First Batch!

[rompenstein]

Hey guys I'm new to the board and brewing in general. Just brewed my first batch on Saturday. Used the Nut Brown Ale recipe from Austin Homebrew Supply (which I must say is a pretty awesome place).

Didn't worry about too many details on the first batch, just trying to get used to it. For the next batch I will try to be more concerned with things like water quality. Everything seemed to go pretty well though, aside from trying to work in a tiny kitchen in my rediculously small college apartment. The brew currently seems to be fermenting nicely in my only closet

Anyway I got a lot of info here (especially on all grain stuff, the rest seemed pretty straight forward) and wanted to say thanks to everyone.

I do have a couple quick questions though:

1) Could someone clue me in on calculating efficiency? There seems to be several different ways and/or types of efficiency. I started with 9.5lbs of grain and wound up with a gravity of around 1.040 after sparge and around 1.050-1.052 after boil.

2) I thought I had a good idea of when to transfer to secondary for conditioning/clarifying but my understanding was that this was supposed to occur after the fermentation is pretty well finished and the yeast drops to the bottom of the carboy. If this is the case will there be sufficient yeast left suspended in the beer for bottle carbonation?

I know these have both been discussed so sorry for repeating them, but in both cases there seemed to be so many varying answers it was hard for me to get an idea of which answer is right for me.

Again thanks a lot guys and hopefully you'll be seeing more of me around here

 

[sittingcow]

For #1, what were your pre- and post-boil volumes?

For #2, yes. Unless you're brewing a very big beer that needs a long (month plus) secondary, you'll have plenty of yeast left in suspension.

 

[WBC]

[/B]Could someone clue me in on calculating efficiency? There seems to be several different ways and/or types of efficiency. I started with 9.5lbs of grain and wound up with a gravity of around 1.040 after sparge and around 1.050-1.052 after boil.:

Here are some calculators but you are going to need BeerSmith to make it easier.
The actual math is a pain in the a$$ but you can find it online.

Ref: http://www.moorescott.net/marc/homebrew.htm

2) I thought I had a good idea of when to transfer to secondary for conditioning/clarifying but my understanding was that this was supposed to occur after the fermentation is pretty well finished and the yeast drops to the bottom of the carboy. If this is the case will there be sufficient yeast left suspended in the beer for bottle carbonation?

Wait 14 days and keg or bottle. This gives time for the yeast to condition the beer and works very well for me. You do not need to secondary ales.

I don't blame you for being confused but brewing is easy once you have done it a few times and learn what is important. Most important, "Be sanitary".

 

[Dark_Ale]

There will be plenty of yeast to carbonate your beer. The only time you need to worry about yeast and priming is if you made a super strong beer and your yeast were just too tired to carbonate the bottles, or possibly a long cold ferment where most yeast is settled out. In that case you could add yeast at bottling time.
If you ended up with 5 gallons of 1.051 wort you got 77%
It depends on what grains you used if you want to get tech.
I just take the amount of base grain which in I used 9.5 pounds
9.5 X 35 = 332.5 X 77% or .77 = 256.025/5 gallons = 51.2 or 1.051

 

[rompenstein]

Well I don't have exact measurements for volumes. Just kinda eyeballed it because I forgot to figure out a way to measure ahead of time. My guess would be around 6.5-6.75 gallons preboil and 5.25-5.5 postboil. Not real sure on those though.

Good to know about the yeast issue though. I figured that was the case.

I've read many people saying secondary isn't required but would it make any difference at all? I figure it might help the beer clear up a bit, and if I don't secondary then I would just have to bottle condition longer anyway right? maybe I'm wrong here.

Also I will look into BeerSmith. Seems very helpful.

Lastly I have one other question I forgot to ask:

The recipe I was following recommended a flow rate of 12 minutes per gallon during lauter/sparge. This seemed extremely slow and my system is capable of much faster rates. I realized that when I timed it and was getting 2 cups in about 35 seconds LOL. Slowed it way down after that.

Would it be a bad idea to let it run out a little faster to save time?

I believe I'm using the fly sparge method BTW. I continually add sparge water at the top, leaving the grain under an inch or two of water, until sparging is complete.

Thanks again guys!