First All-Grain in the books!

[depper]

Well, today I ventured into the world of all-grain brewing. I've done 4 batches of extract before and thought it was time to step it up.

Have to admit I had a great time doing this today! From the smell of the grains mashing to the smell of the hops boiling it was great. I started heating my HLT around 9:00am and finally pitched the yeast at 1:22pm.

My pre-boil (0.008 off) and post-boil ( 0.012 off) gravities were not really as close as I would have wanted but it still was a good time.

My "win" of the day came from how quickly it took to cool my wort. Of course, since it was in the low 30s today really helped too!

So my yeast starter is pitched and I'm hoping to see some bubbling within the next few hours (I oxygenated the wort before pitching with my O2 tank and stone). If that happens then I will call this brew a success:rockin:

I just wanted to thank everyone who has posted their knowledge on this site as it helped me get to this point in my brewing career. Happy brewing to all!

Tim

 

[squash1978]

Congrats! Once you get a few more under your belt you should get a better sense of your mash efficiency so that you can adjust your grain bill and hit your target gravitates. You can also use DME to bump up your pre-boil gravity if it's off. There are calculators online that you can use to determine the amount of DME you need to add.

 

[passedpawn]

depper, you da man!