Reciepe Suggestions - first all grain brew!

[WarEagle1]

Looking to do first all grain brew this weekend. Any suggestions on a good one to start with? Looking for light summer type ale. Inexpensive would be a plus too.

 

[tre9er]

Cream of Three Crops, Centennial Blonde...there you go.

 

[beergolf]

Definitely something simple. The Centennial blonde is a good choice.

For your first brew avoid anything with rye or wheat in the recipe. The possibility of a stck sparge it too great. For the first few brews, you wil just be figuring out your set up. Water volumes, efficiency, etc. Take good notes so you can get your system dialed in.

Good luck.

 

[WarEagle1]

Centennial Blonde is going to be first all grain. If I understand correctly I need about 6.5 gal of water for 5 gal batch. How much water for should mash, and I guess an hour and then sparge the rest of the water thru?

 

[tre9er]

Centennial Blonde is going to be first all grain. If I understand correctly I need about 6.5 gal of water for 5 gal batch. How much water for should mash, and I guess an hour and then sparge the rest of the water thru?

What's your equipment setup? I would be using 7.5g water total with my setup, which accounts for grain absorption and boiloff (and some for kettle/trub loss, etc.) to yield 5.25 in the fermenter, some of which will be lost to trub as well.

 

[beergolf]

Here is what works for me. Mash at 1.25qts per pound of grain. When you drain that off measure what you get. Sparge with the amount you need. For example if you mash with 3.5 gallons and get 2.5 in the kettle because of grain absorbtion and dead space. If you know your boil off rate, say for example 1.5 gal per hour then you will need 6.5 gal in the kettle. If you got 2.5 gal at first then you need to sparge with 4 gallons to hit the 6.5 you need, because the dead space is already full and the grain will not absorb any more water. This will give you 5 gallons after boil. Adjust as necessary.

 

[tre9er]

Here is what works for me. Mash at 1.25qts per pound of grain. When you drain that off measure what you get. Sparge with the amount you need. For example if you mash with 3.5 gallons and get 2.5 in the kettle because of grain absorbtion and dead space. If you know your boil off rate, say for example 1.5 gal per hour then you will need 6.5 gal in the kettle. If you got 2.5 gal at first then you need to sparge with 4 gallons to hit the 6.5 you need, because the dead space is already full and the grain will not absorb any more water. This will give you 5 gallons after boil. Adjust as necessary.

That's the way it works, although if you want/need to know ahead of time how much you'll need to heat for sparge, or don't have a good way of measuring how much sparge water you've added...you can figure it out ahead of time. Also, your example comes out to 7.5 gallons, which is what my spreadsheet tells me I'd need for a mid-gravity ale of 5.25 gallon batch size!