temp)....and stayed that way for about 2 hours whilst trying to get hotter sparge water.
I didnt take a drain OG..I just let in almost all the run-off for a total of 11.5 gallons of pre-boil. I boiled down to 10G, and had a temp corrected OG of 1.054.

I checked today..and no change in OG, and no alcohol in beer. It is foamy, but that could be due to airation from last night. (my smack pack barely expanded..if at all).
Right now I am trying to debate weather to use Nottinghams ale yeast, or to try a pack of WY 2007 Pilner or WY 2272 Noth American Lager. I made a makeshift vessel from my sink that held the temp (with ice and cold water) to 55F for 20 hours.

Any more feed back will be very helpful.

Cheers.

 

[Beer Snob]

Did you make a starter with this? This is helpful with 5 gallons....I can only imagine it would be important with 10.

 

[Axegod]

Did you make a starter with this? This is helpful with 5 gallons....I can only imagine it would be important with 10.

I actually didnt have time for the starter for this as I wanted to get the yeast going without waiting another 24 hours (after work).

I looked today, and it was happily foaming away !