Did my first all-grain batch yesterday... it was a kit from NB called "Tangerine Ravine". Questions and observations:
-Extract efficiency: The calculators are telling me I got over 85%? Is this possible on the first try? Seems like I've read many threads from experienced folks saying they have a hard time getting near 80%. I did note that the pre-crushed grain mix seemed a bit more crushed than many folks seem to recommend; maybe that was a contributing factor?
-Mash: Overall I think it went pretty well. My intention was to start just a little hot, since I was expecting the cooler to lose a little bit of heat during the hour mash. I ended up starting just 1 degree over the target though, and after an hour I was still getting the same reading, bang-on with no temp loss. I tried a "mash out" by adding an additional gallon of boiling water, but that only brought the temp up to 160 instead of 170. Still, waited 10 minutes and then started vorlauf. Possibly not helped by what might have been a slight over-crush, I was not able to get it to run really clear. During the first drain into the kettle, I got some pieces of grain transferred. I reached in with a little strainer and grabbed what I could. After adding 5gal of sparge water, waiting 10 minutes, and repeating the process, I drained the wort through my new fine mesh hop screen to grab any grain chunks that made it out of the mash tun. This was effective to remove the last little bit of debris... any issues with this?
-Boil: 60 minutes, uneventful except for higher volume than my previous partial-boil extract kits. I started with 6.9 gallons and finished with right at 6 gallons. Does that seem reasonable? This was less boil off loss than I was expecting.
-Cooling: This was an adventure. Used the immersion chiller for the first time. This got it down to 100 or so in probably 20-30 min and then it basically stopped dropping. After that I let it sit in the kettle a bit with the lid on hoping it would drop further. No dice. I eventually transferred it to a carboy and then put that in an ice bath, and quite a while later, it was still showing 80 degrees. It was after midnight at that point, so I just pitched the Safeale S05 at about 80 and went to bed. As of this morning (about 7 hours later) temp was down to 71, and there was ZERO movement in the airlock. I know that is a short timeframe and may not start that fast, but in my prior brews I've at least seen a little bit of something by then. This is also my first time using a Big Mouth Bubbler instead of a glass carboy, so maybe the lid isn't sealed up absolutely 100%.
-Other issues: I threw a little yeast nutrient into the carboy... that is new for me. When I went to aerate though, I found that my O2 tank was completely empty. I'm assuming that is because it is a $10 POS and I'm assuming the valve was faulty and didn't close all the way after last time, and probably slow leaked out when I wasn't looking. So all the O2 in the wort would have had to come from splashing it from the kettle into the carboy. Question: If I get a new oxygen tank on the way home today, and don't see any airlock activity by then, should I uncork it and aerate? That would be roughly 17 hours after the original yeast pitch.
Sorry for the wall of text, and thanks for any thoughts.
-Extract efficiency: The calculators are telling me I got over 85%? Is this possible on the first try? Seems like I've read many threads from experienced folks saying they have a hard time getting near 80%. I did note that the pre-crushed grain mix seemed a bit more crushed than many folks seem to recommend; maybe that was a contributing factor?
-Mash: Overall I think it went pretty well. My intention was to start just a little hot, since I was expecting the cooler to lose a little bit of heat during the hour mash. I ended up starting just 1 degree over the target though, and after an hour I was still getting the same reading, bang-on with no temp loss. I tried a "mash out" by adding an additional gallon of boiling water, but that only brought the temp up to 160 instead of 170. Still, waited 10 minutes and then started vorlauf. Possibly not helped by what might have been a slight over-crush, I was not able to get it to run really clear. During the first drain into the kettle, I got some pieces of grain transferred. I reached in with a little strainer and grabbed what I could. After adding 5gal of sparge water, waiting 10 minutes, and repeating the process, I drained the wort through my new fine mesh hop screen to grab any grain chunks that made it out of the mash tun. This was effective to remove the last little bit of debris... any issues with this?
-Boil: 60 minutes, uneventful except for higher volume than my previous partial-boil extract kits. I started with 6.9 gallons and finished with right at 6 gallons. Does that seem reasonable? This was less boil off loss than I was expecting.
-Cooling: This was an adventure. Used the immersion chiller for the first time. This got it down to 100 or so in probably 20-30 min and then it basically stopped dropping. After that I let it sit in the kettle a bit with the lid on hoping it would drop further. No dice. I eventually transferred it to a carboy and then put that in an ice bath, and quite a while later, it was still showing 80 degrees. It was after midnight at that point, so I just pitched the Safeale S05 at about 80 and went to bed. As of this morning (about 7 hours later) temp was down to 71, and there was ZERO movement in the airlock. I know that is a short timeframe and may not start that fast, but in my prior brews I've at least seen a little bit of something by then. This is also my first time using a Big Mouth Bubbler instead of a glass carboy, so maybe the lid isn't sealed up absolutely 100%.
-Other issues: I threw a little yeast nutrient into the carboy... that is new for me. When I went to aerate though, I found that my O2 tank was completely empty. I'm assuming that is because it is a $10 POS and I'm assuming the valve was faulty and didn't close all the way after last time, and probably slow leaked out when I wasn't looking. So all the O2 in the wort would have had to come from splashing it from the kettle into the carboy. Question: If I get a new oxygen tank on the way home today, and don't see any airlock activity by then, should I uncork it and aerate? That would be roughly 17 hours after the original yeast pitch.
Sorry for the wall of text, and thanks for any thoughts.