First ALL-GRAIN!!!

[smoothlarryhughes]

So...i brewed my first all grain batch today. Austin Home Brew English Pale Ale.

This was my 3rd brew...1st was an extract with specialty grains, second was a partial mash.

I did a batch sparge with a 52 quart coleman xtreme cooler. My preboil volume was 6.5 gallons...and I actually ended up with about 4.75 gallons after the 1 hour boil (very cold and dry here in pennsylvania)...so I topped up with .25 gallons to get to my 5 gallon total. Is this a bad idea?

My gravity as estimated on the austin home brew sheet says 1.052, and mine was at 1.050 (measured with a hydrometer at 72 degress F).

Ingredients were 9.5 lbs maris otter malt
.5 lb crystal 40
.5 lb cara pils malt

I ended up mashing at 150 degrees (per austin home brew), even though i heard 154 is ideal.

I'm curious as to how I would calculate my efficiency??? What do you guys think?

 

[Skyforger]

Looks like you got about 73% efficiency or so, and basically hit target gravity at target volume (especially since your hydro reading was at 72*F). So, that's about perfect. Having around 75% efficiency is handy, since that's what most recipes are designed around.

I calculated that efficiency using the recipe formulator at beercalculus.hopville.com. I just put in the malt ingredients, made sure the volume was 5.0 gallons, and changed the efficiency until the projected OG was the same as what you reported. Pretty simple.

Adding water to reach correct volume is no problem. I alway boil a gallon or so of water before brewday, then put it in a sanitized jug in the fridge. Saves time if I need to lower the OG a bit, or if more water boils off than expected. I let hydrometer readings determine water additions, though, not volume measurements. Better to have 4 3/4 gallons beer of the right gravity than 5 that was too diluted.