First All Grain, Second Brew Day

[corypedia]

So my first batch is in the books and it turned out okay. It's drinkable and friends and family said it was good. Me personally, I thought it was just average at best, but for a first go around I'll take it.

The first batch was an extract kit and I decided to go for an all-grain Brew Day. Thanks to this site, I built me a Mash Tun from a water cooler last night and it seems to work great (no leaks).

So today i'm ready to my first all grain batch and am trying to piece together the proper steps. I've included the instructions, and am going to take the following steps. Please feel free to tell me if there's something i'm missing...

1. Heat water to 152*
- Should the water be a few degrees warmer to maintain temp during transfer to cooler?
- How much water should I use to mash? 2 qts per 1lb of grain sound right?

2. Dump grain into MT and stir

3. Cover with blanket and let stand for an hour


--- Sparging is were things get murky ---
Do I do 4a or 4b?

4a. Drain wort from MT into brew kettle, collecting the first quart or so until it runs clear. Add cloudy wort back into MT.

4b. Add water to MT to bring temp up to 170*, then drain wort from MT into brew kettle

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[SirSpectre]

Do both. In that order.


Edit: or for clarity, after doing the first runnings to clear the wort, keep it going slowly.....Sssslllooowwwwly. about a quart a minute. This takes some experience to get used to your equipment. Once it drains, add more water at specified temp. Let sit for a few minutes again to settle and repeat above until you get your pre-boil volume. This is a batch sparge.

 

[Vamptrump]

You want the water hotter than what you are going to mash at. There are calculators for this, but based on the amount of grain, temperature of grain, etc. you can expect the temperature to drop a specific amount.

As for sparging. You will want to drain the MT until it runs clear collecting the liquid and putting it back in the MT. This is called the vorlauf. Once the wort is running clear and drained, then you will add your water you heated to the MT and repeat the process of draining the MT with the vorlauf (assuming you do batch sparging vs. fly sparging).


That being said...I'm lazy sometimes and don't do that all the time. Sometimes I just add all the water I need and ignore sparging. Other times I add a fine mesh bag to the end of my MT and skip vorlaufing. Should I be doing this, probably not, who knows, but I haven't had any issues with the process I use. I would recommend what I said earlier though for your first AG.

 

[standpoint]

IMO, those instructions are pretty bad.

You want an END result (after adding water and grains into mash tun) to be 152 - the actual water temp you add is hard to say, as you need to take cooling into affect for the following: mash tun heat absorption, grain heat absorption. After an hour, you will probably lose a few degrees, which is OK.

I would use star san or vodka instead of water in the airlock.

I would definitely give the beer longer than a week to ferment before bottling, personally I would give it at least 2-4 weeks.

 

[brew_ny]

a good calculator that may help as temp and amount of water

http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php

all the best

S_M

 

[normonster]

Going to be a fun day dude. Just keep in mind that things get twisted sometimes but if it's all clean you'll get beer.

Get some oxygen in that wort before you pitch yeast.

 

[aprichman]

1 week fermentation without checking gravity is insane advice IMO

 

[kh54s10]

IMO those are terrible instructions.
The instructions describe a fly sparge. If you made a mash tun with a water hose braid or a bazooka tube you need to do a batch sparge. If you try to do a fly sparge it will likely channel and you will miss your OG.
How much wort you need to collect for the boil is not that simple. You need to determine your boil off rate. This depends on temperature and pot geometry. I need 7 gallons to end up with just over 5 gallons in the fermenter.
Cool to the mid sixties, 70 degrees at least.
Rehydrating dry yeast is a better procedure. (Proof it)
Use starsan or Vodka in the airlock.
Control the fermentation temperature to the mid sixties - 70 degrees max for most ale yeasts.
Decide on when the fermentation is finished by taking gravity readings. Going just one week risks creating bottle bombs.
Your bottles may condition in just 2 weeks but may take longer. I find that all of the batches I have bottled tasted better at 3 weeks or longer.

 

[corypedia]

Thanks for all the advice, especially the sparge water calculator.

 

[corypedia]

I'm currently sparging and had one addt'l question. After the 60 minute boil, is it okay if i put a frozen block of ice in the wort to help cool and bring it to needed volume?

i've read of others doing this, but wouldn't it water down my gravity/wort?

 

[kh54s10]

I'm currently sparging and had one addt'l question. After the 60 minute boil, is it okay if i put a frozen block of ice in the wort to help cool and bring it to needed volume?

i've read of others doing this, but wouldn't it water down my gravity/wort?

I would only do this if you boiled the water then froze it. City water might be sterile enough but I would not risk it.

