Hi all, I'm new to the HBT forum, though I've been homebrewing for a while, mostly with friends back in SC (@thelusiv). When I moved out to CA, I started brewing on my own - a couple partial mash kits, which have gone quite well. I figured since I'm a glutton for punishment, love great beer, and I'm generally a gear nerd, I'd step into some all grain mashes.
So, I got myself a turkey fryer, made a wort chiller, and rigged up a stainless faucet hookup to be my 'false bottom' strainer for my bottling bucket to use as a mash tun.
So, here's my tale of woe and wort.
I wanted to make an Irish Draught ale, similar to Kilkenny, so I thought I'd try this kit from Northern Brewer http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/irish-draught-ale-all-grain-kit.html, but, I hate waiting, and I want to patronize local businesses, so I went to my friends at fermentation solutions in Campbell.
They didn't have the super exact brands of some of the ingredients, but it seemed to hit the mark.
Grain bill:
7lbs Marris otter
8oz Caramel Malt
4oz Rolled Oats
4oz Chocolate malt
Hops:
1oz Galena
Other:
1lb honey
White labs irish ale yeasties
The nice folks at fermentation solutions also used brewsmith to give me some instructions to follow.
Single infusion mash 10qts of water at 165 to hit 154 for 1hr
mashout 5.6 qts at 212 to hit 170 for 10 min
Fly sparge with 3.4 gal at 170.
So, now it's go time. :rockin: I've fixed up a big ol batch of sanitizer ( I use my big blue sterlite tub for storage and as a sanitizing basin). I heat up my 10qts of mash in water, dump it into my lightly modified bucket, toss in 8lbs of grain, and convince my daughter to stir. Problem 1: my temp is only 147. I seal up the lid, wrap the bucket in plastic, and go eat dinner. Then I head up my strike water to a boil and dump it in. A quick stir, and I'm at 165 :/. 10 minutes later and it's lauter time (oooh-oooh-oh-oh). I wait for the mash to lauter... which takes for-frikkin-ever. No stuck lauter, it's just slooooowww. Could that be a problem? I wait after the first runnings, I dump in my sparge water, which is supposed to by fly sparged, but I used that volume for a batch sparge could that be another problem? As, I'm waiting for the sparge to liberate all the goodness from my grains, I measure the SG of the first runnings, 1.040. As I begin to lauter the sparge, I notice the water is looking a bit ... thin. It tastes 'sharp', too. So I measure the output, and it's at 1010, so I stop lautering. Measuring the wort in the kettle, i'm at 1.030. This seems a bit low to me. And I'm right at 5.8 gallons of wort - with water still in the mash tun.
So problems 2,3, & 4 are low mash/sparge temp (is it bad), low OG (maybe), and too much water (seems like)
I set the kettle on to boil, at which point, I promptly break my hydrometer... at 11:30 at night :/
So, problem 5: I can't measure anything. Oh well ancient sumerians didn't have hydrometers, and they built ... something... Anyway, I soldier on!
After a few minutes, we're boiling. I added the honey. I also added only 7/8ths of the hops. There was a small boilover, just to keep things interesting. 55 minutes of boil, in went the remaining hops, the whirlfloc, and the wort chiller.
Meantime, I put the yeast into a small jar of water in the bbq, to warm it up (it gets cold at night here!). After 5 minutes, it's time to chill out. I hooked up my chiller and brought temps to under 90 in about 20 minutes. I looked in on my yeasties and problem 6: the vial had leaked! I guess I had the grill too warm . Is that likely to have been detrimental to my beasties? After cooling and removing the chiller, I noticed that my volume was under 5 gal. I stirred the wort to facilitate some flocculation (how fun is that to say). And here I have a question: As I waited for the trub to settle, I stirred the wort every 5 minutes for 15 minutes, then let it settle for 5 (trying to take Charlie Papazian's advice - something about tea leaves). Then I siphoned to the carboy, and problem 7: I got heaps of trub in the carboy! What did I do wrong here, and is it so bad to have lots of trub? Seriously, there's an inch thick layer of sediment this AM.
Anyway, it seems like the beasties are doing their thing, but I'm worried - did i frack up my first AG brew, or am I being a nervous nelly? what can I do better next time.
