First AG

[Angry]

Finally got my AG gear together and will attempt my first AG tomorrow.

I have given all the gear and processes a test using water and all seems to be running well.
I am using a 55ltr Willow esky Mash Tun with BeerBelly Falsie (tests show only losing about .5 degrees c with the use of triple layered camping foam, bottom layer covered in foil)
And a converted keg for the boil and an Italian spiral burner with medium pressure adjustable regulator.

Got the ingredients and will be doing Dr Smurto's Golden Ale as it seems reasonably idiot proof. (essential for me)
I have frozen eight 2ltr bottles of water and might buy some ice to put in the laundry sink and try and chill the wort quicker. (thinking straight into the fermenter then straight into the ice bath).
How long should this method take to cool the wort?
Any last minute advice/words of wisdom for a novice Ag'er?

Thanks in advance and fingers crossed that I don't F@#K it up!

[timmy]

I'd be inclined to cool the wort as much as possible in the kettle first before decanting. That way you keep the break material out (especially the hot break). Also I've read that splashing the hot wort around increases the risk of oxidisation. It just depends on if you can fit your kettle in something that would cool it effectively - does your keg/kettle fit in your laundry sink?

Cheers (and good luck),

Tim

[Angry]

I'd be inclined to cool the wort as much as possible in the kettle first before decanting. That way you keep the break material out (especially the hot break). Also I've read that splashing the hot wort around increases the risk of oxidisation. It just depends on if you can fit your kettle in something that would cool it effectively - does your keg/kettle fit in your laundry sink?

Cheers (and good luck),

Tim

Yeah was concerned about the oxidation but figured I would just drain off slowly and with minimal splashing to my fermenter. Unfortunately my kettle won't fit in the sink as it has an extended stainless pipe to keep the ball valve handle cool after boiling.

[drsmurto]

Where do you live Angry?

When you bought the stuff from Wayne you could have picked up a plate chiller too. I have one and i love it! But then i have most of wayne's s/steel brewing gear....

And yes, the golden ale is an easy first up AG. Just picked up 500g of amarillo so i dont see myself not brewing this continuously over summer. When mates see it on tap it doesnt last!

As far as chilling goes, do you have a fermenting fridge? if so you can chuck it straight into there. Not ideal for the fridge motor but it does the job. Otherwise, fill the bath with water and sit it in that with a few ice blocks.

[Angry]

I live in Wollongong so takes a little while to receive gear from S.A but still very happy with my purchase from BeerBelly.
Plate chiller or immersion chiller might have to be on the to buy list in the future as I think next purchase will have to be a grain mill so I can buy some bulk grain.
Retail grain cost was a bit excessive this time around.
Might have to give Santa Claus the hint!

Just finished my mash and waiting for the great smelling wort to come to the boil as I write this and all seems to be going well. (hopefully)
This is what I ended up going with

3kg pilsener
1kg Pale wheat
1kg Pale munich
0.3kg of Caramunich I

20g amarillo @ 60min
15g Amarillo @ 20min
20g Amarillo @ 1min

Yeast S-05

Used 20l to mash and 13l to sparge ended up with around 28 to 30l or so in the boil pot with an OG of 1044.....sound right?
Haven't quite had the time to get my head around the efficiency calcs yet so hope it was a decent efficiency.
From the little I have read it seems just a bit low.

[drsmurto]

What final volume are you aiming for? How long are you boiling for?

An OG of 1.044 pre-boil seems high

[Angry]

OK......... PROBLEM.

I have ended up with 17 ltrs when i was hoping for around 23-25 into the fermenter.
It has with a gravity reading of 1044.

Did I boil to long? (90 mins)
Not enough mash water? (20ltrs to 5kg of grain)
Not enough sparge water? (13 ltrs)

And can I make it a larger volume by adding water and some dextrose that I have?
What effect will this have or should I just deal with the smaller volume.

I haven't pitched the yeast yet hoping for some advice.
Also forgot the whirfloc tablet at 15min.......yes I am a bit useless.

In short what did I do wrong and how do I fix it. This time and next.

HELP!

[drsmurto]

I would personally leave it be and pitch the yeast.

What beer program are you using?

I use beersmith and it took me 3 brews to get my volumes right altho i was overshooting (25 instead of 20L).

