First All Grain

[bushump]

Well guys after reading posts on here for weeks before I got all my equipment together, I finally did my first all grain last weekend. I brewed a sweet stout. I had brewed a few batches a while back but after a buddy started all grain I decided I needed to get back into it. What fun other than the diaster I had.

I have the coleman extreme with a copper manifold. I decided not to solder any of the parts together thinking that they went together very tightly and the 13.5 lbs of grain would hold them. Well I was wrong on that thought. I got a stuck sparge and after sticking my hand in the hot ass water I realized one of the ends had come apart. I ended up scooped most of the grain out into a bucket and then pouring the rest into the bucket while I fixed the manifold. After it was put back together I poured the soaking grains back into the tun. After two more batch sparges everything came out great. Luckly I had set my efficency low enough in Beersmith, since it was my first all grain. After all said and done my OG still came out 2 points higher than set in Beersmith. Hopefully this means I will get a good efficency once everything works correctly.

My suggestion is now I am going to solder the end parts of the manifold so that don't come apart.

Brandon

 

[The Pol]

That is what I kindly refer to as the "personality" of your brewing system! Congrats on making it work, just think, your next batch will go perfectly smooth! Heh, or maybe not, but such is the life of a homebrewer!

 

[blacklab]

Naw, everything went great! You're just dialing in your system!

 

[Brett0424]

You came out higher than your expected gravity! That's not a disaster. Cooking your hand sucks though.

 

[maltMonkey]

It's always fun to try a new system and see how much of what works in theory holds together when applied. Sounds like a great first adventure!

 

[DeathBrewer]

nothing like some nice scalding water to see what you did wrong

sounds like the beer will come out fine, though and you learned something new for the next brew session

 

[e lo]

Welcome to the world of AG! I had the same thing happen w/ my braid on my first run a few months ago. Sucks, eh? But it gets better from here!

 

[BierMuncher]

Hard to believe they came apart. Mine are not welded and when they are hot, they're pert near impossible to pull apart.

IF you can keep at least two of the connections unsoldered, you'll still be able to "open" up the manifold and flush it.