bigbeck81
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- Joined
- Aug 10, 2012
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So I've been homebrewing for a little over 4 years now and had only done extract batches until this past Labor Day weekend. I've wanted to switch to all-grain for some time and thought that going the BIAB route was a nice transition. Overall, I think it was a success and I'm kicking myself for not taking pictures, as I see so many of you who have also taken the plunge have. Here's a breakdown of how my brew day went:
I brewed on Sunday so I could allow myself the luxury of drinking on Sunday without worrying about Monday morning at work. It was a beautiful day in Northern VA and my buddy was there to watch and drink with me. I decided to go with a no-sparge BIAB, using my 10 gallon kettle to brew up Reno's well-known and often-brewed Punkin Ale clone. I was confused as to whether or not I should count the pumpkin as part of the grain bill. I decided not to and measured my water based on the 12 pounds of grain. My brew kettle hardly had any room to spare after adding the pumpkin and grain.
I heated my strike water up to 163 and after doughing in, the temp only dropped to 159 and I was looking to hit 156. Perhaps more stirring next time will help get that temp down. I also thought it wasn't a big deal since I'd lose some temp during the 60 minute mash and it would probably spend the majority of the time at 156. Nope - my kettle held the temp of 159 the entire 60 minutes - which is great to know it can hold temps like that, but not so great when trying to hit an exact mash temp.
I'm pretty sure I lost some precious wort when it was time to drain the bag after the mash. My plan was to place a wire rack on the top of my kettle and let it drain for 10-20 minutes and then squeeze the hell out of it. I wasn't prepared for how wide the bottom of the bag was going to be when taking it out of the kettle. Now I know that I'll have to adjust the way I take the bag o' grains out going forward. I also know that I'll have to get some gloves to use when handling the wet, hot bag of sweetness.
Beersmith predicted the pre-boil gravity to be 1.050 and I was off at 1.044. This had me a bit dejected since I thought I did everything "by the book" up to this point (including not getting too drunk too quick). But I pushed on and boiled the wort for an hour, adding hops and brown sugar and pumpkin pie spice at various times. I underestimated the boil-off (or I lost too much wort/didn't squeeze enough during the draining of the bag) since I ended up with 5 gallons instead of the 5.5 I wanted to put in the fermentor. With the wort cooled and aerated, I took the OG before tossing some yeast in there and hit 1.060. The Beersmith projected OG was 1.063 so I was pretty happy there. I woke up Monday morning to a healthy and strong fermentation.
Sorry for the long post - I am excited to have my first all-grain brew session in the books and I'm dying to get my next batch underway.
I brewed on Sunday so I could allow myself the luxury of drinking on Sunday without worrying about Monday morning at work. It was a beautiful day in Northern VA and my buddy was there to watch and drink with me. I decided to go with a no-sparge BIAB, using my 10 gallon kettle to brew up Reno's well-known and often-brewed Punkin Ale clone. I was confused as to whether or not I should count the pumpkin as part of the grain bill. I decided not to and measured my water based on the 12 pounds of grain. My brew kettle hardly had any room to spare after adding the pumpkin and grain.
I heated my strike water up to 163 and after doughing in, the temp only dropped to 159 and I was looking to hit 156. Perhaps more stirring next time will help get that temp down. I also thought it wasn't a big deal since I'd lose some temp during the 60 minute mash and it would probably spend the majority of the time at 156. Nope - my kettle held the temp of 159 the entire 60 minutes - which is great to know it can hold temps like that, but not so great when trying to hit an exact mash temp.
I'm pretty sure I lost some precious wort when it was time to drain the bag after the mash. My plan was to place a wire rack on the top of my kettle and let it drain for 10-20 minutes and then squeeze the hell out of it. I wasn't prepared for how wide the bottom of the bag was going to be when taking it out of the kettle. Now I know that I'll have to adjust the way I take the bag o' grains out going forward. I also know that I'll have to get some gloves to use when handling the wet, hot bag of sweetness.
Beersmith predicted the pre-boil gravity to be 1.050 and I was off at 1.044. This had me a bit dejected since I thought I did everything "by the book" up to this point (including not getting too drunk too quick). But I pushed on and boiled the wort for an hour, adding hops and brown sugar and pumpkin pie spice at various times. I underestimated the boil-off (or I lost too much wort/didn't squeeze enough during the draining of the bag) since I ended up with 5 gallons instead of the 5.5 I wanted to put in the fermentor. With the wort cooled and aerated, I took the OG before tossing some yeast in there and hit 1.060. The Beersmith projected OG was 1.063 so I was pretty happy there. I woke up Monday morning to a healthy and strong fermentation.
Sorry for the long post - I am excited to have my first all-grain brew session in the books and I'm dying to get my next batch underway.