First ag critique my technique

[stat]

I’ve been reading the forums (and “how to brew”) for a couple months and think I’ve figured it out enough to give my first batch a go. A couple years ago I got a kit from defalco’s in houston http://www.defalcos.com/virtuemart....ge=flypage.tpl&product_id=1103&category_id=55

similar to that one but it was different when I got it. No hop pellets etc.; it made beer but it was warm fermented (75~) extract stout. I drank it but I really didn’t want to make it again. This christmas I got a polarware 42qt stainless kettle with a false bottom and ½” ball valve. Then I bought an unwired a419 thermostat to go with my mini fridge ( soon to be chest freezer when I can find a deal ) a propane burner and a taylor digital thermometer that I think bobby_m recommended in a thread. Then I went to home depot and bought 2 20’ rolls of ⅜” soft copper to make my IC’s along with all the fittings and hose to make it work. I made them both into the ribcage style immersion coolers. I made two because my tap water in the summer is pretty hot, I haven’t measured it but I know when I filled the spa a couple weeks ago when it was cool it was still 68 or so the spa said. So I figured I’d go from hose to one IC in a bucket of ice water into the other IC that was in the hot wort.

I picked yooper’s house pale ale as my first ag recipe. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/da-yoopers-house-pale-ale-100304/

This is how I figured my first brew day would go:
Bring 4 gal to 170 in my 5 gal pot
Transfer 3.75 gal to my 10.5 gal pot that contains the grain and the false bottom and stir
Check temp for 154, if its right put the lid on and let it sit for 60 mins
Bring another 4 gals or so to 198 in the 5 gal pot
Vorlauf until its clear ( hopefully the false bottom works ) and drain into a bucket
Measure the volume in the bucket and see how much I need to get to the 6 gals I want
At this point say I want 3 gallons, do i split that into 1.5 gallons and do two sparges or just use one 3 gallon sparge?
Close the valve and add whatever volume is decided above, stir and let sit for 10 mins
Vorlauf and drain that into the bucket with the rest of the wort
Clean out the 10.5 gal pot and transfer the wort to it being careful not to splash and aerate it
Turn the fire on and once it starts boiling and the hot break occurs add 1oz cascade and set the timer for 60 mins.
At 30 mins left add another .75 oz (probably do a whole oz because I like hops and lack a scale)
At 15 mins add whirfloc tablet and the IC to sanitize it
At 10 mins add 1 oz
At 5 mins add .5 oz
At 0 mins add .5 oz (how long do I let this steep, as long as it takes for the ic to work its magic?)
Start the cold water flow into the IC and let it do its thing until 62
Whirlpool the wort (is this necessary with a false bottom?)
Transfer into the fermenter and shake like crazy for a bit to aerate
Pitch the yeast (do I need a starter?)
Seal up the fermenter with an airlock and put it into the mini fridge with the thermostat ( If I want the beer at 62 I should set the thermostat for 58 or so since it’s exothermic right? )

At this point the recipe says wait two weeks and dry hop, can I add the hops to the primary fermenter and wait another two weeks or do I need to use a secondary because of the dry hopping. I’d like to leave it on the primary if possible. After that I hope to have the equipment to be able to keg and force carbonate but if I don’t how much sugar do I use to bottle carbonate?

My burner is still in the mail but once I get it I’m going to do some tests to see what my boiloff is so I can adjust the pre boil volume to what I need. I’m also going to add some 170 degree water to the 10.5 gal pot to see what temp it drops to and also how long it can hold its temp. I realize I may need to wrap it in blankets to get it to stay at 154 for an hour.

I hope you guys find all the pitfalls in this set up before I go and waste some grain.

