First attempt at AG

[ZomBob]

Hello All,

I'm new to the forum and decided I would take you all along on my first venture in all grain brewing with my brother. We have been gathering equipment and hacking stuff together so I thought I would post our first process and see if 1) it can help a new brewer like myself and, 2) allow you all to point out any missteps in our new endeavor.

For our first attempt we decided on an American Amber Ale and found a recipe from a LHBS. We of course had to rename it something funny and the recipe follows:

Hoppy, Hoppy, Joy, Joy

Recipe specifics:

Style: American Amber Ale
Batch size: 5.0 gal
Boil volume: 6.0 gal
OG: 1.063 (Actually came in at 1.056)
FG: 1.016
Bitterness (IBU): 42.3
Color (SRM): 14.8
ABV: 6.2%

Grain/Sugars:

10.00 lb Two-row (US), 83.3%
1.00 lb Munich (US), 8.3%
0.75 lb CaraVienne, 6.2%
0.25 lb Chocolate Malt (US), 2.1%

Hops:

0.50 oz Columbus (AA 15.4%, Pellet) 60 min, 26.1 IBU
0.50 oz Columbus (AA 15.4%, Pellet) 15 min, 12.9 IBU
0.50 oz Amarillo (AA 8.0%, Pellet) 5 min, 2.7 IBU
0.50 oz Amarillo (AA 8.0%, Pellet) 1 min, 0.6 IBU
0.50 oz Amarillo (AA 8.0%, Pellet) dry hop

Recipe Notes:


Started with 7 gallons of 60 degree tap water heated to 166 degrees.

Strike at 166-168. Mash in at 155 for 90 minutes with 3.3 gallons. Did not preheat cooler mashtun. Hold 4.66 gallons at 200 degrees for sparge/second infusion.

Added 1 gallon to brew pot in case.

Recirculate 2-3 gallons after 90 minutes. Sparge with 2.5 gallons at 180 degrees. Mash had dropped to 150. Added reserved gallon! It was needed.

Transfer wort to brew kettle at 150 degrees. Bring to boil.

Add first.5 oz of Columbus at 60 minutes. Almost had boil over at hop addition. Added 2 drops fermcap. Still having foam issues so left lid cracked.

Hopped according to schedule at 15, 5, and 1 minute.

Wort was at 212 degrees going into wort chiller. Exited at 63 degrees into primary fermenter. Original gravity at 1.056.

Pitched 1 packet Safale US-05 yeast into 4.5 gallons, sealed bucket, and placed in basement with ambient temp at about 60 degrees. Slight bubbles were present in the air lock at 4 hours after brewing.



Batch Notes:

Wort tastes of strong coffee and caramel. Sweet but not cloyingly so. Very dark. Spent grains have a bitter or sour aftertaste.

Columbus hops smell fruity out of the bag. Nice bitter aroma at almost 30 minute boil.

Amarillo is slightly brighter in aroma.

Hopped wort was only slightly bitter and had a good amber color.

-----


I used BrewR to catalog the recipe and time it on my phone. It seemed to work well. Other than missing the final hop addition by 30 seconds and completely forgetting to use whirlfloc I think we did okay.

The equipment we have are as follows:

1- 32 qt Brewpot with thermometer and ball valve assembly with a bazooka filter

1- 48 qt cooler mashtun with a homemade bazooka filter ( from a water heater pipe and some hose clamps)

1- Fly sparge arm made from various lengths of cpvc and a sharkbite connector

1- counterflow wort chiller from amazon (cheaper than most I've seen and of seemingly good quality. Worked great today)


I'll try and keep this thread updated as the weeks go by and we finally get to taste a final product. We are planning on racking to a glass carboy in about a week or so depending on yeast activity. Probably let it go in a secondary for another week or so and then kegging it and force carbonating using the 30lb/roll and shake maneuver. Cheers and feel free to tell me where I went wrong if you see anything that looks a little wonky!

 

[OKCAg2002]

Congrats! I'll be there soon. Might want to open our garage door for ventilation, though. I'm not sure what the propane gases do to you if not vented.

 

[ilikeguns]

Looks like a successful brew day!

Congrats! I'll be there soon. Might want to open our garage door for ventilation, though. I'm not sure what the propane gases do to you if not vented.

THIS! not to be "that guy" but those burners emit CO and can be very dangerous.

 

[snowtires]

I have the exact same pot setup. Its awesome value for the price. I'm in Canada I got mike from Ontariobeerkegs.com

 

[ZomBob]

I have the exact same pot setup. Its awesome value for the price. I'm in Canada I got mike from Ontariobeerkegs.com

My brother bought his online off Amazon. It seemed to do the job but I need more experience working with the burner. It was very economical, doesn't leak, temperatures were dead on when checked against a secondary thermometer, and kept almost all hop sediment in the kettle. I think I'm going to do a 2 keggle system once I start getting my own equipment.

