Planning my first AG brew day

Blitzkrieg · Mar 12, 2014

Alright, I've got all my gear together, all I need is a wort chiller which I'll DIY this weekend. I've set my sights on an American IPA recipe from OBK to be my first AG batch. I wont be buying their kit since I already have a 55lb sack of 2 row and a grain mill.
The recipe calls for 10lbs 2 row, 1 lb carafoam, 1lb crystal 60, 1oz 60min chinook, 1oz 15 min chinook, 1 tab whirfloc 15 min, 2 oz flamout cascade. I really want to follow this recipe so please no advice on changing hops or addition times.
What I need your help with is the details. My plan is to strike the room temp MLT with 17.31qt of 175f water and let it sit until it cools to 163.4f at which point I will dough in which should drop my temp to 154.4f (64.4f grain temp) then a 60 min sach rest in the coleman extreme MLT. I will the recirculate till wort is clear and start fly sparging with 172f water until I either reach my pre boil volume (7.14 gal) or the runoff drops to 1.01 sg (from refractometer). Then a 60 min boil which should net me 5.5 gal to the fermenter.
So, does anyone see any glaring issues with this plan? The dough in temp of the strike water was hand calculated from an experiment I did last night with 150g of grain and 450g of water (same ratio). If any of the numbers seem odd its because I will be brewing in celcius and liters which I converted to US units for you guys.
Any advice helps,

atom · Mar 12, 2014

looks good to me. my strike water will drop about 15 degrees when mashing in about 12-15 lbs of grain. yours will probably be a bit different and it may take a few batches until you get a feel for your system. i would mash a few degrees lower for an ipa (150-152).

sptaylor70 · Mar 12, 2014

Looks fine to me. Mashing at 68 degC (along with 16% dextrin malts) will give you a fair amount of dextrins, which is going to give you a nice mouthfeel - I prefer my IPAs with a little malt oomph. Personally, I would mash longer (maybe 90 minutes), boil longer (maybe 120 minutes), and batch sparge, but that's not much more than personal preference.

What yeast are you planning to use? My personal preference in an IPA would be something slightly fruity, like Wyeast 1450 Denny's or Fermentis S-04. Again, it's not more than personal preference.

Blitzkrieg · Mar 12, 2014

I forgot to mention the yeast, I was planning on using WLP001 but it appears that OBK doesn't have it anymore so I will be going with Wyeast 1056. I will do a starter 1.5L-2L of 1.040 wort (LDME) depending on age of yeast when I get it, aiming for a pitch rate of 1 million/ml/deg pl.

As for sparging, I built a fancy smancy copper manifold for my mash tun, designing it as best I could to rinse the grains equally so I'm at least gonna give it a try. If it turns out that I don't like fly sparging I'll just screw on a bazooka screen and batch sparge from then on.

In regards to mash temp, I only decided to shoot for 154.4 cause it makes a nice round number in celcius and I'm honestly terrified to undershoot the temp. If I overshoot I'll just throw a couple ice cubes in and be fine but If I undershoot I can just see myself trying to scoop all that mash into the brew kettle...

djfriesen · Mar 12, 2014

You could always batch sparge with the copper manifold. No need to buy a bazooka, unless you really want one.

I would check your mash parameters on an online calculator (tastybrew.com or greenbayrackers) or some brewing software. I'm not 100% sure the ratios will scale linearly. I've had really good results from the tastybrew calc, and running some quick numbers might be well worth it, especially if you're really gunshy about missing mash temps.

Blitzkrieg · Mar 23, 2014

Alright, I'm ordering my specialty grains and yeast tomorrow for a brew day next weekend. Yeast will be WLP001 since obk has it back in stock. I still have one concern and it has to do with water. My plan was to use spring water and not worry to much about it this time around since I've got a lot going on this first brew day. The thing is that when I went to the store to get the water ($1 a gallon so I bought 20 gallons) apparently I bought 16 regular bottles and 4 RO bottles. So since I have the RO water I could use it to bring minerals down in my spring water if need be. Now I already have bru'nwater and brewers friend and beersmith but it's all a little to much for me to wrap my mind around. I'm hoping that I can post the water analysis of the spring water and you guys could point me in the right direction of how to cut it and what minerals to add. I will be ordering the following minerals tomorrow so I'll have them on hand; calcium chloride, calcium sulfate, calcium carbonate, magnesium sulfate. And I already have some citric acid (anhydrous) if need be.

Here's the water analysis; the ph I don't know...