First All Grain Brew Tomorrow Looking for Any Last Insight

[robthefrog]

So I built myself a circular mash tun from one of those 10 gallon rubber made coolers (The orange ones). I've tested it for leaks. Seems to be ready to go.

I'll be doing this recipe: http://hopville.com/recipe/825852

My plan is to batch sparge. I plan on heating up my strike water to ~172F and then dumping it in the cooler first. Then close the cooler. Come back after a few minutes and test the temperature and hopefully it's around 164. If not, stir a little until 164, then add the grain whilst stirring vigorously and pray I hit 154. If I hit it I'm closing the damn thing right away and letting it sit for an hour. If I'm a little low but above 150 I'll still let it go. If I'm a little high, I'll stir it a little more. No goofing around. Then I'm going to sparge with 170 degree water. I've been told to drain the first runnings and the sparge water very slowly during vorlauf and transfer to brew pot.

I'm familiar with what to do once it's in the brew pot.

Just looking for any advice if you guys see any gaping issues. Any help or advice is appreciated!

Wish me luck!

 

[dinnerstick]

try to take good notes; temperatures, volumes, times, comments, things that didn't quite go as planned, etc. and each time you will get more precise with your new system

 

[cooper]

That's it, just take good notes. If you're going to be doing more all grain batches I'd get a PH tester and start recording those readings too as you want to maintain a mash PH of 5.5. What kind of water are you using?

The dark grains will bring the PH down and the light grains will bring the PH up. When doing light beers you'll need to add some acid (acid malt or phosphoric acid) to keep the PH from getting too high and extracting tannins. Lots of good info in the brew science section on this.

 

[tre9er]

The only thing I see you didn't mention is vorlauf. When you first open the valve (as you mentioned, open it maybe 1/4-3/8) there will be grain in the runnings. You don't want that in the kettle. Run off a few quarts of wort into a pitcher and pour it gently through a colander or over a spoon so as not to upset the grain bed, then run off into the kettle after the wort is clear.

 

[billl]

If you have a separate pot of boiling water ready and some ice in the fridge, you can eliminate the risk of being WAY off.

 

[kmos]

I might recommend holding off on the "HAHB" part of RDWHAHB til you get to the boil. On my first AG brewday, I was already on my second beer when stuff starting going wrong, which made it much more difficult to "RDW"

Enjoy!

 

[robthefrog]

That's it, just take good notes. If you're going to be doing more all grain batches I'd get a PH tester and start recording those readings too as you want to maintain a mash PH of 5.5. What kind of water are you using?

The dark grains will bring the PH down and the light grains will bring the PH up. When doing light beers you'll need to add some acid (acid malt or phosphoric acid) to keep the PH from getting too high and extracting tannins. Lots of good info in the brew science section on this.

The guy at the home brew store said he didn't even worry about this stuff. I bought some ph tester sticks (little plastic things that have a color square on them) and some 5.2 ph stabalizer. I'll probably up a tea spoon into the mash and see how that goes. I'm going to be using spring water bought from walmart.

Thanks for the tips everyone! I'll be sure to take notes.

 

[tre9er]

I don't worry about my PH, though I'm sure I should. I was told by a long-time brewer (my next-door neighbor) that our city water was great for brewing and I never looked back. I use the hard water as it comes into the house. It's not horribly hard, ie. gypsum is still commonly added to english styles, but it's served me well and all of my beer tastes great.

I'd be worried if you have chlorine in your water at high levels though.

Not a bad idea to check with fellow brewers who use your same city water and at some point get your water tested.

 

[Grannyknot]

You sound way better prepared & knowledgeable than I was on my first AG.
Have fun, and yes, take notes.