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[ZomBob]

Congrats! I'll be there soon. Might want to open our garage door for ventilation, though. I'm not sure what the propane gases do to you if not vented.

We had a garage door and 2 windows open and I still got lightheaded and went outside to clear up a bit. Not sure if that's from CO2 or unburned propane from me trying to give the spurs to the wort to boil. Not used to this burner so it could have been user error.

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[narl79]

Nice. Soinds like your on your way to some good beer. I guess my little tid bit woukd be to not leave your kettle lid on. You don't want that condensation going back into your beer.

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[BigFloyd]

We had a garage door and 2 windows open and I still got lightheaded and went outside to clear up a bit. Not sure if that's from CO2 or unburned propane from me trying to give the spurs to the wort to boil. Not used to this burner so it could have been user error.

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Even with everything working correctly, the combustion will still produce CO (carbon monoxide). Hence the need for good ventilation.

Nice setup. Here's to y'all brewing lots of tasty beer on it.

I'd suggest not doing the shake/roll method for carbing. I did that once, learned my lesson, and never will again (that keg never would clear up). I normally just put a filled/purged/chilled keg in my keezer with the others at service pressure (10-12psi) and give it 12-14 days. If you want it faster, chill the keg to 38-40*F, set the psi to 30 for 24 hours, do 20psi for the next 18-24 hours and then to serving pressure. With each drop, disconnect the gas (unless you have a shut off valve), release the excess pressure, then re-connect at the lower psi to prevent back flow into the regulator.

 

[Conan]

Nice.

If it were me I'd leave it in primary at least ten days, two weeks if you can stand the wait. Skip the secondary- just another vessel to clean- and leave your primary somewhere cool for a few days to cold crash.

Unlike BigFloyd I've never had trouble with the shake and roll method of carbing. Currently I usually hit the keg with 30psi to seal everything, then shake it for 30 seconds or so. I may do this twice or three times. Then the keg goes right in the fridge with gas hooked up at serving pressure (11-14psi for my system) without venting from 30psi. After a couple days I'll pull a pint and it usually has a little sign of carbonation. After a week it's good to go and is pretty clear, and after two weeks it's perfect. Kyle

 

[ZomBob]

I have brewed with my father in law before and he always put 30 psi on the keg, roll gently for 3 minutes, bleed off the 30 psi, put back on at 5 psi and drink immediately. Then he just checks the pressure vs head over the next day or two to make sure it doesn't over carb or go flat. What issues there?

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[brew_ny]

Still having foam issues so left lid cracked.

you do not want to boil with the lid on, a spray bottle with star san in it is a good way to stop a boil over

all the best

S_M

 

[BigFloyd]

you do not want to boil with the lid on, a spray bottle with star san in it is a good way to stop a boil over

True dat.

If you leave the lid on during a boil, the DMS (Di-Methyl Sulfide) in the steam condenses under the lid and drips back to your wort. It can cause the beer to have an unwanted cream corn/cooked corn flavor. If the steam can freely escape, it takes that 'ol nasty DMS with it.

 

[ZomBob]

True dat.

If you leave the lid on during a boil, the DMS (Di-Methyl Sulfide) in the steam condenses under the lid and drips back to your wort. It can cause the beer to have an unwanted cream corn/cooked corn flavor. If the steam can freely escape, it takes that 'ol nasty DMS with it.

Good to know. Never really picked that flavor up before but would rather not. Okay here's a question...we only came out of the boil with 4.5 gallons. Should we have added water before fermenting? What about after fermenting but before kegging? Should I even worry about it?

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[BigFloyd]

we only came out of the boil with 4.5 gallons. Should we have added water before fermenting? What about after fermenting but before kegging? Should I even worry about it?

If you hit your expected OG, but come up a bit short on volume, run with what you've got. If the OG is higher than planned, you can top off to full volume with either bottled spring/drinking water or tap (that's been treated to remove both chlorine and chloramines).

I prefer to gauge the volume during the boil with either an aluminum dip stick (marked to show volume for that kettle) or the mounted sight gauge I use now (also marked). Northern tool has a 2ft aluminum measuring stick that's cheap and works well.

I wouldn't add water after fermentation just to try to get extra volume. At this point, I wouldn't worry at all about it.

 

[EarlyAmateurZymurgist]

Your boil was too vigorous. As BigFloyd mentioned, you need to monitor your evaporation rate throughout the boil.

