First All Grain Brew!!

[MapleGroveAleworks]

Maple, you da man! Thanks a lot for all the help brother. I have no idea what I'm doing over here lmao.

I pitched the yeast at a bit of a higher temp than I meant to because I had to leave for work and I ran out of time. So I just aerated and pitched at about 77*. So we'll see what happens.

No problem, glad to help. Just keep brewing and learning.

Yeah 77 isn't ideal but with the water pipe situation your found yourself in there's nothing you can do about it. Hopefully the ambient temp you left it in is below 70 though, or you could be dealing with some off flavors.

Google swamp cooling homebrew if you haven't looked that up yet. All you have to do is get a large tub, fill it with frozen soda bottles and bam you have ghetto temperature controlled fermentation. Easy way to ferment at any temp really besides lagering unless you used a **** ton of bottles.

 

[VladTheImpaler]

No problem, glad to help. Just keep brewing and learning.

Yeah 77 isn't ideal but with the water pipe situation your found yourself in there's nothing you can do about it. Hopefully the ambient temp you left it in is below 70 though, or you could be dealing with some off flavors.

Google swamp cooling homebrew if you haven't looked that up yet. All you have to do is get a large tub, fill it with frozen soda bottles and bam you have ghetto temperature controlled fermentation. Easy way to ferment at any temp really besides lagering unless you used a **** ton of bottles.

I keep my house at 68* so hopefully it drops fairly quickly. I think we're picking up a spare fridge my buddy has and turning that into a cold conditioning/fermenting chamber.

But yeah we're doing out best to learn and keep practicing. Our goal is to brew once a week. We did better with our numbers this time. Double crushed grain and a way slower sparge got us 1.069 OG. Actually higher than the 1.066 we were supposed to be at.

 

[MapleGroveAleworks]

I think we're picking up a spare fridge my buddy has and turning that into a cold conditioning/fermenting chamber.

But yeah we're doing out best to learn and keep practicing. Our goal is to brew once a week. We did better with our numbers this time. Double crushed grain and a way slower sparge got us 1.069 OG. Actually higher than the 1.066 we were supposed to be at.

Which is fine. If it bothers you, use this site to adjust with some top up water when you miss high on your gravity:

http://www.brewersfriend.com/dilution-and-boiloff-gravity-calculator/

Yeah double crush is always good and will usually lead to a slower sparge. My system lauters slowly too if I don't have rice hulls in the tun. So every batch while heating strike water and milling grain, I soak about a pound of rice hulls in my mash tun with water and then drain it out into a bucket so they're pre-soaked and won't steal any wort that way. Mash tun drains perfectly with them in there. Only a dollar of added expense to the batch.

Sounds like you're well on your way in the hobby!

 

[VladTheImpaler]

Which is fine. If it bothers you, use this site to adjust with some top up water when you miss high on your gravity:

http://www.brewersfriend.com/dilution-and-boiloff-gravity-calculator/

Yeah double crush is always good and will usually lead to a slower sparge. My system lauters slowly too if I don't have rice hulls in the tun. So every batch while heating strike water and milling grain, I soak about a pound of rice hulls in my mash tun with water and then drain it out into a bucket so they're pre-soaked and won't steal any wort that way. Mash tun drains perfectly with them in there. Only a dollar of added expense to the batch.

Sounds like you're well on your way in the hobby!

It actually doesn't bother me one bit, what's the worst the could happen? Higher ABV? :rockin:

But yeah the grain was more finely crushed which definitely led to a slower sparge, as well as me dialing back the flow of water some. Is it a good idea to use rice hulls in all your batches? I heard it's really only necessary when you make recipes that have wheat/oats/etc. in them.

 

[MapleGroveAleworks]

It actually doesn't bother me one bit, what's the worst the could happen? Higher ABV? :rockin:

But yeah the grain was more finely crushed which definitely led to a slower sparge, as well as me dialing back the flow of water some. Is it a good idea to use rice hulls in all your batches? I heard it's really only necessary when you make recipes that have wheat/oats/etc. in them.

It's basically mandatory in batches with wheat or oats, but also equally useful in a finer crush lauter

 

[PurpleJeepXJ]

Congrats on your first AG brew!! Welcome to the addiction.

 

[VladTheImpaler]

Okay so... we done goofed up a little bit. Started transferring to secondary to dry hop for the sole purpose of freeing up a 6.5 gal carboy for Tuesday's brew day... only to find out halfway that I was transferring to another 6.5 gal carboy... leaving a bunch of headroom which is a no no.

To help prevent any oxygen issues I ended up purging the carboy with co2 and plugging it with an airlock. Should that ensure to issues? Thanks a lot!

 

[jjw5015]

Should be fine if it's only for a few days. Not ideal, but what you did with the CO2 should help.

 

[VladTheImpaler]

Should be fine if it's only for a few days. Not ideal, but what you did with the CO2 should help.

How long would you recommend leaving it in the secondary before bottling/kegging considering the incident?

 

[jjw5015]

I'm sorry if I missed where you mentioned what you were brewing. Assuming you're dryhopping an IPA i'd say 4-5 days.

PS buy more fermenters and don't secondary anything you aren't long-term aging.

 

[VladTheImpaler]

I'm sorry if I missed where you mentioned what you were brewing. Assuming you're dryhopping an IPA i'd say 4-5 days.

PS buy more fermenters and don't secondary anything you aren't long-term aging.

Our plan wasn't to secondary, but we kinda just did it in a pinch. Within a week or so we're gonna just get kegs and start conditioning/dryhopping in kegs.