First all grain batch with new AG equipment, please help critique method

[rappyfreak]

I have only done 5 batches of beer so far, 2 extract kits, 2 extract kits with steeping grains and one partial mash (the dumper on my other thread). So finally took the plunge and bought an 8 gal pot with ball valve and a false bottom and ball valve kit to make my 5 gal round cooler mash tun. I thought I had read enough, planned my brew night, used sparge pal to help with my strike and sparge calculations, etc. Well it's one thing to read about it but another to get things right in practice, LOL. It was a learning experience for sure, here it goes:

I wanted to brew something fresh for summer that the wife would like and with a quick turn around time so got the raspberry wheat AG kit from NB, and also the recipe is as simple as it gets. The recipe is:
- 4.5lb of rahr white wheat malt
- 4.5lb of rahr premium pilsner
- 1 oz. Hersbrucker (60 min)
- 4 oz. raspberry extract at bottling
- Wyeast 3333 German wheat yeast
- Mash at 152 deg for 60 min and mash out 170 deg for 10 min

Started by heating my strike water to 165 deg, as per what I have read and Sparge Pal, around 2.8 Gal so heated 3 gal. Then measured my deadspace on the kettle, 3 quarts and on the mash tun, 2qts. Dumped half the 165 deg water in the mash tun, started adding grains and stirring vigogously (too vigorously I think because I got a stuck sparge at first), after adding all the grains added the rest of my 3 gal and made sure I had no dough balls. Checked my mash temp and it was at 143 deg, craaaaapppppp 9 deg off, added about 3 quarts more of 170 deg water to try to bring it up, no go, it only got to 147 deg so I covered it and let it go (forgot to preheat the mash tun is my guess). Before the 1 hour was up, heated my sparge water, another 3.25 gal, and went to start the vorlauf.... no go either, stuck sparge, crap, blew on the mash tun hose and it started flowing, vorlaufed, put first runnings in kettle (only 11 qt, WTF?) and added the 170 deg sparge water, used spoon to mix well and let rest for 15 minutes. Stuck sparge again, blew on the tube, unstuck, vorlaufed again and got the rest of my wort (forgot to measure! before putting in kettle, another screw up). Also forgot to make a graded stick to know how much water in my brew kettle so estimated my brew volume as best I could. Took my pre boil OG, 1054, but no idea on the actual volume on the kettle so uselss info? Then added hops once on a rolling boil, 15 min before end of boil inserted the immersion chiller, chilled after 60 minutes were up, let it stand for 15 minutes, drained wort into sanitized fermenter. Measured OG and it was pretty high and only had about 3.5 galons, added 3 quarts and got it down to 1052, wanted a higher alcohol beer. The batch ended at 4.25 gal in fermenter, added yeast, lid and airlock on and done.

Soooooo, how badly did I screw up? seemed like chaos once on brew time, need to plan better next time. How do you measure your grain temp? stick a thermometer in the grain a day before or so? or is average ambient temp ok? need to preheat my mash tun, bet lost some degrees there. At least I have my dead spaces on mash tun and kettle. Need to get my water volumes straightened out too! Build a dip tube and start whirlpooling as well. How do I make sure not much grain goes below the false bottom or should I not really stir too hard?

Anyhoo, sorry for the long post but it was hell last night!! LOL

 

[Stauffbier]

Lots of ground to cover here...

First, start heating your strike water about 8-10 degrees hotter than what it's supposed to be and dump it all in to the MLT to pre-heat it. When the water drops to the temp you want then you can dough-in. If it's taking too long to drop you can stir it to help it along.

Second, you need to dial in your water volumes. It doesn't seem as though you accounted for grain absorption. You need to figure that as well as dead space. Most people lose around .1-.125 gallons per lb of grain.
* Here's an example of my system with a 10lb grain bill
- Grain absorption = 10lb X .125 = 1.25 gallons lost to grains
- Dead space = .25 gallons lost to MLT
- Boil off = 1.2 gallons per hour
- Loss from kettle trub = .5 gallons (this is hot break and hop material I leave behind in the kettle)
--------------------------------------
= 3.2 gallons lost

So, if I'm making a 5.5 gallon batch I add 5.5gal + 3.2gal = 8.7 gallons of total water

As far as your stuck sparge, you can try using rice hulls to stop this problem. A large handful or two should work (more if using a lot of wheat)..

Once you have a little more practice, you'll be doing just fine!
I hope this helps!

Cheers!

 

[tally350z]

Yes, preheating the mash tun will help you next time. I usually use one or two gallons of hot water from my tap to heat it up put the lid on and then dump it as soon as my strike water is set. I would worry about stirring the crap out of it as you probably lost a good bit of heat doing this. Next time just stir until no dough balls and seal it at your temp.
Another thing I noticed is that with you using 50% wheat next time try using some rice hulls. This should prevent you from having a stuck sparge and it will make your vorlauf better.
I have never used sparge pal, I normally use brew365 and according to there info you should have use 3 g of strike and 5 gallons on sparge water.

Its def. a learning experience. It took me 4 brews or so to get my equipment dialed in to know exactly what I need to do to get it right. You def. made beer so I would just let it go and next time you will be better prepared.