 

[Rev2010]

I have a few things to ask. Why are you going to add 172 degree water to your cooler than hope it acclimates when you add the grains and stir? very bad idea as you'll likely come in under temp. Here's a few of my *personal* opinions and how I do it:

1. Preheat your mash tun to your mashing temp. Use the hottest water out of your faucet to fill about a quater or third of your mash tun. Use boiling water from a tea kettle or pot to adjust it up to your mash temp and seal it shut. After that start heating your strike water to temp.

2. Use a brewing calculator to figure out what your strike water temp needs to be! I use Brewzor on my Android phone but there are others on all platforms and on the web. You input your current grain temp (just pop a thermometer in the grain to see what temp it's at - I let mine acclimate to room temp before starting), input your grain bill weight, your desired mash temp, and how much strike water you'll be using and whoila, it tells you what temp to heat the strike water to. I put the water in the mash tun, of course after dumping the preheat water! Then I add the grains while stirring.

3. Don't sparge with 170 degree water, you want to raise the grain temps to 170 or so, few degrees under or over doesn't matter. To do that you have to keep in mind that after draining your first runnings the grain temp will no longer be what your mash temp was. I generally heat my sparge water to around 195 or so, which after adding my first addition brings the temps up to 170 in the mash tun. I just put the lid on my sparge water pot and the next addition, since I double batch sparge, is always about the same temp. - you can use a brewing calc to also figure out your sparge water temp.

This is how I do things and I have wonderful brew days personally. Everything goes well and I've not had any dramatic problems. Always keep a tea kettle of boiling water handy to adjust temps up. I use cold sink water to adjust temps down. Again - this is my experience and personal opinion. There are a dozen different ways to do things so you'll find your own niche and others might have other opinions on how to do things.

Best of luck!


Rev.

 

[apshaffer]

Preheat the mash tun. I use about 2 gallons of 180F water for 15-20 minutes. Drain it, and add my strike water which is roughly 10F hotter than my mash temp. My sparge water needs to be near boiling to raise my temps to 168-170. I also split my sparge into 2 equal batches. Seems to up my efficiency. I would use a strike water calculator to figure out what your temps should be.

Add don't drink until you cleaning up. Starting off with 3/4ths of a buzz is not a good idea.

 

[tre9er]

Simpler than any other method for preheating mash-tun:

Add 185 degree strike water (all of it) and close lid. Check back every 5-10 minutes while you get other things ready, eat a sandwich, drink a beer, etc. When it's just a tad ABOVE your strike temp, dough-in. No draining of water and refilling, nothing.

As easy as it could possibly be.

 

[robthefrog]

I have a few things to ask. Why are you going to add 172 degree water to your cooler than hope it acclimates when you add the grains and stir? very bad idea as you'll likely come in under temp. Here's a few of my *personal* opinions and how I do it:

1. Preheat your mash tun to your mashing temp. Use the hottest water out of your faucet to fill about a quater or third of your mash tun. Use boiling water from a tea kettle or pot to adjust it up to your mash temp and seal it shut. After that start heating your strike water to temp.

2. Use a brewing calculator to figure out what your strike water temp needs to be! I use Brewzor on my Android phone but there are others on all platforms and on the web. You input your current grain temp (just pop a thermometer in the grain to see what temp it's at - I let mine acclimate to room temp before starting), input your grain bill weight, your desired mash temp, and how much strike water you'll be using and whoila, it tells you what temp to heat the strike water to. I put the water in the mash tun, of course after dumping the preheat water! Then I add the grains while stirring.

3. Don't sparge with 170 degree water, you want to raise the grain temps to 170 or so, few degrees under or over doesn't matter. To do that you have to keep in mind that after draining your first runnings the grain temp will no longer be what your mash temp was. I generally heat my sparge water to around 195 or so, which after adding my first addition brings the temps up to 170 in the mash tun. I just put the lid on my sparge water pot and the next addition, since I double batch sparge, is always about the same temp. - you can use a brewing calc to also figure out your sparge water temp.

