CodyBoyBrewery
Member
Finished my first AG and everything went pretty good (brewed a Hefeweizen). I definitely learned A TON! I've been brewing extracts for the past several years and a couple of buddies of mine convinced me to move to AG. The two biggest problems I had was:
1. Getting the mash to the right temp. Basically I didn't take into account the grain temp, so the strike water was a little cooler than it should have been. The mash temp was 148 degrees when I wanted 155. My guess is that I should have let the MT heat up a little more and used a hotter strike temp - about 180 versus 170. Does this sound about right?
2. Getting the wort cooled. Living in Katy, TX (close to Houston) it is a little hot outside right now and the water coming out of the tap is about 80 degrees. Trying to get the wort down to 68-70 was a bear. I finally gave up after about 45 minutes and pitched the yeast at 75 degrees, then slowly cooled the worst in the fermenter with a cold water bath.
The good news is that I checked the fermenter this morning, and it is already bubbling nicely. Just going to do a primary only, since the gear I purchased for this brewing went a little higher than I expected.
1. Getting the mash to the right temp. Basically I didn't take into account the grain temp, so the strike water was a little cooler than it should have been. The mash temp was 148 degrees when I wanted 155. My guess is that I should have let the MT heat up a little more and used a hotter strike temp - about 180 versus 170. Does this sound about right?
2. Getting the wort cooled. Living in Katy, TX (close to Houston) it is a little hot outside right now and the water coming out of the tap is about 80 degrees. Trying to get the wort down to 68-70 was a bear. I finally gave up after about 45 minutes and pitched the yeast at 75 degrees, then slowly cooled the worst in the fermenter with a cold water bath.
The good news is that I checked the fermenter this morning, and it is already bubbling nicely. Just going to do a primary only, since the gear I purchased for this brewing went a little higher than I expected.
