First all grain batch could not have gone better

[Backwoodsbrewing]

First I want to say HBT has been a huge help in determining the procedures I used in my first all grain brew and thanks to all who take the time to answer so many noobish questions. Yesterday was my first all grain brew and it could not have gone better. As a first brew I focused on temps ,amounts of water and general procedure. I hit all of my temps on the nose and could not have been any happier in that aspect of the brew. The only hiccup I hit was when I started to sparge. I originally planned on batch sparging but after I did my mash out and vorlauf and started lautering . It didn't make sense to stop the whole process to add water and vorlauf again so I attached a sparge arm I made out of cpvc and kept sparging. My pre boil gravity came out to exactly what the recipe predicted 1.061. My post boil gravity was 3 points higher than anticipated, not bad I thought. I finished the brew and pitched a two litre starter. The beer showed signs of fermentation after about two hours. And had blown all of the sanitizer out of the airlock before I went to bed. This is exciting thanks again to those oh take the time to answer questions.


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[jdauria]

Congratulations on your first all grain batch! Wow, fermentation starting after 2 hours, that is very quick!

 

[MrHadack]

Sounds like you did a great job. Congrats!

One piece of advice I'll add based on your report: use a blow-off tube instead of an airlock next time. Some people would say to use a blow-off tube all the time instead of an airlock, but definitely use one when the OG of the beer was as high as yours. That way you won't wake up to a blown cap and gushing mess.