Whole latta firsts

[JohnnyBrewGood]

Yesterday I brewed my first BIAB and my first all grain, and my first all grain I crushed myself and the first time I used my carona (knockoff) mill.

A whole lotta firsts. I hope all the firsts dont add up to a whole latta crap'ola.

I live in a remote area (an Island) and getting ingredients is a challenge but I made friends with the local brewery brewmaster and he agreed to sell me some grain. He said it was Munich 2 row.

He sold me 10 lbs so I brewed 10 lbs worth lol

Figured I would do my first SMASH while I was at it.

I mashed 10 lbs M 2 row @ 154-152 for an hour.

1oz CTZ for 60

2 oz CTZ for 10 and 2 oz at flame out.

Wort tasted ok, bitter but ok. It is CTZ after all.

Yeast was 05

OG was 1.043 I tried to figure out my efficiency but the math hurt my head.

SO I guess I will tell you how it tastes in 2 weeks when I keg it.

JBG

 

[m00ps]

according to my calcs your OG should have been around 1.052.

With 1.043 you are looking at around 60% efficiency which isnt terrible, but a tighter grain crush could help with that. What really matter though is for you to be able to replicate the process in order to accurately predict what youll make. 60% efficiency isnt bad at all if you consistently maintain those numebrs

 

[JohnnyBrewGood]

Thanks for the math, I was hoping for more but ill take 60%. I am not that great with a Hydrometer either. I pulled wort from the kettle and put it in the fridge to cool it and forgot about it. Then i ran warm water around the tube to warm it and got it to around 70'. Hydro read 1.042 and I added a point for temp.

I am suspect of my thermometer too. I think I need to invest with a better one.

I did dunk sparge when wort was 170 and I did rinse the grains with a 3 liters of water I warmed in stove. I had rigged a pulley system and bag was hanging over kettle.

%60 isnt terrible like you said, first try with only the internet to help :rockin:

Grain looked pretty crushed but forgot to take a picture of it.

Thanks again

 

[Vamptrump]

Wort tasted ok, bitter but ok. It is CTZ after all.

I've found that you get a lot more hop bitterness from the wort than you would in the final beer. A lot of the bitterness mellows out during fermentation.

 

[m00ps]

I always squeeze my grain bags mutiple times while running cold water over them. I collect all that concentrated wort and add it back in. This seemed to instantly bump up my efficiency by 5% or so

 

[JohnnyBrewGood]

I always squeeze my grain bags mutiple times while running cold water over them. I collect all that concentrated wort and add it back in. This seemed to instantly bump up my efficiency by 5% or so

And then boil it off or you plan ahead for this?

 

[m00ps]

I guess I plan ahead. I keep in mind ill be adding like 4 or 5 full glasses of water so when I'm eyeballing my water in my mashtun/kettle, I leave a bit more room than I would need for the grains alone. I also like doign this because I get 4 or 5 more beers out of it

 

[Magnus314]

How much wort did you end up with? Can make a big difference in efficiency if you got 6 gals or 5 gals or even less...

 

[JohnnyBrewGood]

How much wort did you end up with? Can make a big difference in efficiency if you got 6 gals or 5 gals or even less...

Right at 5.5 gal into fermenter.

 

[doug293cz]

Right at 5.5 gal into fermenter.

At 5.5 gal to fermenter, I calculate your brewhouse efficiency at between 65% & 66%.

Brew on

 

[JohnnyBrewGood]

At 5.5 gal to fermenter, I calculate your brewhouse efficiency at between 65% & 66%.

Brew on

So not that bad. Not great but not horrible. I will crush finer next time. I think that is where I can pick up a few points.

thanks for the input.

JBG

 

[Hoppity]

You may only need to send it through the crusher twice. One advantage of BIAB is no stuck sparge. My efficiency went way up with just a 2nd pass. Good luck.

 

[Magnus314]

And if you left a lot of trub and sludge behind, that could be the difference between 66% and somebody else's 75%...

1/2 gallon is 9% of 5.5 gallons.

 

[doug293cz]

And if you left a lot of trub and sludge behind, that could be the difference between 66% and somebody else's 75%...

1/2 gallon is 9% of 5.5 gallons.

This is a good reason not to compare brewhouse (to the fermenter) efficiencies. Some people take a volume loss by leaving the trub in the BK, while others take a similar loss when racking off the trub for packaging or into a secondary. Leaving the trub out of the fermenter lowers brewhouse efficiency.

Better for comparison are the mash (into BK) efficiency, or the grain to package efficiency, as these are more directly comparable as the trub handling doesn't affect them.

Brew on

 

[Magnus314]

Better for comparison are the mash (into BK) efficiency, or the grain to package efficiency, as these are more directly comparable as the trub handling doesn't affect them.

Totally agree. Somebody standardize these measures, would ya!?

 

[JohnnyBrewGood]

I had VERY little trub. I used hop bags so I don't know if that accounts for it or not but very little was left in the kettle. the 5.5 gal in the fermenter is probably less than 5.75 gal total wort. I would say less because I tipped the kettle to get the wort out of the drain. Test tube was filled while draining into fermenter.

Thanks for all the input. I am almost certain I need to crush finer. from everyone's estimates I got %60 plus on eff. If I improve at all I will be more than happy. Looking back I had more than one extract OG of 1.040 or less and they have all been good beers so this one should be too! :rockin: