stavale8099
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Ok, well whoever would like to hear a good "disaster" story for my first AG brew. I take a lot out of it though as I learned a lot...I think...
Here was my recipe:
7.5lb maris otter
1lb instant oats (day before I baked @ 375 for an hour - nice and toasty)
0.5lb flaked barley
0.5lb chocolate
0.5lb crystal 60L
0.2lb carapils
0.2lb roasted barley
2oz East kent 60 min.
single temp infusion @ ~154
S-04 yeast
Decided to brew an oatmeal stout for my first AG in a new (used) MLT I purchased which was 8 gal w/ a false bottom which prob held ~ 1 gallon - This was my first mistake as I did not account for the extra space on the bottom when I calculated to mash in with 1.25 qt/gal. I heated up JUST enough strike water to to calculate for 1.25. I should start off by saying that I have a ~2.5 gal and a ~3.5 gal boil pot so I knew that things would be tight. Anyways after realizing my mistake for not taking into account the false bottom I had to quickly heat up more water. My target temp was 154 and after adding the first batch of strike water of course a gallon of it drained right through the mash and brought the mash temp only upt o about 140. So, I had a good 15-20 min @ 140. Final water/grain ratio was 1.68 and I mashed @ ~152 for an hour.
Knowing I needed to vorlauf and sparge, I heated up some more water. Only having a 3.5 gal pot (my biggest) I was only able to collect this much of the "first runnings" and vorlauf (sparge water heating up in my 2.5 gal). However, I also didn't think that I should vorlauf a little slower than I did so instead of capturing all the small particles on top of the grain bed, I recirculated too quickly and just mixed up the entire bed again and again got small particles in my first runnings.
First runnings ~14 quarts - Gravity 1.05
At this point I realized that if I was going to sparge with as much as I SHOULD, I was going to run out of boil pots very quickly. So, I batch sparged with another 6 quarts or so for 15 minutes. I believe that the gravity of my second runnings was ~1.03. It was much less sweet but I was out of room in my boiling pots at this time (I now had 5 gallons pre-boil) so I couldn't sparge down to gravity of 1.01. So, now I mixed my 1st and second runnings and my gravity was 1.042.
I had two VERY full pots of wort for the boil, which certainly made the hot break interesting but I did not get a boil-over.
I cooled the wort with a copper coil heat displacer which I also accidentally touched while adding some irish moss so that sucked. Hard. It also sucked that the 3.5 gal pot took 30 minutes longer to start to boil than the 2.5 gal pot so everythign was somewhat staggered.
So, I lost ~1 gal to the boil and my gravity post-boil was 1.064. F-that, I wanted a 5-gallon batch so I spiked it wtih 1 gal of cold water and the final pitchign temp was ~70 degrees.
Final OG 1.05 for fermentation.
To the boil I also added a few teaspoons for urea/diamm phos. and some yeast for nutriets. I couldn't find any Wyeast so I used dry S-04 so I was paranoid about lack of nutrients. I didn't have any zinc or anything to add so hopefully there is enough in my water.
I sprinkled my yeast on top of the wort (I've done this before with previous non-AG batches) and then waited 15 minutes to stir it in. BUT this time (this didn't happen last time) it just sunk and so was not present after 15 minutes. I hope it lives.
Anyways...so finally I have a 5 gallon batch that is full of small grain particles. Hopefully these just settle out and don't affect the flavor. I know this is an aggressive yeast so if its not full-on fermenting by tomorrow night then there is probably an issue.
I DO know that next time I need to have a bigger second boil pot (we do it all in teh kitchen and don't have a gas burner nor the room for a large pot at this point so need to do split boil for now.)
Thoughts? Ideas? what should/shouldn't I do nxt time?
Thanks!
Here was my recipe:
7.5lb maris otter
1lb instant oats (day before I baked @ 375 for an hour - nice and toasty)
0.5lb flaked barley
0.5lb chocolate
0.5lb crystal 60L
0.2lb carapils
0.2lb roasted barley
2oz East kent 60 min.
single temp infusion @ ~154
S-04 yeast
Decided to brew an oatmeal stout for my first AG in a new (used) MLT I purchased which was 8 gal w/ a false bottom which prob held ~ 1 gallon - This was my first mistake as I did not account for the extra space on the bottom when I calculated to mash in with 1.25 qt/gal. I heated up JUST enough strike water to to calculate for 1.25. I should start off by saying that I have a ~2.5 gal and a ~3.5 gal boil pot so I knew that things would be tight. Anyways after realizing my mistake for not taking into account the false bottom I had to quickly heat up more water. My target temp was 154 and after adding the first batch of strike water of course a gallon of it drained right through the mash and brought the mash temp only upt o about 140. So, I had a good 15-20 min @ 140. Final water/grain ratio was 1.68 and I mashed @ ~152 for an hour.
Knowing I needed to vorlauf and sparge, I heated up some more water. Only having a 3.5 gal pot (my biggest) I was only able to collect this much of the "first runnings" and vorlauf (sparge water heating up in my 2.5 gal). However, I also didn't think that I should vorlauf a little slower than I did so instead of capturing all the small particles on top of the grain bed, I recirculated too quickly and just mixed up the entire bed again and again got small particles in my first runnings.
First runnings ~14 quarts - Gravity 1.05
At this point I realized that if I was going to sparge with as much as I SHOULD, I was going to run out of boil pots very quickly. So, I batch sparged with another 6 quarts or so for 15 minutes. I believe that the gravity of my second runnings was ~1.03. It was much less sweet but I was out of room in my boiling pots at this time (I now had 5 gallons pre-boil) so I couldn't sparge down to gravity of 1.01. So, now I mixed my 1st and second runnings and my gravity was 1.042.
I had two VERY full pots of wort for the boil, which certainly made the hot break interesting but I did not get a boil-over.
I cooled the wort with a copper coil heat displacer which I also accidentally touched while adding some irish moss so that sucked. Hard. It also sucked that the 3.5 gal pot took 30 minutes longer to start to boil than the 2.5 gal pot so everythign was somewhat staggered.
So, I lost ~1 gal to the boil and my gravity post-boil was 1.064. F-that, I wanted a 5-gallon batch so I spiked it wtih 1 gal of cold water and the final pitchign temp was ~70 degrees.
Final OG 1.05 for fermentation.
To the boil I also added a few teaspoons for urea/diamm phos. and some yeast for nutriets. I couldn't find any Wyeast so I used dry S-04 so I was paranoid about lack of nutrients. I didn't have any zinc or anything to add so hopefully there is enough in my water.
I sprinkled my yeast on top of the wort (I've done this before with previous non-AG batches) and then waited 15 minutes to stir it in. BUT this time (this didn't happen last time) it just sunk and so was not present after 15 minutes. I hope it lives.
Anyways...so finally I have a 5 gallon batch that is full of small grain particles. Hopefully these just settle out and don't affect the flavor. I know this is an aggressive yeast so if its not full-on fermenting by tomorrow night then there is probably an issue.
I DO know that next time I need to have a bigger second boil pot (we do it all in teh kitchen and don't have a gas burner nor the room for a large pot at this point so need to do split boil for now.)
Thoughts? Ideas? what should/shouldn't I do nxt time?
Thanks!