 

[rappyfreak]

Great info Stauff and tally, really appreciated, will use my post and your posts to make an excel checklist for my next batch. Is brew365 on the appstore?
On sparge pal I used the following info:
- grain absorption: .13 gal/lb
- mash tun loss: 0.5 gal
- boiloff rate: 10% per hour (what % to use?)
- Boil loss: 0.75 gal
- wort shrinkage: 4% (what % to use?)
- Batch size: 5 Gal
- Grain bill: 9 lb
- boil time: 60 min
- mash thickness: 1.25
- Grain temp: 68
- Target mash temp: 152
With this I got: 2.8 gal strike at 165 deg and 5.5 gal sparge at 170 deg

Thanks guys!!!!

 

[Gregwarro]

I think you did just fine for a first timer doing all grain. Way better than I did. You didnt have your measuring stick notched so you were unsure of water volumes, that is a big one, and likely something that you will not forget net time

+1 for rice hull, with the amount of wheat you had they were definitely needed to help you from having a stuck sparge.

I use beer smith for all of my brewing, I love it. Give it the temp you want to mash and it does the rest, it gives you areas to put in the temp of your mash tun and grain, from there it gives you the proper calculations for the water. It also compensates for water loss due to grain absorption.

I remember my first all grain batch.... target gravity of 1.047 (@75%) Actual OG of 1.028..... Things have got much better since then.

You did good, time to relax and have a home brew

 

[rappyfreak]

Stauff, with your calculations I get 8.325 gal of water and with Sparge Pal 8.3, so not too shabby, really need to measure my liquids next time.

 

[rappyfreak]

I think you did just fine for a first timer doing all grain. Way better than I did. You didnt have your measuring stick notched so you were unsure of water volumes, that is a big one, and likely something that you will not forget net time

+1 for rice hull, with the amount of wheat you had they were definitely needed to help you from having a stuck sparge.

I use beer smith for all of my brewing, I love it. Give it the temp you want to mash and it does the rest, it gives you areas to put in the temp of your mash tun and grain, from there it gives you the proper calculations for the water. It also compensates for water loss due to grain absorption.

I remember my first all grain batch.... target gravity of 1.047 (@75%) Actual OG of 1.028..... Things have got much better since then.

You did good, time to relax and have a home brew

Thanks for the props Greg! I'm using ubrewmaster on the ipad for now, need to learn how to use it, the mash steps are pretty weird.

 

[tally350z]

I don't know if brew365 is on the app store, I go straight to the website.

I noticed that in your post you said you sparged with only 3.25 gallons. Was that a typo? Or did you use the required 5.5? Or am I just misreading it?

 

[rappyfreak]

Also, will get rice hulls for my Bavarian Hefe for sure, it has 5.5lb of wheat malt

 

[rappyfreak]

I don't know if brew365 is on the app store, I go straight to the website.

I noticed that in your post you said you sparged with only 3.25 gallons. Was that a typo? Or did you use the required 5.5?

yep screwed that one too

 

[Stauffbier]

Stauff, with your calculations I get 8.325 gal of water and with Sparge Pal 8.3, so not too shabby, really need to measure my liquids next time.

Keep in mind that my calculations are constructed around my system. YMMV

 

[tally350z]

Also I didn't mention it earlier, but I break my sparge into two separate, equal sparges..

 

[Stauffbier]

Also I didn't mention it earlier, but I break my sparge into two separate, equal sparges..

+1 This can help boost efficiency

 

[rappyfreak]

Keep in mind that my calculations are constructed around my system. YMMV

yep, calculated with my system so no worries. thanks

 

[rappyfreak]

Also I didn't mention it earlier, but I break my sparge into two separate, equal sparges..

So in this example I would do 2.75+2.75? 10 min each of 170 deg water? Interesting, thanks,

 

[tally350z]

So in this example I would do 2.75+2.75? 10 min each of 170 deg water? Interesting, thanks,

Yup, there is also a whole other argument whether a 10 or 15 min rest is beneficial. But for this case let it sit.

Now the goal is to raise the grain bed in the mash tun to 170. So you will need to heat your water to around 190ish to get the bed to 170.

 

[rappyfreak]

Thanks Tally! No risk of releasing tannins? or not an issue as it should stabilize pretty fast?

 

[Stauffbier]

Thanks Tally! No risk of releasing tannins? or not an issue as it should stabilize pretty fast?

Not an issue! Heat your first infusion to 190-195F and your second infusion can be closer to 170-175F. Also, it's highly debated on this forum, but you might want to give mashing thinner a try. I mash at 1.5qts/lb or sometimes even thinner. This depends on how big of a grain bill you have. If it's a real big grain bill I mash thicker, so I'll have plenty of sparge water...

 

[Gregwarro]

yep screwed that one too

But it was fun wasn't it

 

[Denny]

Yup, there is also a whole other argument whether a 10 or 15 min rest is beneficial. But for this case let it sit.

Now the goal is to raise the grain bed in the mash tun to 170. So you will need to heat your water to around 190ish to get the bed to 170.

There is no argument AFAIAC. I've tested it many times and thee's nothing to be ained from the 10 min.rest.

Alos, doing multiple batch sparges yields so little efficiency gain that the only reason to do it is if you can't fit all the sparge water in your mash tun at once.

 

[Denny]

Thanks Tally! No risk of releasing tannins? or not an issue as it should stabilize pretty fast?

Tannin extraction is much more a matter of pH than temp. If it wasn't, you couldn't do decoctions.

 

[rappyfreak]

hmmmmmmmmm interesting points guy will try em out!