Finally got my cooler/tun to stop leaking, so I jumped into it... 1st all-grain brew on Saturday. Had grains crushed over a week ago (before i found the leak in the tun) based on a Jamil Z. APA recipe (10.5# 2-row, half pounds each of c15, c40, victory, and munich malt).
Amazingly hit my mash temp on the nose: 170° strike water, 68° grain, no pre-heating of the cooler, leveled out at 152°. BeerAlchemy software calculated a 164 strike temp, but I didn't pre-heat the mash tun, so I bumped it up about 5-6 degrees and hit my target, thankfully.
Used 4.5 gal of strike water, and got under 3 gal out of it in first runnings. Added to the amount I was already heating for my (batch) sparge water to make up for it, looking to collect 6.5 total, expecting to boil off 1 gal and transfer a bit over 5 gal.
Magnum for bittering, Centennial and Cascade both at 10 and at flameout.
Took a pre-boil sample, put it in the freezer, and started heating the kettle. Got the sample down to 90, and the adjusted pre-boil gravity reading seemed to be right on what Beer Alchemy had projected. So no adjustments or DME needed.
The converted cooler seemed to work perfectly. I didn't see much of anything as far as particles when I did my vorlof. Did a couple quarts and that seemed like more than enough. Using the SS braid and following Denny Conn's batch sparging method, I'm sold!
Immersion chiller got it down to about 78 before I poured it into the bucket fermenter and put the bucket into a cold water bath. I took the OG: 1.057 @ 75. Adjusted is 1.058. Perfect! A little while later it was down to 66° and I pitched the 1056.
I think it was around 9 PM when I pitched (started everything at 4:00). By Saunday afternoon the airlock was bubbling like crazy. A lot more activity in the airlock than I've ever experienced with my previous extract brews.
I was a bit lazy in that I never made a starter. I had the Wyeast 100 billion cell smack pack. Took it out of the fridge at 4, allowed it to come to room temp over the course of the next hour or more, popped the thing inside and let it "inflate" during the rest of the brew process. By the time I cut it open and pitched, it was as inflated as possible. Not sure if the activity would be as crazy if I had built up the cell count in a starter or not.
The bucket is still in the water bath (large plastic tub on the cold cement floor of the basement) and holding temp around 66-67°.
Amazingly hit my mash temp on the nose: 170° strike water, 68° grain, no pre-heating of the cooler, leveled out at 152°. BeerAlchemy software calculated a 164 strike temp, but I didn't pre-heat the mash tun, so I bumped it up about 5-6 degrees and hit my target, thankfully.
Used 4.5 gal of strike water, and got under 3 gal out of it in first runnings. Added to the amount I was already heating for my (batch) sparge water to make up for it, looking to collect 6.5 total, expecting to boil off 1 gal and transfer a bit over 5 gal.
Magnum for bittering, Centennial and Cascade both at 10 and at flameout.
Took a pre-boil sample, put it in the freezer, and started heating the kettle. Got the sample down to 90, and the adjusted pre-boil gravity reading seemed to be right on what Beer Alchemy had projected. So no adjustments or DME needed.
The converted cooler seemed to work perfectly. I didn't see much of anything as far as particles when I did my vorlof. Did a couple quarts and that seemed like more than enough. Using the SS braid and following Denny Conn's batch sparging method, I'm sold!
Immersion chiller got it down to about 78 before I poured it into the bucket fermenter and put the bucket into a cold water bath. I took the OG: 1.057 @ 75. Adjusted is 1.058. Perfect! A little while later it was down to 66° and I pitched the 1056.
I think it was around 9 PM when I pitched (started everything at 4:00). By Saunday afternoon the airlock was bubbling like crazy. A lot more activity in the airlock than I've ever experienced with my previous extract brews.
I was a bit lazy in that I never made a starter. I had the Wyeast 100 billion cell smack pack. Took it out of the fridge at 4, allowed it to come to room temp over the course of the next hour or more, popped the thing inside and let it "inflate" during the rest of the brew process. By the time I cut it open and pitched, it was as inflated as possible. Not sure if the activity would be as crazy if I had built up the cell count in a starter or not.
The bucket is still in the water bath (large plastic tub on the cold cement floor of the basement) and holding temp around 66-67°.
