Brewed my 1st all grain yesterday!

[Pantherjon]

Well, after a few extract brews under my belt, I decided last night to tackle an all grain brew..It was a 1G kit from Brooklyn Brew, the Chocolate Maple Porter..Gave me a chance to break in some of my new equipment as well! Got to break in a 4 gallon kettle, and my new induction cooking element.

Things went along fairly well, tho I did have a bit of a temperature control issue during the mashing..I let the mash temp skyrocket to 180 degrees! Hopefully this won't screw things up too badly..After the 60 minute mash I drained the grains through my strainer(I need to get a bigger one, grains over filled it..Ran the wort through the grains twice to extract as much sugars as I could(probably 1 too many-but what the hey)...Then put the wort(in me brand new 4G kettle and brought it up to boil..As soon as I reached the hot break- man was it quick! Lowered the heat to maintain a 'rolling boil' and tossed in the hops..Towards the end of the boil I added last of the hops and then at the end I added the maple syrup..I did make one addition to recipe by adding 2 tspns of UN-sweetened Cocoa powder into the maple syrup..It was very well mixed when I put the syrup in...Then the cold chill...Put pot in sink with ice water and went to playing card games waiting for wort to cool to 70 degrees..

It actually didn't take very long...I then(with help from a couple of card playing partners) poured the wort into the glass jar/fermenter through the strainer and funnel..I then shook well(aeration) and pitched the yeast..

Airlock is bubbling away quite nicely now with a good head of foam on top!

I just hope the high temps in the mashing didn't do any bad nasties taste wise..Oh well, relaxing, not worrying and chilling some home brews!

 

[doug293cz]

The effect of the mash overheating will depend on when it happened. If it was 20 to 30 minutes into the mash, then probably little to no harm done. If mash started out at 180, then the amylase enzymes would have denatured very quickly, you would not have gotten a lot of starch to sugar conversion, and a lot of the sugars you did get would be complex, non-fementable sugars. Since you are seeing active fermentation, I would guess that you didn't overheat right away.

Brew on

 

[cam5fc]

How funny is this? I did my first all-grain yesterday too!

And oddly enough, I had temperature issues with my mash, but just in the opposite direction. Supposed to mash at 148, and hit 144 (which I attribute to my miscalculation of the temperature of the cooler outside at the moment of mash in). Batch sparging was also plenty below the 168, but, oh well. I get to look into my software a little more and make corrections for my next brew.

I will say though, I am excited for the clarity of the this beer - lautering was awesome to watch.

My question on this though, is if my OG was supposed to be 1.059, but I got to 1.052, is it only the ABV that is effected? The only additional thing that I can think of is that it may effect the dry finish of the beer since I mashed at lower than expected temperatures.

 

[doug293cz]

How funny is this? I did my first all-grain yesterday too!

And oddly enough, I had temperature issues with my mash, but just in the opposite direction. Supposed to mash at 148, and hit 144 (which I attribute to my miscalculation of the temperature of the cooler outside at the moment of mash in). Batch sparging was also plenty below the 168, but, oh well. I get to look into my software a little more and make corrections for my next brew.

I will say though, I am excited for the clarity of the this beer - lautering was awesome to watch.

My question on this though, is if my OG was supposed to be 1.059, but I got to 1.052, is it only the ABV that is effected? The only additional thing that I can think of is that it may effect the dry finish of the beer since I mashed at lower than expected temperatures.

Don't worry about the low sparge temperature. You can use cold water for sparging, with no loss of efficiency, as long as your starch to sugar conversion is essentially complete (ref:http://braukaiser.com/blog/blog/2009/05/12/cold-water-sparging/.)
The low temp mash, and lower than target OG, will likely lead to your beer being lower ABV, drier, and/or thinner bodied than the recipe's intent. It will still be beer, and probably a very enjoyable beer.

Brew on

 

[Hobo]

Hey, yesterday must have been the day for first-time all-grain brewers to get their grains wet! I brewed a 1 gal. kit my wife bought me as a Christmas gift. I have only done a few extract brews previously.

I have to say it was a lot of work for just 1 gal... I'd like to do a 5 gal next time, seems like it wouldn't be all that much more effort.

I modified the kit instructions to do a brew-in-a-bag (biab) version which worked out OK. I also had temperature fluctuation issues with mash and the wort is awfully cloudy. I'd like to learn some methods for doing a 5 gal partial mash biab as I hear that works well. Is it OK to top off the volume slightly after fermentation has begun? Or, leave things be while its perking?

 

[cam5fc]

Don't worry about the low sparge temperature. You can use cold water for sparging, with no loss of efficiency, as long as your starch to sugar conversion is essentially complete (ref:http://braukaiser.com/blog/blog/2009/05/12/cold-water-sparging/.)
The low temp mash, and lower than target OG, will likely lead to your beer being lower ABV, drier, and/or thinner bodied than the recipe's intent. It will still be beer, and probably a very enjoyable beer.