This is how I do things and I have wonderful brew days personally. Everything goes well and I've not had any dramatic problems. Always keep a tea kettle of boiling water handy to adjust temps up. I use cold sink water to adjust temps down. Again - this is my experience and personal opinion. There are a dozen different ways to do things so you'll find your own niche and others might have other opinions on how to do things.

Best of luck!


Rev.

Hey, thanks for the advice. Here was where I was going with the temperature stuff. I was incorrect with the sparging temp mind you.

I want to add 172 degree water to the mash tun so that I can acclimate the mash tun to hit around 164F. This is the calculation I have for my amount of grains and grain temp. My friend was telling me that If I just put 164 degree water in the mash tun, I'd be in trouble because the mash tun itself would suck out so much heat while it warmed up. He said to go 5-8 degrees higher. He said if the mash tun is above 164 after 3 minutes just stir and wait until it's around 164. Then add the grains, which if the calculations are right will drop me to 154. Then after an hour I should sparge with 190F.

I'm not seeing where the first part of my process could cause me to have less temp than needed unless 172F isn't enough heat to begin with.

 

[robthefrog]

Simpler than any other method for preheating mash-tun:

Add 185 degree strike water (all of it) and close lid. Check back every 5-10 minutes while you get other things ready, eat a sandwich, drink a beer, etc. When it's just a tad ABOVE your strike temp, dough-in. No draining of water and refilling, nothing.

As easy as it could possibly be.

This is the strategy I was going for. I may not have been really clear. So sounds like I need more like 185F as opposed to my 172F value I pulled out of my ass.

 

[tre9er]

This is the strategy I was going for. I may not have been really clear. So sounds like I need more like 185F as opposed to my 172F value I pulled out of my ass.

Well, I strike with 6.6 gallons or so on my 9g batches. SO I've found 185 works well and takes a while to drop. If you're doing 5G, you could try 180.

After I've let it fall from that initial temp, whatever my software tells me my strike temp is, I dough-in with grain just above that a few degrees and stir like mad while doing so.

This last brew I used a wire whisk while doughing-in. Worked phenomenally to completely obliterate the possibility of dough balls. Can't believe I didn't think of it sooner.

 

[robthefrog]

Reporting back. I think it was pretty successful.
Here are my notes:
- Heated strike water (~5 gallons) to 182F and added to mash tun. It took about 15 minutes of stirring and closing the lid to get the temp down to my mash in temp of 164. Added a tbsp of 5.2 stabalizer.
- Added my 12.6 lbs of grain at 164 slowly and stirred like crazy with a mash paddle (my buddy did the grain pouring for me).
- Temperature was dead on at 154F. I closed the lid immediately and let it sit for an hour.
- After an hour I did a vorlauf at 1/3rd valve opening until clear then let it drain into the brew pot. Gently poured vorlauf water back into mash tun over a spoon.
- After drained (took about 10 minutes and seemed faster than it should have been), added 185F water (3.5 gallon) to the mash tun and stirred really good.
- Immediately did another vorlauf and drain. Ended up with 7 gallons pre-boil total.
- Stirred brewpot slightly and took a pre-boil gravity reading with my refractometer. Reading was 1.042, a bit off from my expected 1.048 called for in my recipe. The recipe assumed 75% efficiency. Not sure but I think I got maybe around 68-70% efficiency.
- Boiled for 90 minutes. I had to add half a gallon of water during the boil because I was concerned I was boiling off way too fast.
- End of 90 minute boil I had 5.2 gallons of wort left. Took a gravity reading at this point and got 1.054. Should have been 1.058-1.064 or so.
- I calculated my boil-off rate at 1.5 gallons/hr on today's brew day. 7.0 gallons starting, added .5 during boil. 7.5 - 5.2 = 2.3. 2.3/90 = 0.025 gallons lost a minute. 0.025*60 = 1.5 gallons per 60 minutes. My brewpot is a 15g mega pot.