You need to play around with evaporation rate, losses to trub, cooling losses etc.

Send me your email address via PM and i will send you the beersmith file i use for the golden ale. You will be able to see how i have set up all these details.

you will also see how much water i sue to get 20L of wort, somewhere around 35. The grain sucks up ~1L/kg so that may be where you have lost some altho the beer program will take that into account.

[Angry]

Thanks for taking the time to reply.
I am one of those strange Mac users and unfortunately don't have parallels or another emulator so beersmith is no go.
I have been using the trial version of Beer Tools pro and it seems ok although I am still a novice atm.

Just slightly annoyed that final batch is so small as I figured on getting at least 23l. Live and learn
Although on second thoughts there is a chance I had my brand spanking new Italian Spiral burner cranking a bit much. Was a pretty vigoruos boil.
I worked my efficiency out out 73% although not exactly sure how much went into the boil pot. guessing around 26l.
Will have to make a dipstick or sight gauge to know for future efforts.

Might as well just pitch the yeast and try again.

[drsmurto]

I dont have a sight glass and to make sure i hit volumes i sparge into a fermenter so i know pre-boil volume and gravity.

Make sure you record all volumes as you go along. I say that but i still use a 9L plastic bucket to 'measure' the volume into my HLT!

To give you an idea i will run you thru my batch which is based on 70% efficiency.

So recipe is
2.40 kg Pale Malt, Traditional Ale (Joe White) (5.9 EBC) Grain 56.47 %
0.80 kg Munich I (Weyermann) (14.0 EBC) Grain 18.82 %
0.80 kg Wheat Malt, Pale (Weyermann) (3.9 EBC) Grain 18.82 %
0.25 kg Caramunich I (Weyermann) (100.5 EBC) Grain 5.88 %
20.00 gm Pearle [6.00 %] (60 min) Hops 15.8 IBU
15.00 gm Amarillo [8.90 %] (20 min) Hops 10.7 IBU
15.00 gm Amarillo [8.90 %] (5 min) Hops 3.5 IBU
0.50 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs SafAle American Ale (DCL Yeast #US-05(56)) Yeast-Ale
15.00 gm Amarillo [8.90 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -

Dough in with 12L of water at 74C to give me a mash temp of 66C. (2.8L/kg)

After 1h, add 8L of water at 100C to mash out at 78C.

After 10 mins, start the sparge (i batch sparge so this is just running off the liquid into a fermenter).

During this time i heat up the sparge water to 82C

Once the 1st runnings are done i know how much volume i need. The grain is already wet so it wont soak up anymore water so i can add the same volume of water as i want to get out. In this case its 11L.

So i add 11L of water at 82C to the now drained mash tun to give me a temp of ~78C. Wait 10 mins and then drain (i do recirculate).

In the end i have 29L in my fermenter at 1.035 or thereabouts. Drain this into my kettle and boil for 90 mins.

I have set my loss to trub as 1L. Evaporation rate is 15%/hour.

Run it thru the chiller into the same fermenter which i used to sparge (which has since been sanitised) to give me 20L @ 1.047.

i use a NASA burner and have it on full to reach boil and then knock it back to 2 or 3 as i only want a rolling boil. Some people say it should be a violent boil to knock out DMS etc but i haven't had that issue. As long as you boil with the lid off you will be fine.

Hope this helps. If you want some help on brewday jump onto AHB - there are a reasonable number of experienced brewers in the Gong who no doubt will be willing to help out. Watching a brew being done was the best thing i did prior to jumping into AG.

[Tipsy]

Just slightly annoyed that final batch is so small as I figured on getting at least 23l. Live and learn.

A few of my earlier AG's were light on like yours.
I fixed my problems as simply as fixing my settings in Beersmith, I know you don't have that program but all it really did was increase my water additions by a couple of litres to suit my evaporation and trub loses.
I also gained 2-3 more litres by draining my mash tun properly. Now while bringing the wort to the boil I leave the tap to the tun open and draining into a jug.
I was amazed how much I was throwing away.

[Trough Lolly]

Angry - forget the volume crap - you've made beer! You will get the hang of your system over time. That said, a 90 minute boil is a bit long for a standard beer.

After a few dozen sessions, you'll be doing it with the proverbial blindfold on! Brew hard, and often!

Cheers,
TL