Planning my first all grain brew

[Rhetorik]

Howdy

I'm making the switch from partial mash to all-grain, and have upgraded my equipment as well; I'm looking to see if there if there is anything I've overlooked or if I'm on the right track. I am also switching from 5gal batches to 10gal batches.

Equipment:
1) 20 gallon OBKettle
2) 50qt rectangular cooler with DIY false bottom and bazooka screen
3) Blichmann floor burner
4) 3/8" x 50' DIY copper wort chiller
5) 2 x 6.5gal glass carboys
6) 5gal round cooler with bazooka screen (will fill with water+ice for cooling the wort via copper wort chiller)

My first brew is going to be a Rye IPA; I've included the beginnings of the recipe below, though I'm still deciding on the hop additions - I plan on using different dry hops for each carboy. I will be batch sparging and bottling the beer; kegging is a few months away yet.

Is there anything I'm missing in terms of equipment? This will be my first time using the 20gal kettle - any ideas on what volume of boil-off to expect, and/or could I test simply by boiling water in advance to find out? I'm using beersmith and would like to dial-in my equipment profile properly. I'm also curious/excited to see what efficiency I'm able to get - I'm hoping to get 85%.

 

[Jimbodaman]

85% efficiency if awfully optimistic but is certainly possible with the following, fine grain crush, very well engineered manifold, proper mash pH, and an effective sparging system. My new system I was shooting for 72% efficiency and ended up with 65% which was a slight bummer.

With 10 gallon batches it's best to not have to move very much, try to plan everything so moving stuff is minimal it will pay dividends.

Also take beersmith calcs with a grain of salt.

 

[BrewerinBR]

drop the chocolate and reduce the amount of crystal and go with a 40 or 20
edit --- oh and double the amount of rye

 

[feinbera]

85% efficiency if awfully optimistic

This, right here. Especially on your first brew day, there are going to be hiccups, new processes to dial in, etc., etc. I've done a dozen batches on my all-grain system, and just about always land between 70% and 75%, although that's admittedly with a single-pass LHBS crush. Still, if it were my first batch again, I'd plan on getting 65%, and if I happened to do better, hey, stronger beer, not the end of the world.

Re the boil-off, yeah, I'd just fill 'er up and boil at full blast for, like, 20 minutes, measure before and after. A gallon an hour isn't a bad guess, if you don't mind just guessing (and being somewhat off in your guess when all is said and done), but there's no substitute for actually measuring how your system performs.

Also, do you have another big vessel – or, a series of smaller containers adding up to one big vessel – to hold runnings and/or sparge water? If you're using your kettle as an HLT, you'll need somewhere to put 13 or 14 gallons of runnings, or, if you're collecting your runnings in your kettle, you'll need somewhere to stick five-ten gallons of hot sparge water. You could probably run off into your carboys, they'll rinse out just fine while the boil is going.

I guess the last thing is, that 12.5 gallon cooler seems like it might be a bit on the small side for 10-gallon batches. I mean, it should be fine for 1.065 beers, but if you ever wanna do a full 10 gallons of barleywine or imperial stout or something, you're gonna find yourself sloshing over the edges.

 

[Rhetorik]

85% efficiency if awfully optimistic but is certainly possible with the following, fine grain crush, very well engineered manifold, proper mash pH, and an effective sparging system. My new system I was shooting for 72% efficiency and ended up with 65% which was a slight bummer.

With 10 gallon batches it's best to not have to move very much, try to plan everything so moving stuff is minimal it will pay dividends.

Also take beersmith calcs with a grain of salt.

Thanks - the entire brewing process takes place in one room. I was hitting very good efficiencies with partial mash, so was hoping that this would carry-over to all grain. I'll dial down my expectations accordingly, though.

drop the chocolate and reduce the amount of crystal and go with a 40 or 20
edit --- oh and double the amount of rye

Doubling the amount of rye would put me close to 30% rye for the grainbill; every single thing I've read online has said to go with 10-15%, with a very small percentage saying up to 20%. No freaking way I'm going with 30% - especially not in my first rye IPA attempt.

Any reason for changing the crystal? If it's simply to achieve a lighter-coloured beer... no thanks; I want the darker SRM of the 80. If there's an objective reason for the change though I'm all ears.

This, right here. Especially on your first brew day, there are going to be hiccups, new processes to dial in, etc., etc. I've done a dozen batches on my all-grain system, and just about always land between 70% and 75%, although that's admittedly with a single-pass LHBS crush. Still, if it were my first batch again, I'd plan on getting 65%, and if I happened to do better, hey, stronger beer, not the end of the world.