Brew on

Thanks! That was pretty much what I thought might be the case, but I wasn't worried just because of my excitement with how clear the beer was!!! New supplies with Christmas/Birthday were an 11g pot, propane burner, conversion supplies for a 10g cooler, stir plate... so for a play on words, this holiday season, my mug runneth over!

And it will once again once this Amber Rye is done fermenting!

 

[cam5fc]

Well, after a few extract brews under my belt, I decided last night to tackle an all grain brew..It was a 1G kit from Brooklyn Brew, the Chocolate Maple Porter..Gave me a chance to break in some of my new equipment as well! Got to break in a 4 gallon kettle, and my new convection cooking element.

Things went along fairly well, tho I did have a bit of a temperature control issue during the mashing..I let the mash temp skyrocket to 180 degrees! Hopefully this won't screw things up too badly..After the 60 minute mash I drained the grains through my strainer(I need to get a bigger one, grains over filled it..Ran the wort through the grains twice to extract as much sugars as I could(probably 1 too many-but what the hey)...Then put the wort(in me brand new 4G kettle and brought it up to boil..As soon as I reached the hot break- man was it quick! Lowered the heat to maintain a 'rolling boil' and tossed in the hops..Towards the end of the boil I added last of the hops and then at the end I added the maple syrup..I did make one addition to recipe by adding 2 tspns of UN-sweetened Cocoa powder into the maple syrup..It was very well mixed when I put the syrup in...Then the cold chill...Put pot in sink with ice water and went to playing card games waiting for wort to cool to 70 degrees..

It actually didn't take very long...I then(with help from a couple of card playing partners) poured the wort into the glass jar/fermenter through the strainer and funnel..I then shook well(aeration) and pitched the yeast..

Airlock is bubbling away quite nicely now with a good head of foam on top!

I just hope the high temps in the mashing didn't do any bad nasties taste wise..Oh well, relaxing, not worrying and chilling some home brews!

BTW, chocolate maple porter sounds delicious!

 

[Pantherjon]

The effect of the mash overheating will depend on when it happened. If it was 20 to 30 minutes into the mash, then probably little to no harm done. If mash started out at 180, then the amylase enzymes would have denatured very quickly, you would not have gotten a lot of starch to sugar conversion, and a lot of the sugars you did get would be complex, non-fementable sugars. Since you are seeing active fermentation, I would guess that you didn't overheat right away.

Brew on

Thanks...that makes me feel a lot better...Yeah, the temp overrun happened about 35-40 minutes into the mashing..Was learning how my new induction cook top element worked(induction not convection, two totally different entities...LOL) Anyways, at least I knew I had good amounts of sugars as the fermentation really took off on me! Sunday afternoon when I checked on it I had to get out the blow-off tube as the krausen was about to fill the neck..Good thing I did too, as some splattered into about 2 inches of the blow-off tube...

Fermenting slowed down by later that night right before I went to bed so I put the airlock back on.. Still bubbling away...Really looking forward to tasting this when it gets done!

 

[Pantherjon]

BTW, chocolate maple porter sounds delicious!

What I was thinking too! Reason I added the 2tspns of cooking cocoa powder in with the syrup at the end of the boil! According to the directions I am to add some more syrup when I bottle, so I may throw a smidge more of the cocoa powder in there as well..

 

[Pantherjon]

Hey, yesterday must have been the day for first-time all-grain brewers to get their grains wet! I brewed a 1 gal. kit my wife bought me as a Christmas gift. I have only done a few extract brews previously.

I have to say it was a lot of work for just 1 gal... I'd like to do a 5 gal next time, seems like it wouldn't be all that much more effort.

I modified the kit instructions to do a brew-in-a-bag (biab) version which worked out OK. I also had temperature fluctuation issues with mash and the wort is awfully cloudy. I'd like to learn some methods for doing a 5 gal partial mash biab as I hear that works well. Is it OK to top off the volume slightly after fermentation has begun? Or, leave things be while its perking?

Probably best to leave things be as it is 'perking' as you put it. Will have slightly less beer, but a teensy bit higher ABV..

 

[Pantherjon]

UPDATE: Day 3 of fermentation has seen the yeast activity slow down..Foam has fallen to top of wort...Man do I have a ton of trub in there!

 

[cam5fc]

UPDATE: Day 3 of fermentation has seen the yeast activity slow down..Foam has fallen to top of wort...Man do I have a ton of trub in there!

Only a gallon, but you might be able to get a pretty decent yeast wash out of that, if that's your thing.

 

[brewcat]

I have to say it was a lot of work for just 1 gal... I'd like to do a 5 gal next time, seems like it wouldn't be all that much more effort.

Basically the same amount of work for 5 gallons or 10 gallons or...

 

[Pantherjon]

Only a gallon, but you might be able to get a pretty decent yeast wash out of that, if that's your thing.

I just may...Got some reading up to do to see about learning how to do that...

 

[cam5fc]

I just may...Got some reading up to do to see about learning how to do that...

There are some good, descriptive YouTube videos out there that I saw a while back that show the varying methods.