Time to pop the ch...

[david_the_greek]

Sorry guys, I'm sure all the brew gurus are sick of us "first time help!" posters, but I've been dieing to try all grain. Here's my recipe and how I plan to brew it, so please help me out to make sure I'm doing this all right.

I'm going to follow DeathBrewers all grain "stove top" method (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-stovetop-all-grain-brewing-pics-90132/), due to a lack of equipment being set up. My batch with be a 3 gallon, 2-hearted clone. My recipe is as follows:

6lbs Pale malt (2-row) (called for 5, I figure I'll be inefficient)
1lb Vienna
.5lb carapils
.5lb carmel/crystal 40L

All hops are centennial PELLETS
.5oz @ 60 minutes'
1oz @25
.5oz @2
1oz dry hop.

I stole this from a gent on the Bells 2 hearted thread. Right now all the grain is crushed and waiting for me in the freezer, my hops are in the fridge, and the bottom of a pale ale and 2 hearted are spinning around in my beaker on my stirplate/hotplate. I want to brew tonight! Since I have 8 lbs of grain, I think I'm supposed to use 10 quarts of water for my strike water (2.5 gallons). I want to mash at 150, so I should maybe shoot for 160ish pre grain addition? Is there an average temp drop per pound of grain? I let this sit for approximately 60 minute.

Sparge should be approximately 170 with the grains, so a bit over that right? 175-180? The sparge water should be approximately 1/2 gallon per pound, so total of 4 gallons. I'm debating whether or not to drain my pot that I am using as a MLT, and then rinsing the grains in their bag. Should I just stick to DB's method and dip my grains into the sparge water? If I follow DB's method I stir the grains for a minute, then let them sit for 10.

After the above, take the two volumes and combine them in one large pot and boil it down on a turkey fryer, basically like a "normal" brewday.

I know it's a beginners worry, but the amount of water does slightly boggle me. So I could end up with 6.5 gallons, (lose what, a gallon to the grains? so 5.5), and then I have to boil off the rest till I get to 3 gallons? Man... that might take a while.

Thanks everyone, I appreciate any last minute help you can give me. If all goes according to plan, brewing will start approximately at 6 when I get home from work!

 

[snowveil]

When I dough in, if my strike water is 12 degrees above where I plan on the mash being (after pre-heating my mash tun with hot tap water) I hit dead on where I want to be. Everybody's equipment is different, so you may be a little above or below that. When I first started playing with temperatures I was told some great advice....

Hit your grains with water a little hotter than you *think* you'll need. Stir like crazy, and if you're higher than you need to be, it's a LOT easier to add some ice cubes or cold water to bring the temp down than it is to keep extra hot water on hand.

I wouldn't focus too much on your sparge volume until you're in your brewday. Your mash volume puts you right at 1.25 qts/lb, which is a good place to be. Conduct your mash, then measure the volume of liquid that you get out of it. Then just sparge with whatever you're missing (you'll probably want a total of 4 gallons or so pre-boil, you're going to lose a bit of beer to hop sludge and your yeast slurry). So for example, if you only get 1.5 gallons out of your mash (not unheard of), you'll sparge with 2-2.5 gallons of water. Sparging is just rinsing the grains of residual sugars primarily, so the volume isn't as important as the mash volume. Temperature should be around 170-175, but like with anything else, everyone has a different opnion on that . Keep it below 180 and you'll be good.

If you end up with more volume of wort than you intend (which you shouldn't, if you conduct your brewday like I just mentioned ), you can always boil longer to get down to the volume that you'd like. Take a gravity reading prior to your boil, it should be anywhere from 6-10 points lower than your target gravity. If it's a LOT lower, you can always just boil longer to give you a higher gravity (but less beer in the end). I also like to take a gravity reading about 30 minutes from the end of the boil just to make sure I'm on the right track.

Remember, brewing is a science, but it's also an ART! Don't worry too much. If you miss your temps you'll still end up with beer. Have fun

 

[shortyjacobs]

If I were you, I'd download the brewsmith free trial and give it a shot, it's awesome, (and will tell you exactly how hot the water should be).

Failing that, everything looks about right, but I agree that you should be 12-13 deg higher, not 10. Also, for sparging, figure you are mashing with 2.5 gal of water and 8 lb of grain. Grain absorption of about 0.1 gal per lb means you'll get about 1.7 gal of "First runnings". You want 3 gal total, if I read right, and you'll boil off 1 gal (ish), so you want 4 gal to start out with. If youg et 1.7 gal of first runnings, you need 2.3 gal to hit the 4 gal pre-boil...make sense?

 

[jldc]

Get your grain out of the freezer and let it come to room temp overnight before you brew.

Use BeerSmith or an online calculator to calculate your strike temps.

Good luck

 

[david_the_greek]

Sorry, I fudged up on my wording, they were in the fridge. I put them in there because of the crazy heat/humidity we've been having here in Detroit. Currently waiting for my sparge water to heat up, I lost track of time and didn't start it at the 30 minute point.

 

[david_the_greek]

... everything seemed to go smoothly?!... So everything seemed to work out OK. Thanks everyone and thanks DeathBrewer. My OG was 1.05, a little off but I was also a little above volume. I didn't think to boil away some wort before the hop additions. Anyways, g'night and I'll be sure to let everyone know how it turns out!

Edited to add: I took the hydrometer when the temp was a little warmer than 60 (probably 75-80), would this cause a low or high reading?

 

[snowveil]

if your reading was above 60*F your measured OG will be lower than your actual OG.

at 75-80*F sample temp you can add about 2 points to your gravity, so instead of 1050 you're at about 1052.

glad to hear everything went well