 

[nebben]

....
This is how I figured my first brew day would go:
Bring 4 gal to 170 in my 5 gal pot
Transfer 3.75 gal to my 10.5 gal pot that contains the grain and the false bottom and stir

Personally, I like to add the strike water first, a few degrees warmer than I want it to be, just because the mash tun needs to absorb some of that heat, thus cooling off the strike water a little bit. Once I'm roughly 10-12F above my mash temp, I'll dough in and mix. I use beersmith, and plug in my grain temp too, so the exact temperature varies depending on the time of day/year I'm doing this.

Check temp for 154, if its right put the lid on and let it sit for 60 mins
Bring another 4 gals or so to 198 in the 5 gal pot

This is just personal preference, but I usually wont heat up sparge water past 180F or so, and even then, I'll watch carefully to make sure I never exceed 168F in the grainbed. Anything higher can cause tannin extraction. Just to be safe, I usually just heat up to 170F in my sparge water, but YMMV.

....
Measure the volume in the bucket and see how much I need to get to the 6 gals I want
At this point say I want 3 gallons, do i split that into 1.5 gallons and do two sparges or just use one 3 gallon sparge?

Either way works. I've done it both ways, and neither one seems better than the other to me at least.

....At 0 mins add .5 oz (how long do I let this steep, as long as it takes for the ic to work its magic?)

I would just toss them in when you're turning off the gas. While the wort is cooling is just fine. You can also add more (dry hop) later in the fermenter if you want more of the aroma present in the beer. I wouldn't worry too much about this though, it sounds like a great recipe.

Start the cold water flow into the IC and let it do its thing until 62
Whirlpool the wort (is this necessary with a false bottom?)
Transfer into the fermenter and shake like crazy for a bit to aerate

Sounds good! I wouldn't worry about doing the whirlpool thing if your boil kettle has a false bottom with a valve below it.

Pitch the yeast (do I need a starter?)
Seal up the fermenter with an airlock and put it into the mini fridge with the thermostat ( If I want the beer at 62 I should set the thermostat for 58 or so since it’s exothermic right? )

Depending on your yeast, you might need to make a starter. Wyeast and White Labs say, if I remember right, that you can pitch a non-expired yeast package directly into your wort if the gravity is below 1.060. I have done this exact thing without a starter before, yes. Starters usually don't hurt though, since you can build up the yeast to a more optimal level and verify that it works before you've put it in your precious wort. I've never done a starter with dry yeast though, for whatever its worth.

If you're using an ale yeast, depending on its recommended temperature range, I wouldn't recommend going as low as 58F. If you have a thermostat on a fridge, I would just dial in whatever the temp you want and let the fridge do the work of cooling the wort down on its own.

At this point the recipe says wait two weeks and dry hop, can I add the hops to the primary fermenter and wait another two weeks or do I need to use a secondary because of the dry hopping. I’d like to leave it on the primary if possible. After that I hope to have the equipment to be able to keg and force carbonate but if I don’t how much sugar do I use to bottle carbonate?

Personally, I don't do secondaries for most of my beers, but I've never dry-hopped either. I wouldn't see why one couldn't dry-hop in primary though, even if for the last week and a half (of a three week primary). You can usually use approximately 4oz sucrose or dextrose for a 5G batch of beer- boil it in a small pot and make sure it dissolves completely, then mix it into a bottling bucket which you rack your finished beer into. Mix it up thoroughly and bottle from there.

The stuff I didn't quote sounded about right to me. I didn't see if you mentioned it, but definitely take a sample of your finished wort and record your final volume into the fermenter so you can calculate your brewhouse efficiency. If you also take a pre-boil measurement (allow any samples to cool to 60-70F before taking any measurements!) of your gravity and volume, you can find your mash efficiency.

The things that I had a hard time with on my first AG were temperature control and overcompensating. It is easier to add more heat than you need (to a point) and let things cool off than going too low and adding boiling water. Adding boiling water runs the risk of over-shooting the temp, and thinning the mash. Take careful measurements, be slow and methodical, double check everything, and have fun!

 

[Mysticmead]

you forgot the most important step... RELAX.. have fun, you'll be making great beer from grain to glass