First brew day! It's finally here

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kevy

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Tonight!... When the wife gets home to help watch the little one
I'll be brewing a northern brewer all grain nut brown ale. I have accumash, Irish moss, 1 hop addition. Keeping it simple but still a lot of moving parts for a newbie nonetheless. We'll see how she goes!
Fly sparking-I'm pretty confident about that
Gravity feeding to a plate chiller.... We'll see
Kegging- I'm excited about that

I'll let yall know how it goes
 
kevy said:
Tonight!... When the wife gets home to help watch the little one
I'll be brewing a northern brewer all grain nut brown ale. I have accumash, Irish moss, 1 hop addition. Keeping it simple but still a lot of moving parts for a newbie nonetheless. We'll see how she goes!
Fly sparking-I'm pretty confident about that
Gravity feeding to a plate chiller.... We'll see
Kegging- I'm excited about that

I'll let yall know how it goes
Click to expand...

Enjoy! Now about that sparking business...:)
And I'm jealous about the kegging, I need to just go there, spent 2.5hrs last night, with cleanup, bottling a 6g batch...
You sound well equipped for a new brewer, electric or propane?
 
Hahaha. Sparking. Didn't see that. Propane.
I haven't got into water treatment yet. I just got the accumash with the kit. My water tastes good tho. If that means anything.
I'll get pics. But not sure how to post them from the app. Maybe on the laptop later
 
Well. That's that. I can not get the grain bed to compact. I have vorlaughed(excuse spelling) over and over. I must have cycle the mash 30 times. I have been at it for over an hour. I don't wanna point blame but I'm starting to think northern brewer milled my grain to fine for this false bottom. The grain just keeps coming through no matter what speed I vorlough. Showing no improvement. I'm giving up on this kit. It has killed my spirit. But just for tonight. I will figure out what has gone wrong. I dunno. I'm standing in the driveway with a big waste of mash. I guess time to clean up
 
FWIW, I also feel like my Vorlauf never fully gets clear, but the idea is to get less and less husks/grains as you work your way through a half gallon or so of wort.

That being said, do whatever you can to filter out the husks (sieve, cheese cloth, etc...). Don't worry about contamination until after the boil. Brew on! :mug:
 
If you can't get it to compact, either continue with the batch as long as you're flowing liquid or do a batch sparge. Don't be too paranoid about some grain getting through to the boil. What are you using for a false bottom? Kyle
 
kevy said:
Well. That's that. I can not get the grain bed to compact. I have vorlaughed(excuse spelling) over and over. I must have cycle the mash 30 times. I have been at it for over an hour. I don't wanna point blame but I'm starting to think northern brewer milled my grain to fine for this false bottom. The grain just keeps coming through no matter what speed I vorlough. Showing no improvement. I'm giving up on this kit. It has killed my spirit. But just for tonight. I will figure out what has gone wrong. I dunno. I'm standing in the driveway with a big waste of mash. I guess time to clean up
Click to expand...

I am not sure from your description what the problem is. Rest assured there is a way to fix it. There must be a way to save this wort, then you can do the boil tomorrow. Don't dump it until you have ruled out all the possible solutions.

I sincerely doubt that the kit is faulty...NB crushes grains for 1000s of people every day.

If I understand what you are saying, you have mashed your grain but you
are unable to separate your wort? How about pouring it through a strainer?

Tell us more about your setup, exactly what problem you are having, and post pics if you can.
 
I'm using northern Brewers false bottom.
I just cranked open both valves and ran the wort through a strainer bag. Why didn't I do that before. Who needs vorlough when we have strainer bags
 
Do yourself a favor, run to HD or Lowes and get a 5 gal paint stringer bag and pour all your wort through it to filter out the grain. Then proceed with your boil. Consider sticking with BIAB and once you are comfortable with the process then make your way to other techniques. Diving in your first batch AG, plate chiller, etc...is very brave of you but there's no use frustrating yourself from the start. Btw, kits from online vendors are usually milled too course for most of us which is why so many AG brewers buy our own mills. I would be surprised if NB milled yours super fine.
 
I'm drain to the kettle now. Hope there isn't a hole lot of grain in there. We'll see what happens
 
Yes sir! I was just getting frustrated. It'll be ok. This is a hobby. I'll let yall know how it goes. Ill check with refractometor before the boil
 
Look like I'm back on track. 1042 on the dot. Will go up a little after boil. Correct?
 
kevy said:
Look like I'm back on track. 1042 on the dot. Will go up a little after boil. Correct?
Click to expand...

Correct, your gravity will be higher post boil due to boil off. Hang in there, brew days don't always go exactly as planned, but you always learn something and get better for it. Congrats on your first brew!
 
You should have strained out about 98% of your grain with the bag. There will still be a small amount dissolved in your wort that goes into the boil. This will settle out when you pour your wort in the fermenter, into a layer of crud at the bottom a couple inches thick (called "trub"). Totally normal. The yeast will settle on top and go to work.
 
Let's just say I said to heck with it and drained about 1 gallon in the kettle before I realized I had the strainers. I thought I smelt burning during the beginning of the boil but it seemed to turn out alright. I ended up with 4.6 gallons of 1042 wort. Weird the gravity didn't go up after the boil. It was 1042 pre boil.
Maybe I have never smelt wort boiling and mistakes it for a burnt smell
 
kevy said:
Let's just say I said to heck with it and drained about 1 gallon in the kettle before I realized I had the strainers. I thought I smelt burning during the beginning of the boil but it seemed to turn out alright. I ended up with 4.6 gallons of 1042 wort. Weird the gravity didn't go up after the boil. It was 1042 pre boil.
Maybe I have never smelt wort boiling and mistakes it for a burnt smell
Click to expand...

When you took your gravity reading pre-boil, did you adjust for temperature?If your pre-boil gravity showed 1.042 at 100F, it should show about 1.045 when it cools to room temp. EDIT: forget it, that would mean your gravity would be going down after boil off, which makes even less sense.
 
Haha. I used a refractometor I though temp didn't matter with those. To an extent. I used a hydrometer also. Just for second verification
 
Yeah, temp really shouldn't matter with a refractometer since the small sample will cool extremely quickly. If you ended up with 4.6 gallons of 1.042 and you started with more than 4.6 gallons, something is not adding up...Was it a rolling boil for the whole 60 mins?
 
What was your starting volume into the kettle? You can estimate about 10-15% boil off per hour depending on your system, boil style, and weather conditions.
It sounds like either your pre-boil or S.G. readings were incorrect. Did you also take gravity readings at the start, middle, and end of your sparge? These values (combined with volume collected) can help figure out some of these issues. Kyle
 
After talking with the guys at the lhbs I think it was was an error in how I used the refractometor but the post boil was correct 1042.
I learned a lot and I'll try not to have a meltdown next time
 
I have no means of cooking the ferment. It's staying around 72-73. Any ideas?
 

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