I do have a suggestion, and that is, you should consider switching to batch sparging with your setup. The geometry/volume of your tun, lack of a proper false bottom, and your sparge arm (way too much flow) are working against you. Your extraction rate was (1.046 - 1.0) x 1,000 x 4.5 / 6 = 17.25 points per pound per gallon (roughly 48%). You should be able to get your extraction rate up to the 26.25 points per pound per gallon extraction rate on which the recipe that you brewed is based simply by switching to batch sparging.

 

[ZomBob]

Your boil was too vigorous. As BigFloyd mentioned, you need to monitor your evaporation rate throughout the boil.

I do have a suggestion, and that is, you should consider switching to batch sparging with your setup. The geometry/volume of your tun, lack of a proper false bottom, and your sparge arm (way too much flow) are working against you. Your extraction rate was (1.046 - 1.0) x 1,000 x 4.5 / 6 = 17.25 points per pound per gallon (roughly 48%). You should be able to get your extraction rate up to the 26.25 points per pound per gallon extraction rate on which the recipe that you brewed is based simply by switching to batch sparging.

I think i am tracking what you are saying but clearly need to do a little more reading before i can properly respond. I will remind you this is a first time attempt so we were a little light on science and a little heavy on hope.

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[EarlyAmateurZymurgist]

I think i am tracking what you are saying but clearly need to do a little more reading before i can properly respond. I will remind you this is a first time attempt so we were a little light on science and a little heavy on hope.

I wasn't trying to be disrespectful of your first attempt. It is natural for new all-grain brewers to gravitate towards traditional continuous (a.k.a. "fly") sparging. After all, that's they way the big boys do it. However, mash tun design is critical to achieving high extraction rates when using traditional continuous sparging.

With continuous sparging, one's lauter tun has to be designed to promote equal downward flow through the entire mash bed; otherwise, one will end up with sparge liquor channeling through the portion of the mash bed that offers the path of least resistance. With a braid-based bazooka tube, the path of least resistance is the column of grain directly above the braid. A well-designed full-floor slotted manifold can alleviate a large portion of the channeling problem; however, it will not promote equal downward flow as well as a well-designed full-floor perforated false bottom.

The use of a mash tun with a rectangular geometry compounds the channeling problem because the geometry does not promote equal pressure across the mash bed. Professional mash tuns are round for the same reason that storage tanks are round; namely, the geometry promotes equal pressure in all directions.

The attribute that I respect the most about batch sparging is that extraction efficiency is not tightly coupled to lauter tun design, which makes batch sparging a more foolproof method of separating the residual sugars from the mash bed. Because the residual sugars are separated from the mash bed via stirring, there is no need to ensure equal pressure and resistance in the mash bed. In essence, batch sparging takes sparge water flow dynamics out of the equation.

With that said, if you still wish to pursue continuous sparging, you should seriously consider switching to using a round beverage cooler (or a kettle) with a proper false bottom as your mash/lauter tun. A lot of amateur brewers rightfully steer away from this type of design because it is more expensive to build than a rectangular cooler with a bazooka screen or braid-based design. I have been continuous sparging with a beverage cooler-based mash/lauter tun for so long that I doubt that I will ever switch to another design or batch sparging. I have reached a point with continuous sparging where I no longer have to babysit the sparge. I start the sparge and go off and do other things.


Here's a photo of the inside of my latest mash tun:

 

[ZomBob]

I wasn't trying to be disrespectful of your first attempt. It is natural for new all-grain brewers to gravitate towards traditional continuous (a.k.a. "fly") sparging. After all, that's they way the big boys do it. However, mash tun design is critical to achieving high extraction rates when using traditional continuous sparging.

With continuous sparging, one's lauter tun has to be designed to promote equal downward flow through the entire mash bed; otherwise, one will end up with sparge liquor channeling through the portion of the mash bed that offers the path of least resistance. With a braid-based bazooka tube, the path of least resistance is the column of grain directly above the braid. A well-designed full-floor slotted manifold can alleviate a large portion of the channeling problem; however, it will not promote equal downward flow as well as a well-designed full-floor perforated false bottom.

The use of a mash tun with a rectangular geometry compounds the channeling problem because the geometry does not promote equal pressure across the mash bed. Professional mash tuns are round for the same reason that storage tanks are round; namely, the geometry promotes equal pressure in all directions.

The attribute that I respect the most about batch sparging is that extraction efficiency is not tightly coupled to lauter tun design, which makes batch sparging a more foolproof method of separating the residual sugars from the mash bed. Because the residual sugars are separated from the mash bed via stirring, there is no need to ensure equal pressure and resistance in the mash bed. In essence, batch sparging takes sparge water flow dynamics out of the equation.

