First all grain brew day

[fatelvis]

I finally got my first solo all grain brew under my belt(or should I say in the fermenter?). I have brewed a lot with a friend but finally got my own set up going. I brewed a simple pale ale recipe and had very few problems. The first was that I didn't have the proper thermometers to take advantage of my 3 tier system. Second was my mash was a few degrees too hot, so a little added cool water fixed it. My igloo/ss braid mash tun worked like a charm. I only lost about 2 degrees in my mash and no clogging to speak of. I batched sparged with no problems. I was using a ss braid in my boil kettle and the pellet hops was a pain to filter. I will have to get some kind of a hop bag for my next brew. It took forever to drain 5 gallons with a clogged braid. The big pain was not having a chiller, so I had to let it cool by sitting it in my fermenter fridge and pitching the yeast about 9 hours later. My og was targeted at 1.064 and finished with it being 1.060. I was just hoping to end up with a somewhat drinkable beer for my first attempt. I found a lot of useful info on this message board, so thanks everyone for the posts!

 

[Lil' Sparky]

Sounds like a decent 1st AG go-round. Gotta get a wort chiller before your next brew session! That's a must. And if you can't solve the hop filter issue, just remove the braid. Letting everything go to the fermenter is OK. It won't ruin your beer. I've done it many times with hop pellets and a CFC chiller.

[nag] Where's the brew porn?? Post some pics of your setup! [/nag]

 

[chainsawbrewing]

i want a wort chiller, but it's by no means "neccesarry", just helpfull/cheaper in the long run.

i've brewed about 15 AG batches now, and gotten them from the fire, to pitching temps in under 20 minutes every time.

i just cap tight the lid to my brew kettle, and put the whole thing in a big plastic trash can type tub full of two bags of ice, and some water. usually 10-15 minutes later it's under 80 degrees.

i only want a wort chiller so that i won't have to go thru the pain of having to go buy ice every brewday, and the cost of the ice.

 

[fatelvis]

So if I remove the braid and let all of the hops run through to the fermenter, will it not effect the finale taste of the brew? It seems much easier, but it seems like it would be a weak form of dry hopping.

 

[chainsawbrewing]

So if I remove the braid and let all of the hops run through to the fermenter, will it not effect the finale taste of the brew? It seems much easier, but it seems like it would be a weak form of dry hopping.

yeah. that's fine. i've done it that way several times. or, you could just remove the braid, and use a strainer on top of your carboy/bucket, or a funnel with a built in strainer if you don't want to deal with leaving them behind when you rack to secondary.