First AG brew - Effed it but still got some wort

[Khellendros13]

First AG brew today, with all my new toys.

50L kettle, 19L HLT, 34L esky Mash Tun.
NASA burner.

Decided on Snow's recipe for a Pacific Ale clone (minus the FWH addition).

I stuffed up heaps and also under estimated losses in the MT and Kettle by a fair margin.

I calculated and made additions to my water, as per EZ water calculator. Added 4ml of Lactic Acid too.
I couldn't find any scales that were accurate to .1gm, so made do with the kitchen ones.
Probably stuffed this right up, got 5gm of Calcium Chloride on the scales, thought it looked too much, took it all off and put back half, read 5gms.


Ran out of gas just as sparge water was hitting temp.

Boiled over (had the lid half on, even on a 50L pot that will cause a boil over) and lost 1 or 2 L.

Pulled the hose out of the HLT before shutting off the MT valve.

Had to add 8L to the MT and skip mashing out as I got distracted and missed my strike temp.

Realised as I was sparging that the wheat malt was poorly crushed, and was probably the reason I missed my target OG by 7 points.

Mash PH was 4.8 instead of target of 5.35, maybe the poor grain crush again. However, first runnings were 5.2ph, so maybe it was ok?

Ended up with 12L into the fermenter...8L missing due to the above reasons.


My Pacific Ale clone is gonna be pretty bitter now I think.


Was fun though, made some changes to my equipment profile in Beersmith.
Having a refractometer and ph meter made my day so much easier.


Plate chiller using my old pump from my watercooled PC, running through a radiator with 2 fans. Iced bottles in the HLT, and the wort dribbling out got me to 24c or so into the fermenter. Fermenting at 19c in my keezer, since this is the first batch I will be kegging.




SS braiding worked ok in the MT, didn't let any grain through. There was about 2L in the MT that just wouldn't make the trip...even with me ensuring nothing was clogging the braid filter. Might have to look at the pickup setup, as it is attached to copper piping going into a silicone hose. So not 100% flush on the MT floor.







Really thin mash due to missing my strike temp, so added what was to be my mash out water plus some of the sparge water.

 

[Diesel80]

You got to start somewhere mate. My first was a calamity as well.
Onward and upward!

Cheers,
D80

 

[Truman42]

It can only get better from here. Just make sure you have learned from your mistakes so it dosnt happoen again. And buy yourself some small scales from ebay.

 

[goomboogo]

Well done. The mishaps will decrease as you become more familiar with the process. When starting out, there seems to be a lot to do and much to remember on brewday. For your first few brews, if you simplify the process as much as possible it may allow more focus on the basics. Things like ph measurement and water chemistry may be an unnecessary distraction at this stage. With the recipe you've quoted and Melbourne water, you can successfully make the beer without adjusting the water.

As you found out, it's important to sort out all the required volumes and get your equipment dialled in. It would be good if you can leave less liquid in the mash tun but the most important thing is consistency. If you can't reduce the loss then make sure it is allowed for in your calculations.

Having never owned a water-cooled computer I am unfamiliar with that type of pump. I would be wary. Something designed to run water at a temperature required to cool a computer may not be a good option to pump hot, sugary wort. Other people with knowledge of the particular pump may offer assistance. With the way you have things set up, you could gravity feed through your chiller.

Now it's time to get onto the next batch.

 

[MCHammo]

A PC water cooling system is designed to handle relatively high temperature coolant. Whether it's designed for near-boiling though, is another matter. Also, are the contact surfaces food grade? They probably won't rust (being designed for water), but with an altered pH, different chemical composition, you don't want to leach anything from any of the pump surfaces. It's probably perfectly safe as a once off, but it may need a bit of investigation before being used again.

 

[Khellendros13]

Thanks guys, pretty normal for a first AG run it seems.

The pump was just for the water side of the chiller, wort was gravity fed. I did it this way so I could recirculate the chiller water (starsan solution that was keeping my FV sanitary). Worked well but was a PITA to pack up.
Going to just use a hose and outside tap next brew, and wash out the MT at the same time

 

[Khellendros13]

Down to 1017 from 1050 after 4 days. Tasting alright out of the fermenter, get that wheat hit but really can't taste or smell any galaxy. Hopefully the dry hopping helps that, if not I will have to keg hop too. I thought the bitterness would be off but it isn't bad so far.

Can't wait until I keg this.

 

[Pickaxe]

Usually, a teaspoon is roughly 7gms of most dry ingredients. If your scales can't deal with grams, try that as a rough guide. In baking this goes for sugar, yeast, bicarb etc...

 

[Khellendros13]

Usually, a teaspoon is roughly 7gms of most dry ingredients. If your scales can't deal with grams, try that as a rough guide. In baking this goes for sugar, yeast, bicarb etc...

Cheers. I'm anal about these small scale measurements so got some scales to handle down to .1gm.