I just finished brewing my first AG batch. A Mirror Pond Pale Ale clone from AHS. I haven't used BeerSmith before, so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and plug the recipe into BeerSmith and look at the directions it produced to compare with the AHS directions. They were very similar.
So, I got my strike water ready, a little over 3 gallons of water, started the mash and mashed for a little over an hour at about 155, which was about 5 degrees warmer than AHS suggested.
Then because I only have a 5 gallon cooler to mash, I did two batch sparges which amounted to almost 5 gallons. I thought this might be too much water, but it's what BeerSmith said to use and I decided to just follow the directions.
After the mash was done I ended up with just a tad over 7 gallons preboil at an OG of 1.037, BeerSmith said I should have had 6.25 gallons with an OG of 1.044. I chalked the difference in OG up to having more volume than I expected.
I boiled for about an hour and a half, thinking I'd boil off some of the excess. I ended up with a final volume in the fermenter of 5.5 gallons with an OG of 1.044, BeerSmith said I should have had 5 gallons with an OG of 1.053.
Are my numbers off because I used too much water, or is there a another issue I should be looking at? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Quick Update: I just went and took a look at the fermenter, it looks like there is settling going on. Almost like there is a ton of trub, but I just pitched the yeast 15 minutes ago. Is this a common aspect of All Grain brewing, or did I mess something up? I took a picture, but I must not be able to post it as a free member, I'm guessing.
So, I got my strike water ready, a little over 3 gallons of water, started the mash and mashed for a little over an hour at about 155, which was about 5 degrees warmer than AHS suggested.
Then because I only have a 5 gallon cooler to mash, I did two batch sparges which amounted to almost 5 gallons. I thought this might be too much water, but it's what BeerSmith said to use and I decided to just follow the directions.
After the mash was done I ended up with just a tad over 7 gallons preboil at an OG of 1.037, BeerSmith said I should have had 6.25 gallons with an OG of 1.044. I chalked the difference in OG up to having more volume than I expected.
I boiled for about an hour and a half, thinking I'd boil off some of the excess. I ended up with a final volume in the fermenter of 5.5 gallons with an OG of 1.044, BeerSmith said I should have had 5 gallons with an OG of 1.053.
Are my numbers off because I used too much water, or is there a another issue I should be looking at? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Quick Update: I just went and took a look at the fermenter, it looks like there is settling going on. Almost like there is a ton of trub, but I just pitched the yeast 15 minutes ago. Is this a common aspect of All Grain brewing, or did I mess something up? I took a picture, but I must not be able to post it as a free member, I'm guessing.
