First brew day EVER! (A long read)

[Mark_]

Never to be one who does things the easy way, I decided to start my home brewing by going all grain. Not necessarily a daunting task but much different than an extract build.

So I decided not to wait 'til I built my mash tun. I'm thinking about a 10+gallon mash tun.

Keep in mind this is my first time ever with beer so please jump in and correct me where I screwed up. I went with a SMaSH brew, 2 row and Cascade only. (I am trying to sling around the lingo so help me out here.)

Ingredients
----------
5 lbs. - 2 row pale malt
.75 oz. Cascade hop pellets, added at first boil
.25 oz. Cascade hop pellets, added at flame out
1/2 tsp Irish Moss, added at flame out
1 qt. of water per pound of grain
double sparge to make 3 gallons of wort

So I went with a single temperature infusion, fancy terms for "steeping grain in a big pot" apparently. I found an awesome deal on a turkey deep fryer with a 30QT pot, clearanced at $40 so used that on the stove. I struggled a bit to keep it at the proper temp but I would say I was mostly between 150-155F for about 90 minutes.

I performed a double batch sparge by lifting out my grain bag, squeezing it out (damn that water is hot as hell) and emptying out the stock pot. I then added the remaining water I need divided by two, heated to about 190F so I could get the grain mash up to about 170. that failed miserably and I couldn't get it any higher than about 150F again.

While that steeped I heated up another batch to about 200 and did it all over again. Squeezed out the grain bag, emptied the pot and added the next batch. This one came out at about 168 once added to the pot. (I was trying to stay as close to 170 as possible)

Pulled the grain bag out, squeezed it dry and the added all the wort to the stock pot.

Added first hops and boiled for 60 minutes. I also made sure that I had sparged enough water (is that the right term?) to make 3 gallons of wort. In one hour of boiling I was able to boil approximately 1/2 gallon out to make a 2.5 gallon batch.

After flame out, cooled to about 78 degrees. (I ran out of ice.)
Added irish moss and final hops (I forgot to add it at flameout)
Moved to 3 gallon carboy after determining 1.060 OG. (Yay!)
Added Safale S-04 English Ale yeast and airlocked it in a bathtub, just in case I get some blowoff.

This morning I have some nice activity in the airlock and a fine krausen across the top.

I am going to call the first brew a great success thus far. We will see how it tastes.

Observations:

• Wort is sticky.
• Next time I will do this outside on my grill burner or the turkey fryer burner.
• I could definitely use a wort chiller. It took me about 30-45 minutes to get the temps down.
• While not completely necessary, a mash tun would be highly beneficial.
• I think I would go with an S-05 yeast next time, the temps in my house are at the high-end for S-04 and I am a little concerned with Ester production.
• OG of 1.060 was read after reducing to 2.5 gallons. Calculating at 60g/L my original OG with 3 gallons was 1.050. This gives me an efficiency rating of 81% per this website: http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/ Is that good?

Thanks for reading. How did I do?

 

[LovesIPA]

I'd say you did a really good job except for the Irish Moss and the flame-out hops. The Irish moss is supposed to be added with about 15 minutes left in the boil. I don't know what putting the hops in when the wort has cooled vs. at flame out will do but I'm guessing you'll be missing some hop flavor and/or aroma but I wouldn't consider it a big deal at all. All in all a very successful first brew!

Now leave it alone for three weeks before you even think about bottling it.

 

[Mark_]

I'd say you did a really good job except for the Irish Moss and the flame-out hops. The Irish moss is supposed to be added with about 15 minutes left in the boil. I don't know what putting the hops in when the wort has cooled vs. at flame out will do but I'm guessing you'll be missing some hop flavor and/or aroma but I wouldn't consider it a big deal at all. All in all a very successful first brew!

Now leave it alone for three weeks before you even think about bottling it.

Yeah, I did a facepalm on that one. I contemplated boiling it again but didn't know if that would cause any issues. Live and learn I guess Next time, next time!

Thank you for the feedback!

You bring up a good question. I am used to wine. I test the final gravity to determine when my wine is finished. Do I need to test for a certain final gravity? Or do I just let it sit for 3 weeks and then bottle without any intervention, testing or racking?

 

[LovesIPA]

I do it a little differently than conventional wisdom. Partly because I'm lazy, partly because I don't want to waste beer, and partly because I don't want to increase the risk of contamination by opening the fermenter any more than I have to.

I always wait at least three weeks in primary. That is more than enough time for any beer to completely finish fermenting. I also keg so I don't have to worry about bottle bombs, which is the biggest risk in bottling too early. When I go to keg it, I take a sample to determine FG (and therefore ABV) and that's the only post-fermentation sample I take. If it's not in the range I expect it to be then I have a problem to deal with but so far it hasn't happened.

Most people will advise to you take gravity readings after 2-3 weeks and bottle when the FG is stable for 3-4 days but that's a lot of sampling, especially for a 3 gallon batch.

 

[Mark_]

Again, good advice and in-line with my thinking as well. Thank you again!

 

[BestBeerShop]

Like LovesIPA said, most would advise to take gravity readings after 2-3 weeks and bottle when the FG is stable for a few days.

Other than that, not bad for your first time. Pretty ambitious too going all grain your first time out. I would just add that you should take gravity readings pre-boil and pre-pitching so that you can determine your ABV and efficiency.

 

[Mark_]

Thanks BestBeer!.

I did take a gravity reading after the boil/pre-pitch and found it to be 1.060. (Adjusted for temp was 1.062)

Since I didn't do a pre-boil gravity check I did some math. 1.060 is 60 grams of sugar per liter of water. If you take that and figure out how much sugar, in total, is in that 2.5 liters you can take that and extrapolate it out to 3 gallons and that's where I got my 1.050 calculation. I would assume the latter is related to mash efficiency and the former would be a sort of "brewshop efficiency."

If it ferments out to 1.010 I should hit about a 6.56% ABV. Efficiency based on "brewshop" (e.g. boiling down to 5 gallons to increase SG) was 81%. I think that is acceptable.

I call two a quorum, time to set the clock for 2-3 weeks. Man, the hardest part is the patience. LOL

Thanks guys!