Overall, I'm pretty damn pleased that I even came close to the correct OG. I think my efficiency was a bit poor. Maybe you guys can look through my notes and tell me why my efficiency was a bit poor. One big thing I noticed is that when watching youtube videos of the milled grain, my grain from the HBS seemed to not be as floury looking. Less white powder. It seemed like several intact hulls with very little white flour. Any thoughts? 80F outside in the garage and a bit humid. Gotta love Texas.

Either way, I'm pleased and bummed a bit at the same time, because I thought I was doing everything by the book. I appreciate all the last minute help I received over the past 2 days. You guys rock!

 

[Rev2010]

Congrats on your first brew! I must say, I'm rather impressed you countered the boil off with some extra water before it was too late! That is something that usually comes with a little more experience so kudos to you for getting it the first time. Eventually you will know your most common boil off rate and adjustments won't be very necessary in the future as you'll know ahead of time just how much preboil wort you need. That said, get a grain mill!!! I've said this probably 4-5 times in posts in the past month regarding all grain brewers. Us AG'ers often find the very next piece of gear to buy is a mill. It solves several problems - 1. Poor crush from your LHBS, 2. Inconsistent crush from your LHBS (since they sometimes adjust the mill gap and forget to readjust it), 3. Uncrushed grains, mistakes happen and when they do it can mean the difference between brewing or not brewing for the day, 4. Tighter crush for smaller grains like wheat.

Get a grain mill and never again worry about low efficiency or accidental uncrushed grain due to your LHBS.


Rev.

 

[tre9er]

Your efficiency was probably off for two reasons:

1. You had to add water to the boil that didn't go through the grains a-la sparge. Next brew you'll have adjusted boiloff and thus you'll sparge with another 0.5g. of water and that water will pick up some sugars along the way.
2. Sounds like the crush wasn't great from LHBS. I've lost up to 10% efficiency with in-tact grains. I crush ultra fine, a lot of flour but there ARE plenty of husks to create the lauter bed required. Have LHBS double-mill if possible or invest in your own mill. I use a Corona and have great, consistent efficiency with it at 80%.

 

[TheSlash]

I noticed no mash out, did the recipe call for one? That could have been some of your water/point loss. Other than that, sounds like you have a great grasp on the process. Of note.. once vorlauf is clear and running to the kettle I think most open the valve more as the bed is already filtering. Takes time off brew day.

Great job on adding more water to the BK, you can also add DME or whatnot if you were low to start with hitting the BK.

 

[SnidelyWhiplash]

I noticed no mash out, did the recipe call for one? That could have been some of your water/point loss. Other than that, sounds like you have a great grasp on the process. Of note.. once vorlauf is clear and running to the kettle I think most open the valve more as the bed is already filtering. Takes time off brew day.

Great job on adding more water to the BK, you can also add DME or whatnot if you were low to start with hitting the BK.

he says "added 185F water (3.5 gallon) to the mash tun"

I don't bother with a mashout in a similar setup because my 10gal cooler is usually full on 10gal batches. I start the sparge with hotter water so it will bring the water on top of the grain bed and eventually the grain up to sparge temp.

 

[tre9er]

Mashing out is a hotly debated item, but I believe Denny and Kai have shown that it has little effect on efficiency for homebrewers. It's main purpose, after-all, is to halt conversion and lock-in the sugar profile...typically on fly-sparges in commercial breweries that take hours to complete.

 

[TheSlash]

he says "added 185F water (3.5 gallon) to the mash tun"

I don't bother with a mashout in a similar setup because my 10gal cooler is usually full on 10gal batches. I start the sparge with hotter water so it will bring the water on top of the grain bed and eventually the grain up to sparge temp.

See, to me a proper mash out is when you add the near boiling water to your first mash to raise the grain temp and make runout easier. What he did to me was just his sparge. If he would have done a mash out with 4+ quarts of water, then sparged like normal, he would have had enough liquid to his BK.

For efficiency I agree, no big help from what I've seen.