My First AG batch was a Success

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

bwitt

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2007
Messages
95
Reaction score
0
Location
Baton Rouge, LA
After studying the volumes of info on ag provided by the members of this great board and accumulating the ingredients and equipment over the past few months. I jumped into AG this weekend with both feet.

My first attempt at a light lager.

Ingredients

6.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain
2.00 lb Rice, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain
1.00 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)

I hit my mash temp at 150 with 12qts 165F water.

Mash temp was 148F at 30 min.

Drained Cooler after 60 Min.

Added 4 gal 170F water for batch sparge.

Preboil Volume was 6.5 gals

Preboil OG was 1.038 target was 1.041

Added .5 oz Cascade at 50 Mins.
Added .25 oz Cascade at 15 Mins.

Chilled to 65F with wort chiller and Transfered to carboy.

Added 1 Pkgs rehydrated SafLager West European Lager (DCL Yeast #S-23)

Placed in Fermentation fridge and set temp controller to 60F Saturday Night.
Sunday morning dropped temp controller to 55F.
This morning dropped Temp to 50F.
This afternoon I have airlock activity at 1 bubble per second and a nice Krausen layer forming.


My only problem was when transfering the wort to the carboy I got distracted toward the end and as the wort level dropped the trub cone collapsed and I sucked up about 1/4 inch layer of trub.

For the next batch I will split the sparge int 2 2 gal sparges with 180F water to get the efficiency up.
 
I want to thank you for describing my first AG batch this weekend. It saved me the time!
My steps were almost dead-nuts to yours. I did a Blonde Ale on Sunday and everything was pretty successful. Congrats on yours, sounded like everything that went wrong could have gone wrong during an extract batch. I had a little trouble hitting my mash temp. I cooled it off too much. Easier to cool than to heat IMO!
 
I'm just wondering, what is your reasoning behind mashing for only 30 minutes? I've never seen that before in a low temperature mash and was wondering if there was a reason behind that? I don't understand, because you said you drained the cooler after 60 minutes, but held the mash for 30 minutes? (I'm a little bit blonde, but I just can't figure out what you mean, sorry!)

Edit- sorry! I read it more slowly! The temp dropped to 148 at 30 minutes, but you did a 60 minute mash? Sorry about my lack of comprehension!
 
I'm just wondering, what is your reasoning behind mashing for only 30 minutes? I've never seen that before in a low temperature mash and was wondering if there was a reason behind that? I don't understand, because you said you drained the cooler after 60 minutes, but held the mash for 30 minutes? (I'm a little bit blonde, but I just can't figure out what you mean, sorry!)

Edit- sorry! I read it more slowly! The temp dropped to 148 at 30 minutes, but you did a 60 minute mash? Sorry about my lack of comprehension!

LOL don't feel bad I have blonde moments every now and then too. (Well mostly grey now):cross:

Oh I forgot to mention the SG after boiling was 1.043 and I had just a little over 5 gals.
 
I want to thank you for describing my first AG batch this weekend. It saved me the time!
My steps were almost dead-nuts to yours. I did a Blonde Ale on Sunday and everything was pretty successful. Congrats on yours, sounded like everything that went wrong could have gone wrong during an extract batch. I had a little trouble hitting my mash temp. I cooled it off too much. Easier to cool than to heat IMO!

No Problem. I copied and pasted most of it from BeerSmith.

Did I mention BeerSmith Rocks.:rockin:

Congrats on your AG brew also.
 
Beersmith definately ROCKS!! Congrats on your first AG... certainly is a great feeling of accomplishment completing the first one, only gets better DRINKING the first one!
 
Back
Top