Re the boil-off, yeah, I'd just fill 'er up and boil at full blast for, like, 20 minutes, measure before and after. A gallon an hour isn't a bad guess, if you don't mind just guessing (and being somewhat off in your guess when all is said and done), but there's no substitute for actually measuring how your system performs.

Also, do you have another big vessel – or, a series of smaller containers adding up to one big vessel – to hold runnings and/or sparge water? If you're using your kettle as an HLT, you'll need somewhere to put 13 or 14 gallons of runnings, or, if you're collecting your runnings in your kettle, you'll need somewhere to stick five-ten gallons of hot sparge water. You could probably run off into your carboys, they'll rinse out just fine while the boil is going.

I guess the last thing is, that 12.5 gallon cooler seems like it might be a bit on the small side for 10-gallon batches. I mean, it should be fine for 1.065 beers, but if you ever wanna do a full 10 gallons of barleywine or imperial stout or something, you're gonna find yourself sloshing over the edges.

Yes - I have a bunch of other large-volume buckets/kettles, and also the aforementioned 5gal round cooler.

No plans on big beers right now. I don't really like 'em (barleywine in particular... yech)

 

[BrewerinBR]

You need enough rye to be able to taste it IMHO. I use about 50% rye in my rye ipa, but that is my taste buds.

Crystal malts are great but in an IPA they get a little over whelming very quickly... I use 0% crystal malt in most of my IPA's but never more than 7% and then use light 20 to 40 to get a caramel flavor (mostly to get caramel flavor and color I add about 2lbs of caramelize cane sugar to my IPA). The Crystal 80 will bring a raisin and prune flavor to your rye IPA. Color was not what what I was thinking.

For the Chocolate, roast malts are simply not appropriate for any IPA - again IMHO

 

[blizz81]

Re the boil-off, yeah, I'd just fill 'er up and boil at full blast for, like, 20 minutes, measure before and after. A gallon an hour isn't a bad guess, if you don't mind just guessing (and being somewhat off in your guess when all is said and done), but there's no substitute for actually measuring how your system performs.

Personal experience re: boil-off testing - I just recently switched kettles and burners and did a boil-off test with water. Two things made it more or less useless: 1) the water started at a lower temp than my wort does, so it took a lengthy period of time to get to a boil, where there was a lot of steam venting throughout, and 2) in the boil-off test, I did keep boiling at full blast, but when I have wort on, I dial it down to a decent rolling boil. Just some suggestions on if you go forward with the test so as to not waste propane.

 

[Rhetorik]

Thanks for all the feedback. BrewerinBR - I will up the rye bill to 25% to start; I was talking with a friend of mine that has been brewing for ~10 years and he also recommended a larger quantity than my initial plan. Duly noted also for the chocoalte/crystal malts; I will tweak accordingly. I appreciate your advice!

One other question - I have moved since my last brew earlier in the year, and as such my fermentation location has of course also changed. I unfortunately do not have a fermentation chamber as of yet; it is in the works.

I will be brewing in a closet that has a consistent ambient temperature of 64-67*F; I have been monitoring the temperature for the past week and it has not varied outside of this range. Given that having 10 gallons of beer fermenting will increase the temperature by at least a handful of degrees, should this be any cause for concern? If it is, I do have an idea for bringing down the temp by a few degrees - I can run a small hose from my much cooler enclosed sunroom that is a mere 6 feet away into the closet to pipe in some chilly Canadian air. Thoughts?

I really need to convince SWMBO that there is space in our apartment for a keezer...

 

[Big Monk]

Ice in a bucket.

 

[Psylocide]

I will be brewing in a closet that has a consistent ambient temperature of 64-67*F; I have been monitoring the temperature for the past week and it has not varied outside of this range. Given that having 10 gallons of beer fermenting will increase the temperature by at least a handful of degrees, should this be any cause for concern? Thoughts?

A swamp cooler will work... either that or I've had luck wrapping it in a wet towel and turning a fan on it. Knocks off a few degrees, but have to re-wet the towel every day and it's only effective for a few degrees.

But yeah, fermenting 10 gal at 67° ambient is going to be a bit too warm.

 

[m00ps]

I agree with ditching the chocolate and dropping or reducing the crystal. Maybe add some sugar to reduce the thickness from the rye. I use some sugar in every one fo my IPAs to get them nice and dry.

Also, that may have the right number of IBUs to be classified as an IPA, but I would seriously consider upping those late/flameout additions

 

[BrewerinBR]

closet temp looks okay but without control the internal temp in the fermentor will go up as much as 5 F... a bucket the fermentor will fit in with water and ice to help control temp.

good luck ... rice can be a sticky thing to work with...