My First Brew Day and All Grain!

[Austinjs0102]

Hello All,

today i decided to do my first beer brew day. I am creating a Wheat honey ale which will be named Blu Honey Wheat Ale, which is named after my dog .

Instructions below.

Mash Ingredients
6.20 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
1.77 lb Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM)
1.17 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM)

Mash In: 2.86 gal of water at 168.2 F 152.0 F 60 min
Mash Out: 1.60 gal of water at 203.1 F 168.0 F 10 min

Add water to achieve boil volume of 5.51 gal

Boil Ingredients
0.50 oz Northern Brewer [8.00 %] - Boil 45.0 min
1.50 lb Honey (Boil 45.0 mins)
1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 15.0 mins)
1.00 oz Cascade [4.30 %] - Boil 5.0 min

Cool: Ferment with Hefeweizen IV Ale (White Labs #WLP380) for 14 days

I am using this from a recipie i found off youtube. - credit to https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQGIfDxEl0MQEyaTpV_exlQ

Inspiration of the brew - my dog Blu.

Set up - It is a bit of a mess but working to upgrade all of this and making it a bit easier.

I created a started to simply have some yeast for another batch if needed. Appears the stire plate did a great job.

Also, in a few weeks ill be creating a fermentation chamber and releasing the code i am writing to monitor it.

it is based of arduino and using temp probes. That will be a whole different thread for all the work done on it.

here is a graph of the mash currently, there are 4 total graphs for 3 probes, 1 for each fermenting beer + a probe for room temp.

will update once i have placed this in the fermenter.

Have a good brew day everyone!

 

[svenness]

Wow, nice setup for you first brew. Making a starter and collecting fermentation data from the get go!

 

[Gavin C]

Congrats on the first brew. Nice setup there.

You're mashing pretty thick and not sparging. You'll probe get about 3 gallons of first runnings.

This is gong to cause you some problems.

Better to sparge with water than to just top up with water.



Best of luck with the brew

 

[Austinjs0102]

Congrats on the first brew. Nice setup there.

You're mashing pretty thick and not sparging. You'll probe get about 3 gallons of first runnings.

This is gong to cause you some problems.

Better to sparge with water than to just top up with water.



Best of luck with the brew

Thanks for the tip. I just did that since it was so think. We will see what we get from this. Hoping it turns out alright. First brew so hoping to have a few more batches and keep learning as i go.

Also, im pretty new to all this, would you suggest more water in the mash and so im doing less sparging and get closer to the 5 gallon amount?

Im still planning on getting a pump , creating some sort of sparge arm and then making a better brew stand. Should make it a bit easier

 

[actionjackson905]

Wow, nice setup for you first brew. Making a starter and collecting fermentation data from the get go!

Agreed! Way to jump right in!

Congrats on the first brew. Nice setup there.

You're mashing pretty thick and not sparging. You'll probe get about 3 gallons of first runnings.

This is gong to cause you some problems.

Better to sparge with water than to just top up with water.



Best of luck with the brew

Agreed. Can you sparge with more water? Like closer to 5 gal?

Also, I would add the honey at flameout. My preference though. If you boil honey too long or too hot you risk killing the flavors and sticking/burning on the bottom of your kettle.

Happy brew day!

AJ

 

[Billy-Klubb]

I want to hide bacon in your dogs jowls while it's sleeping!

 

[Gavin C]

Thanks for the tip. I just did that since it was so think. We will see what we get from this. Hoping it turns out alright. First brew so hoping to have a few more batches and keep learning as i go.

Cool.

Once you get all your wort in the pot at the start of the boil, and it's all mixed well, take a small sample and cool to measure the specific gravity.

When you know this and the preboil volume you can figure out how effective your mash was. There is a lot of useful stuff to learn about your process from these pre-boil measurements.

First brew so no sweat if you don't bother. Kudos for going all-in for all-grain from the get go.

 

[Austinjs0102]

Cool.

Once you get all your wort in the pot at the start of the boil, and it's all mixed well, take a small sample and cool to measure the specific gravity.

When you know this and the preboil volume you can figure out how effective your mash was. There is a lot of useful stuff to learn about your process from these pre-boil measurements.

First brew so no sweat if you don't bother. Kudos for going all-in for all-grain from the get go.

thank you very much for the tip.

Honestly, its nice getting feed back so that on my next brew i can make some adjustments and changes.

Most likely will be doing this batch again when i have my pump and bit better steps on my part. I also have a caribou slobber extract kit i am going to do this week.

 

[Austinjs0102]

little update here.

just took my reading. right around 1.048 which is what i was aiming for. We will see what we get at the end.