Is this the way to do it?

[stevecaaster]

Hey all, I am brewing my first AG today, an oatmeal stout recipe that I sort of came up with myself. Does this recipe look OK? Further down, Does this brew day plan look ok?

Recipe:

8.5 lbs of crisp maris otter
1.5 lb flaked oats
.5 lb roasted barley
.5 lb chocolate malt
.5 lb dark crystal
.5 lb 60 L crystal
.5 lb flaked barley
.25 lb black patent

1 oz glacier 6.1%AA for 60 Minutes
should I add more hops?

1 Liter WY1084 Irish Ale Yeast starter stirred for 10 hours

BREW DAY PLAN :

If I want to MASH my grain for 60 minutes at 153 degrees should I...
Preheat my 5 gal round cooler mlt with hot tap water, dump out hot water. fill with 3.5 gallons of 167 degree water. then pour in my grain slowly mixing it in, cap off the cooler and wait 60 minutes? then add 1/2 a gallon of boiling water to MASH OUT at 170?

then to SPARGE and end up with 6.8 gallons in the pot I add 2.5-3 gallons of 175 degree water, mix, wait 10 minutes, drain, and then repeat this mash procedure once more?

then I BOIL the wort down until I reach about 6.5 gallons then begin the 60 minute timer and add my first hop addition, correct?

I feel very competent in the pure o2 oxygination procedure as well as the wort chiller use as I did both on my last batch, which hopefully will be my last extract brewage.

If these temps and times are wacky, would anyone care to throw some numbers out for me? thanks a lot have a great day!

IM FRIGGIN PUMPED!

 

[Evets]

Looks good to me. However, I'd probably skip the mash out addition unless you have a direct fired mash tun. I think it would take alot more than 1/2 g of boiling water to get to mash out temp. I never bother with it and my beers always turn out good.

 

[PNWgirl]

If you're interested in saving water and time, you can preheat your cooler with your 3.5 gallons of strike water about 10-12 degrees higher than your strike temp, wait for the temperature to cool down to 167, then add your grains.

 

[bandt9299]

I personally would skip the pre-heat and the mash out, once you have a good system going your strike water should be 171-175 or so and you'll hit your target every time, someone posted a home made program here once, you enter grain weight, grain to water ratio, and grain temp, and I have never been more than 1-2 degrees off using it.Good luck

 

[Brewsmith]

Don't skip the mash tun preheat. If you do want to do a mash out step, you're going to need at least a gallon if not closer to 5-6 quarts. Just make sure you write everything down that you actually do with exact numbers. If you are off, you can use the numbers as a guide to correct yourself on the next brew. Good luck!

 

[bandt9299]

Why is it better to pre heat the mash tun? The way I see it it's one less step for me, just go up 10 or so degrees on my strike water. I guess it's just one of those things that once you get your system down you don't mess with it.

 

[PNWgirl]

Before I preheated my MLT first, my mash temp would vary widely across the grain bed and I had trouble hitting my exact temps. Once I started preheating the MLT it allowed everything equilibrate and I hit my mash temps exactly and uniformly across.

Lots of people do it the other way, but if you are having troubles, it's an easy thing to fix.

 

[david_42]

I pre-heat my mash tun, because the temperature of my brewing area varies from 30F to 100F, as does the tun. By pre-heating, you are starting with known, stable conditions.

All I do is heat my strike water to near boiling, let the tun sit for 10 minutes, then adjust as needed.

 

[Bobby_M]

I want to concur with the idea of preheating your tun, but not with separate water. As PNW suggested, I go in with strike water that is near 185. Dump it in and shut the lid. Come back in 5-10 minutes, stir it up and take the temp. If you're over your calculated strike (normally between 167-170F), just stir until it drops to that temp. Once you hit it, dough in and you're golden.

Beware of temps over 190F in a cooler, you'll soften the plastic so much that it will buckle and bubble a bit.