With that said, if you still wish to pursue continuous sparging, you should seriously consider switching to using a round beverage cooler (or a kettle) with a proper false bottom as your mash/lauter tun. A lot of amateur brewers rightfully steer away from this type of design because it is more expensive to build than a rectangular cooler with a bazooka screen or braid-based design. I have been continuous sparging with a beverage cooler-based mash/lauter tun for so long that I doubt that I will ever switch to another design or batch sparging. I have reached a point with continuous sparging where I no longer have to babysit the sparge. I start the sparge and go off and do other things.


Here's a photo of the inside of my latest mash tun:

I didn't think you were being disrespectful, just direct. I love your false bottom. My setup plan is a two keggle system with true false bottom, sight glass, and sparge arm. This is my brothers setup and his first time brewing since 1996. He isn't into the math and science so much and more just a hobbyist. I am a little more into the math and science aspect and have to fully explore the knowledge you just dropped on me. Thank you greatly for your input and please keep commenting as i update our process through the secondary fermentation phase into kegging. He is dead set to rack to a carboy on Saturday and keg/carbonate the next week. The first batch is killing him.

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[ZomBob]

As an aside, I would also like to brag that i just bought a pound of citra pellets and half a pound of amarillo hop pellets for 20 bucks. Looks like an ipa is in my future.

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[ZomBob]

I didn't think you were being disrespectful, just direct. I love your false bottom. My setup plan is a two keggle system with true false bottom, sight glass, and sparge arm. This is my brothers setup and his first time brewing since 1996. He isn't into the math and science so much and more just a hobbyist. I am a little more into the math and science aspect and have to fully explore the knowledge you just dropped on me. Thank you greatly for your input and please keep commenting as i update our process through the secondary fermentation phase into kegging. He is dead set to rack to a carboy on Saturday and keg/carbonate the next week. The first batch is killing him.

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So despite my better judgment we racked to a secondary today. We were still in very active fermentation but brother said we had to do it due to time constraints on his part. Tried the wort/ partially fermented beer and took another gravity reading. Everything seems to be tracking along.

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[ZomBob]

So despite my better judgment we racked to a secondary today. We were still in very active fermentation but brother said we had to do it due to time constraints on his part. Tried the wort/ partially fermented beer and took another gravity reading. Everything seems to be tracking along.

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[Travestian]

So despite my better judgment we racked to a secondary today. We were still in very active fermentation but brother said we had to do it due to time constraints on his part. Tried the wort/ partially fermented beer and took another gravity reading. Everything seems to be tracking along.

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I'm curious as to what kind of time constraints he was talking about. The yeast will be done when they are done. You can't rush it. Just about the only thing you can rush in the process of end of brew day to glass is carbonating and only if you force carb in a keg.

 

[ZomBob]

I'm curious as to what kind of time constraints he was talking about. The yeast will be done when they are done. You can't rush it. Just about the only thing you can rush in the process of end of brew day to glass is carbonating and only if you force carb in a keg.

He has two kids and between sports etc he didn't think he would have time during the week.....so I racked it for him. Otherwise I would have preferred to let it go another couple days to a week. This being his first brew in almost 20 years i think he is just excited to have his first one done to try. In the many brews to come I think he'll get to appreciate that waiting turns out a more balanced product and that in brewing, "only fools rush in". That being said I am equally excited to see how this batch turns out. Gravity when racked to secondary was about 1.012 if memory serves so we are tracking to get a high 5 to low 6 abv.

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[snowtires]

That's fine. I'm not a believer of a secondary except in certain conditions. Racking early means more yeast in secondary, more yeast means more ability to clean up the beer some more as if being in a primary. Now if you can leave it in secondary for a couple weeks it should be magical.
I am currently drinking an IPA that I kegged after 1 week in primary just as an expirament to see for myself if all the hoopla about patience is warrented, and indeed it is, while I am drinking beer its still not clear and the flavours are not nearly as clean and refined as a 3 weeker.

 

[ZomBob]

That's fine. I'm not a believer of a secondary except in certain conditions. Racking early means more yeast in secondary, more yeast means more ability to clean up the beer some more as if being in a primary. Now if you can leave it in secondary for a couple weeks it should be magical.
I am currently drinking an IPA that I kegged after 1 week in primary just as an expirament to see for myself if all the hoopla about patience is warrented, and indeed it is, while I am drinking beer its still not clear and the flavours are not nearly as clean and refined as a 3 weeker.

I'm pretty sure patience is key when brewing, fermenting, and kegging. I've only brewed about 5 times but I think that it is really important to take your time with temps, mash rests, and especially fermentation....which is why the early transfer got my OCD all wacky.

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