 

[corypedia]

I did in fact boil it first. just want to make sure it won't mess with the gravity or wort in a negative way

 

[corypedia]

also, another question...once the mash is done and i drain that into my brew kettle and add half the sparge water to my MT, wait 10 minutes then slowly drain it into the brew kettle. At this point, am i supposed to add the other half of my sparge water AND whats in the brew kettle? so far i've just added the sparge water. on my second round of sparging now.

 

[jtratcliff]

If your recipe doesn't account for the amount of water in the block of ice, you will dilute your wort and lower you OG. There are things you can do to account for it, but it's similar to adding top off water in a partial boil batch. Your pre-top off OG needs to be right.

I wouldn't do it ad hoc in a 1st go round.

 

[jtratcliff]

also, another question...once the mash is done and i drain that into my brew kettle and add half the sparge water to my MT, wait 10 minutes then slowly drain it into the brew kettle. At this point, am i supposed to add the other half of my sparge water AND whats in the brew kettle? so far i've just added the sparge water. on my second round of sparging now.

Yup just the water.... You don't want to add the previously collected sweet wort back to the mash.

And you don't *need* to do a double batch sparge. A single sparge is often good enough. Unless of course, your system isn't able to hold the volumes for a single sparge.

Congrats on your first AG mash!

 

[kh54s10]

If you collect the proper amount of sparge water, boil and end up with the proper amount of wort into the fermenter, adding ice will dilute the mixture. I sparge with just over half of what I need to achieve my boil volume. I need 7 gallons to end up with just over 5 into the fermenter. I collected 2.5 gallons from the mash. I did the first half of my sparge and ended up with about 5 gallons so I added just over 2 gallons for the final sparge. I measure this with a dip stick I made. I added a gallon of water to the pot, made a notch, added another gallon and another notch etc.

With batch sparging I stir really well, vorlauf slowly to set the grain bed. I then open the valve wide open. As long as this does not suck the grainbed down creating a stuck sparge the speed of draining is not critical. In fact it might get more sugars if you don't give them time to get stuck up in the grain bed.

 

[kh54s10]

Computer is slow - double post.

 

[doug293cz]

I did in fact boil it first. just want to make sure it won't mess with the gravity or wort in a negative way

If you just throw a block of ice in the hot wort, it will melt and dilute the wort, leading to lower OG. A better way is to freeze the water in plastic containers, then sanitize the containers before putting into the wort. They have the same cooling power as an equivalent amount of bare ice, but will not dilute the wort.

Brew on

 

[corypedia]

Yup just the water.... You don't want to add the previously collected sweet wort back to the mash.

And you don't *need* to do a double batch sparge. A single sparge is often good enough. Unless of course, your system isn't able to hold the volumes for a single sparge.

Congrats on your first AG mash!

Good to know. I just figured i'd try and get it rinsed the best as possible.

oh and thanks! it's been fun!

 

[corypedia]

If you just throw a block of ice in the hot wort, it will melt and dilute the wort, leading to lower OG. A better way is to freeze the water in plastic containers, then sanitize the containers before putting into the wort. They have the same cooling power as an equivalent amount of bare ice, but will not dilute the wort.

Brew on

Ah, great idea...so my current block of ice is in a 2-liter coke bottle. it was boiled and sanitized. should i just sanitize the outside real well and throw the whole thing in?

maybe after an initial cooldown? so i don't risk melting the plastic?

 

[jtratcliff]

Good to know. I just figured i'd try and get it rinsed the best as possible.

oh and thanks! it's been fun!

You can possibly gain a few points from a second sparge but it's not a huge amount. I think the 2nd sparge is more worthwhile for a larger grain bill.

Some where on here some reported the gravity points from no-sparge, single sparge, double sparge... I can't recall the details but the upshot was the 2nd batch sparge was just barely worth the effort, if you didn't mind the extra time or if you had a really big grain bill.

If your equipment can handle the volume, then a single sparge is usually sufficient... Law of diminishing returns and all that.

Fun is good. Especially the 1st time out. Now comes the hard part.... Waiting to drink it!

 

[doug293cz]

Ah, great idea...so my current block of ice is in a 2-liter coke bottle. it was boiled and sanitized. should i just sanitize the outside real well and throw the whole thing in?

maybe after an initial cooldown? so i don't risk melting the plastic?

Yes, sanitize the outside of the bottle. Pay particular attention to the cap & thread area, as the crevices are potential infectious agent traps. I tried a quick experiment with a plastic soda bottle. I dipped the top portion in boiling water, and here is the result:



The cap material in the retained ring softened but did not distort. The bottle material on the other hand shrunk considerably. If the bottle is full of ice, then that may prevent the distortion due to the incompressibility of the ice/water inside, and the cooling action of the contained ice. You may feel safer waiting for the wort to cool before tossing in the frozen bottle.

Brew on