first batch of AG...

[ingnuty]

Okay, so I brewed my first batch of AG yesterday, and I'm not sure how it's going to turn out as I had a pretty pieced together method... here goes...

I brought 2 pots of water to a boil and turned the heat down to just under a boil. In the larger pot I added my 2-row briess pale (9.5#) into about 3gal water and 2.5# of chocolate/crystal/black patent into about 1gal water. Brought them both close to a boil, shut off the heat and put on thr lids. Let them sit there for 15min then dumped into a cleaned, sanitized cooler and shut the lid while I boiled another 4gal of water.
Once water was at boiling, I shut off the heat and waited for the boil to stop and then added the water to the cooler. I let this all sit for 30 minutes and then started straining the contents into a bucket. Once done, (with a giant mess everywhere) I had about 4.5 gallons of really dark liquid.
I took 3.5gal and started my boil while I quickly cooled the rest with ice. Added hops (1oz centennial for 60 and 1oz northern brewer for 30). Cooled it in a water/ice bath and added to fermentation bucket, added cooled leftover gallon, added cold water to the 5.5gal mark, pitched s-04 (rehydrated), closed it up and now its in my downstairs shower. It has activity, and hasn't come through the airlock (yet).

This is my 5th brew overall. Any thoughts on what I may have problems with? Haha. I know this is kinda long... everything was sanitized... the cooler, both buckets, strainer, spoons, pitcher, everything.

 

[sptaylor70]

So you mashed your grain in just-under-boiling water? At over, say, 159 degF, the diastatic enzymes begin to denature. So if you mash in at just under boil, then you don't have any enzymes for mashing and will wind up with a pretty weak beer. What was your original specific gravity? Did the wort taste sweet?

 

[ingnuty]

My hydrometer broke, so I'm not sure of the starting gravity. Womp, womp. BUT everything was sticky and it was definitely sweet. My whole house smelled like cereal and there is definitely active fermentation. I figured there would be heat loss through the top of the cooler and during water transfer. Also when I put the grain in at first, that causes the temperature to drop, right?

 

[ingnuty]

After this round, I'm going to pick up a 10gal cooler and false bottom and pick up my turkey fryer from my parent's house. I just figured I'd try this out and see what happens. $25 for all the grain and hops... Not bad for a full trial batch I didn't think.

 

[sptaylor70]

Adding the grain does cause a temperature drop, but it's not as dramatic as I think you would want. For the beer that I'm brewing today, I mashed 9.5 lbs. of grain in 11 qts. of water. To hit my desired strike temperature of 152 degF, I only wanted to get the pre-mash water up to 167 degF. Once the enzymes are denatured, no temperature drop will bring them back.

It is, however, an encouraging sign that you have sweet wort that leaves a sticky residue. But without a hydrometer reading, you're in the dark about where you started.

I hope that it works out. $25 is still four six-packs of quality beer. Post your result.

 

[dozer5454]

I would also love to hear the results. I have never mashed at those temps before. This could be a nice experiment thread. Just wish you could have gotten an OG or held back some of the wort prior to pitching your yeast.

 

[ingnuty]

Well, we shall see what happens. As long as I have airlock activity through tonight I'll be happy (even though when it stops I know that's not necessarily indicative of the end of fermentation). I'm excited for it though because it smelled AMAZING when I pitched the yeast.