Note from my first AG brewday

[neb_brewer]

A few days ago I brewed NB's Black IPA. Everything went great, it was more successful than I planned for my first AG.

The only problem I ran into was my mash temp dropping about 5 degrees over the 60 minutes. After some research on here I discovered that some coolers don't have an insulated lid. Mine happens to be one of those coolers so for now I'm attributing the temp loss to that. Before my next brew I'll fill the lid with some expanding foam to insulate it. In what ways could this temp drop during the mash affect the end product?

Also, the target OG for this kit was 1.075. I hit 1.070, which I'm pretty pumped about. I bought this kit so that it would end up with a high ABV% and was half expecting to be way under the target so I'm pleased. I'd like to calculate my efficiency, but I didn't take a pre-boil gravity and I'm having trouble finding the gain used in this kit in any of the efficiency calculators. They're probably there I'm just not seeing them because I'm not familiar with the different grains and what they can be called.

All-in-all a great first AG experience. Before doing this brew I thought about still doing extract for some of the smaller beers, but now that I have all of the equipment and discovered how easy AG can be I'm going to stick with AG.

 

[sketerbuck]

Yeah. I was the same way but once I saw how easy it was the extract just didn't make sense.

 

[badmajon]

I don't get the whole extract thing. Glad to see you've come around.

 

[kanzimonson]

The temp drop just means your beer will be slightly more fermentable and have slightly less body than the recipe intended. Downsides: altered recipe, lower mouthfeel. Upside: more alcohol.

 

[neb_brewer]

So the temp drop actually helped me get close to the target OG?

 

[scottland]

It didn't help the OG, it means the wort will be ore fermentable by the yeast. You'll reach a lower FG

 

[AnonyBrew]

I cover my mash tun with thick shipping blankets and sometimes depending on the how low the mash level is in the cooler I'll lay a couple pieces of foil over the top of the mash to separate it a little from the headspace. Some people suggest styrofoam, but when I tried that I could never clean all the wort off it & it would get moldy.

 

[chezhed]

Do you preheat your mash tun/cooler? Try that.
Also, as mentioned, I find wrapping mine in quilts holds well. I brewed the other day at 55 degrees outside and with a preheated tun and wrapping, I lost a half degree.

 

[payton34]

i use foil faced styrofoam insulation that i have cut to fit my mash tun. i have not lost any temp once with this set up. i had to buy a 4 by 8 sheet of the stuff so every once in awhile i just cut another piece and toss the old one.

 

[MussBrew]

what size is your mash tun? To much head space can cause the temp to drop. Filling the lid should help some, but placing a precut styrofoam sheet on top of the mash would be better.

 

[neb_brewer]

I see what is meant by more fermentable.

I preheated the cooler. I'm not sure of the size (it was given to me), I fit almost 10 gallons of water in it. There was a decent amount of space between the mash and the lid now that I think about it. I'll probably insulate the lid and use some styrofoam next time. Thanks for the tips!