1st AG -- Comedy of Errors...but nailed it???

[dkwolf]

Over the last year, I've been slowly building up my equipment to make the switch from extract to all-grain. Couple months back, was on vacation for a week and decided I would have time to brew once I got home and before I went back to work. Ordered the grain bill for the German Hefeweizen recipe featured in the July/August BYO. With AHS shipping, I expected the ingredients to be home when I got there. Ended up not showing up until the day I went back to work, so the whole "vacation brew day" idea got shot straight to heck right off the bat.

Fast forward about 4-5 weeks, to a month ago. FINALLY have the time to set up and do a brew day. By now, the coworker I was hoping could come and show me the ropes of all-grain had moved, and was now 4 hours away. So... I'm going in blind. My setup consists of a keggle, a 10 gallon Igloo cooler mash tun, and I was figuring I could use my 5 gallon igloo as a HLT - heat water in the keggle to 5-10° above sparge temp, and transfer to "HLT".

Heat up water for the mash, and transfer to the mash tun, mixing in the grain bill as the water fills. It was at this point I realized I didn't take into account the grains had basically been sitting ON TOP of an A/C vent in my house, with the thermostat set to 68 (grains were probably closer to 45 after sitting on the vent all week) Followed the recipe to a T, but my mash temp either was never up where it needed to be, or fell off about 10° during the mash. Couldn't get up to mash-out temp - by the time I got even close, I had added all of my sparge water. Collected the 6.5 gallons the recipe instructed for the boil, and got started. (Knew it was going to be off, but at this point was willing to write it off as a learning experience and keep moving, see how it turned out.) As I was adding the hops, I noticed the recipe called for 4% AA hops, and I had 2%. Whoops....well, there's another variable for this train wreck.

Recipe called for a 90 minute boil, and they had figured a 1.5 gallon boil-off during tha time. I doubled that. By the end of the boil, I had just under 3.5 gallons in my fermenter. Decided to take an OG reading before I topped it off to see how badly I screwed up.....

I hit OG dead-nuts. I've never done that with an EXTRACT kit. So now I'm faced with a dilemma. Do I top off to 5 gallons, and water down the beer a bit, or go with my "perfect" OG and just run a smaller batch. Decided to just go with the smaller batch. Let it ferment for 4 weeks, and FG stabilized exactly where the recipe said it should. (Again. Never done that before)

Bottled it today. Best tasting hydrometer sample I've ever brewed. Pretty excited to see how this one turns out once it's carbed up -- and definitely have a bit of a learning curve with my system yet.

 

[MaryB]

New equipment is always a learning curve, I am on the 5th brew session with mine and finally getting dialed in and a procedure setup that works.

 

[Wiscohio_brewer]

I remember my first AG day. It was a disaster and my efficiency was something like 66%. I didn't close the valve on my mash tun and leaked out about a quart of hot wort on my floor. Now brew days are so routine, I can dial in my beer exactly. You'll get there man, it just takes practice and some so-so beer. As for your question, it depends on whether you want more lower alcohol beer or less beer of what you intended on making. I'd just ferment the spot on amount personally.

 

[jonny24]

Sounds about right for a first round! You'll end up with good beer, and that's what matters.

 

[kh54s10]

I am sure with the low mash temperature and different volume the beer will be quite far off what was intended. But, it should be a good beer. Try to figure out temperatures and volumes. It will probably take at least a few more sessions before you get both the temperatures and volumes sorted out.

In the mean time take good notes, try to figure out why any problems occurred and enjoy your beers. They will most likely be good and with practice, get better.

 

[MaryB]

I did my 5th all grain batch last Sunday, finally dialed in and ended with 10.5 gallons to fill 2 fermenters. Doing 10 gallon batches I decided to split my brew day. I measure out the hops, the water additions, all the grain, crush the barley, setup the kettles and get the water in them etc. Then on brew day all I have to do is heat water and do the process of brewing and then cleanup.