Thanks in advance, homebrew homies!
-JR
So, I got myself a turkey fryer, made a wort chiller, and rigged up a stainless faucet hookup to be my 'false bottom' strainer for my bottling bucket to use as a mash tun.
So, here's my tale of woe and wort.
I wanted to make an Irish Draught ale, similar to Kilkenny, so I thought I'd try this kit from Northern Brewer http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/irish-draught-ale-all-grain-kit.html, but, I hate waiting, and I want to patronize local businesses, so I went to my friends at fermentation solutions in Campbell.
They didn't have the super exact brands of some of the ingredients, but it seemed to hit the mark.
Grain bill:
7lbs Marris otter
8oz Caramel Malt
4oz Rolled Oats
4oz Chocolate malt
Hops:
1oz Galena
Other:
1lb honey
White labs irish ale yeasties
The nice folks at fermentation solutions also used brewsmith to give me some instructions to follow.
Single infusion mash 10qts of water at 165 to hit 154 for 1hr
mashout 5.6 qts at 212 to hit 170 for 10 min
Fly sparge with 3.4 gal at 170.
So, now it's go time. :rockin: I've fixed up a big ol batch of sanitizer ( I use my big blue sterlite tub for storage and as a sanitizing basin). I heat up my 10qts of mash in water, dump it into my lightly modified bucket, toss in 8lbs of grain, and convince my daughter to stir. Problem 1: my temp is only 147. I seal up the lid, wrap the bucket in plastic, and go eat dinner. Then I head up my strike water to a boil and dump it in. A quick stir, and I'm at 165 :/. 10 minutes later and it's lauter time (oooh-oooh-oh-oh). I wait for the mash to lauter... which takes for-frikkin-ever. No stuck lauter, it's just slooooowww. Could that be a problem? I wait after the first runnings, I dump in my sparge water, which is supposed to by fly sparged, but I used that volume for a batch sparge could that be another problem? As, I'm waiting for the sparge to liberate all the goodness from my grains, I measure the SG of the first runnings, 1.040. As I begin to lauter the sparge, I notice the water is looking a bit ... thin. It tastes 'sharp', too. So I measure the output, and it's at 1010, so I stop lautering. Measuring the wort in the kettle, i'm at 1.030. This seems a bit low to me. And I'm right at 5.8 gallons of wort - with water still in the mash tun.
So problems 2,3, & 4 are low mash/sparge temp (is it bad), low OG (maybe), and too much water (seems like)
I set the kettle on to boil, at which point, I promptly break my hydrometer... at 11:30 at night :/
So, problem 5: I can't measure anything. Oh well ancient sumerians didn't have hydrometers, and they built ... something... Anyway, I soldier on!
After a few minutes, we're boiling. I added the honey. I also added only 7/8ths of the hops. There was a small boilover, just to keep things interesting. 55 minutes of boil, in went the remaining hops, the whirlfloc, and the wort chiller.
Meantime, I put the yeast into a small jar of water in the bbq, to warm it up (it gets cold at night here!). After 5 minutes, it's time to chill out. I hooked up my chiller and brought temps to under 90 in about 20 minutes. I looked in on my yeasties and problem 6: the vial had leaked! I guess I had the grill too warm . Is that likely to have been detrimental to my beasties? After cooling and removing the chiller, I noticed that my volume was under 5 gal. I stirred the wort to facilitate some flocculation (how fun is that to say). And here I have a question: As I waited for the trub to settle, I stirred the wort every 5 minutes for 15 minutes, then let it settle for 5 (trying to take Charlie Papazian's advice - something about tea leaves). Then I siphoned to the carboy, and problem 7: I got heaps of trub in the carboy! What did I do wrong here, and is it so bad to have lots of trub? Seriously, there's an inch thick layer of sediment this AM.
Anyway, it seems like the beasties are doing their thing, but I'm worried - did i frack up my first AG brew, or am I being a nervous nelly? what can I do better next time.
Thanks in advance, homebrew homies!
-JR
I put it in the grill so it would keep warm, but even with only 1 burner on the lowest setting, away from the burner, it still got a little toasty in there. 
