first real all grain

[beerbelay]

From extract to baib to my first cooler as a mash/lauter ton today. All went well and the bayou classic sure beats the old stovetop. Here are the questions if anybody has the answers. I have 13 lbs. of grist and dough in with 3.5 gallons of water. I hit my mark of 152 degrees. It held well and I figured I'll try a mashout. 1st gallon of boiling water doesn't bring it up to the 168-170 range so I do another .5 gallons and it still doesn't get it up there. So what the *&%^. No worries I'll Vorlouf and get on with it. I batch sparge with 185 and temps are good. I get 8 pre boil gallons. I boil for 90 min. with appropriate hop additions and cool. Somehow I end up with 4.5 gallons in the fermenter. I did have about a gallon of trub in the pot that i didn't transfer. Should I have ? Is this normal and do I simply account for this next brew? I didn't boil too agressively I don't think. Am I missing something obvious? Do I need to do a mashout?

 

[Crazytwoknobs]

Sounds about right. Online calculator told me to start with about 8 gallons for a 60min boil to get 5.5 gallons.

 

[Schwoopty]

It sounds like your boil off rate is pretty high telling me that you could probably reduce your boil temp next time. On an average 15% loss you should have come out with about 6.4 gallons after a 90 min boil. The boil only needs to be a mild roll. When I boil it hardly seems like it's moving. I would check that out first. Also, did you have any boilovers? The trub in the pot afterwards is fine although it doesn't hurt the beer to have a little in the fermenter since it will eventually drop out.

Good luck on your brew!

 

[beerbelay]

I tought my boil was gentle. I was going into the cooling phase at just about 7 gallons and was sure i was going to have too much. Not too sure what I did wrong. Should be good beer though.

 

[KayaBrew]

I don't think you did anything wrong. You had 4.5 gallons of cooled wort after leaving a gallon or so behind with trub. That would have given you 5.5 gallons thereabouts. You could just transfer all the wort...trub and all to your fermenter next time.

Also, I shoot for 7.5 gallons pre-boil. For my system, I end up with exactly 5 gallons at bottling time (minus grav. samples, trub loss, etc.)