Hello All
Thanks for taking the time to look at my post. This is my experience being a first time all-grain brewer:
-Mashed in my grain bill at ~140 F and gradually added hot water/increased the temperature to 154 where I held for 60 minutes. Added more water and increase to 166 and held for another 20 minutes. Vorlauf and sparged.
-Between the sparge step and boiling I somehow broke my hygrometer. Oops. So yeah, I have no OG measurement.
-Cooled my hot wort down quickly with copper coil to about 90 but it wouldn't budge much after that, so I removed the coil, added the warm wort to my Big Bubbler 6.5 gal container and placed it in a BigBag insulated fermenting container and put ice/frozen bottles around it. Somehow I ended up falling asleep and when I woke up the wort temp was 44F!!
-Gradually warmed the wort to about 60 F and pitched room-temp Wyeast 3711 from a swollen smack-pack after oxygenating the wort.
Fermentation really took off right away. All I can say is that, and I know many of you already know this, 3711 is a total beast! Had great krausen and activity throughout the container for 5-6 days. After this the krausen receded and particles stopped flying around the container. Wanting to be somewhat patient, I decided to wait until day 8 to take a gravity measurement with a sanitized beaker and shiny new hygrometer (which I made sure to handle very carefully). I couldn't believe my eyes when the reading came out 1.003. What?! I couldn't believe my taste-buds when I tried the beaker sample and it actually tasted good. Nice esters, spice and refreshing but obviously flat with minimal carb. So I made a crazy decision based on the following: 1. I felt like I had reached my FG at this point and primary fermentation was complete. Look - I understanding the concept of leaving the product on the primary yeast another 1, 2, 3 weeks or whatever to allow the yeast to "clean up" after itself and eliminate off flavors. But 2. I liked the taste of the product at this point and was eager to bottle condition and try my first brew a couple weeks later.
So yeah, I bottled my first all-grain home brew Saison after just 8 days in the primary. You must be thinking - what the hell was he thinking? I used enough boiled priming sugar for about 2.7 equivalents CO2 prior to bottling in 26 heavy-duty brown 22 oz bottles and capping. They are currently being stored in a closed box in a dark 76 F space.
Now the only thing that is truly concerning me is over-carbonating since I did bottle so young. Should I be concerned? When would you refrigerate a bottle, pop the top and try a sample?
Any advice or feedback would be greatly appreciated. Although I'm totally new to this hobby I feel hooked and am looking forward to my next recipe and batch. Thanks in advance for your help.
Thanks for taking the time to look at my post. This is my experience being a first time all-grain brewer:
-Mashed in my grain bill at ~140 F and gradually added hot water/increased the temperature to 154 where I held for 60 minutes. Added more water and increase to 166 and held for another 20 minutes. Vorlauf and sparged.
-Between the sparge step and boiling I somehow broke my hygrometer. Oops. So yeah, I have no OG measurement.
-Cooled my hot wort down quickly with copper coil to about 90 but it wouldn't budge much after that, so I removed the coil, added the warm wort to my Big Bubbler 6.5 gal container and placed it in a BigBag insulated fermenting container and put ice/frozen bottles around it. Somehow I ended up falling asleep and when I woke up the wort temp was 44F!!
-Gradually warmed the wort to about 60 F and pitched room-temp Wyeast 3711 from a swollen smack-pack after oxygenating the wort.
Fermentation really took off right away. All I can say is that, and I know many of you already know this, 3711 is a total beast! Had great krausen and activity throughout the container for 5-6 days. After this the krausen receded and particles stopped flying around the container. Wanting to be somewhat patient, I decided to wait until day 8 to take a gravity measurement with a sanitized beaker and shiny new hygrometer (which I made sure to handle very carefully). I couldn't believe my eyes when the reading came out 1.003. What?! I couldn't believe my taste-buds when I tried the beaker sample and it actually tasted good. Nice esters, spice and refreshing but obviously flat with minimal carb. So I made a crazy decision based on the following: 1. I felt like I had reached my FG at this point and primary fermentation was complete. Look - I understanding the concept of leaving the product on the primary yeast another 1, 2, 3 weeks or whatever to allow the yeast to "clean up" after itself and eliminate off flavors. But 2. I liked the taste of the product at this point and was eager to bottle condition and try my first brew a couple weeks later.
So yeah, I bottled my first all-grain home brew Saison after just 8 days in the primary. You must be thinking - what the hell was he thinking? I used enough boiled priming sugar for about 2.7 equivalents CO2 prior to bottling in 26 heavy-duty brown 22 oz bottles and capping. They are currently being stored in a closed box in a dark 76 F space.
Now the only thing that is truly concerning me is over-carbonating since I did bottle so young. Should I be concerned? When would you refrigerate a bottle, pop the top and try a sample?
Any advice or feedback would be greatly appreciated. Although I'm totally new to this hobby I feel hooked and am looking forward to my next recipe and batch. Thanks in advance for your help.