First all grain and lessons learned...

[Roger_M]

Had a fun day and made beer. Didnt exactly go to plan but that part of learning i guess. Things i learned
1. Setup your actual equipment in beersmith dont take something that looks close.
2. Have fermentables on hand incase.
3. water is heavy!

I plugged a recipe for a kit i got into beersmith to calculate for biab and had way too much water apparently. I ended up with 7.5 gallons of wort at 1.032 after cooling.
What i ended up doing is adding a couple pounds of honey to the first 5 gallons and some cane sugar to the other 2.5. Still had fun doing my first all grain. Gonna order another kit to try again.

 

[Dynachrome]

You made it. That is what matters.

God call on the adjuncts BTW.

 

[mosquitocontrol]

Sounds like my first all grain! I just used the defaults in Beersmith because I didn't know what else to use. Well my boil off was only 1 gal an hour vs the 2 gallon default. Ended up with 8 gallons of low gravity wort.

Keep at it. It will take a few brews for you to start changing some of the defaults and figure out what works with your system. Take detailed notes so you can remember exactly what you did before. Eventually you'll have it down.

I'd concentrate on boil off rate, mash tun/grain temperatures to be able to hit mash temps easy, and kettle and trub loss.

 

[Roger_M]

One thing that i found today was it surprised me how much heat my pot lost in the hour. My strike water was 1 deg high at 163 and my mash was also 1 deg high at 157 but after the hour it was 150... I wrapped it in blankets but i guess BIAB isnt the best in winter...

 

[Dynachrome]

From where I sit, one degree is dead on.