First Ag. The Brew-day Plan So Far.

[trevc]

Hey guys,

I'm attempting my first all grain brew in the next few days with my mate Dave. I wanted to post the gear we're using, and the step-by-step plan so far.
I'm going to print out the check-list, since we'll likely be drinking beer while we're doing this, and don't want to mess things up.

The equipment:

• Italian spiral burner and medium reg
• 50L Alu brew kettle with tap and mashmaster thermometer
• 55L willlow esky mashtun, with beerbelly false bottom, tap, and mashmaster thermometer installed
• 2 x 25L(28L) chill cubes
• Enough clear hoses, connectors, and tap to run water to the balcony!
• New fermentation fridge and fridgemate to keep this one at 17/18C

We'll be doing the Dr Smurto JSGA clone, and aiming to fill the 28L cube.

Here's the checklist so far (early revision). We're batch sparging, of course.

• Have a beer
• Clean and sanitise cube/s
• Keep a large kettle boiling for temperature corrections
• Keep aprox. 5L or more cold water near brew area
• Weigh hops

Mashing Procedure: (boil volume 36L?) for 28L batch. There's almost exactly 6kg of grain

• Bring HLT to strike temp and hold 40L @ (75C)
• Fill mashtun with 15L strike water @ 75C
• Pour grains in mashtun and mix thoroughly
• Stabilise mashtun temperature at 66C, hold for 75 minutes
• Raise HLT temperature to 90/95C while waiting
• Slowly add 12L mash out water @ 90C to achieve ideal mash temp of 76C
• Stir and sit for 10 minutes
• Re-circulate first runnings, drain to kettle
• Fill mashtun with 14L sparge water @ 90C
• Stir and let sit for 5 minutes
• Re-circulate first runnings, drain remainder to fermenter with tap(temporary)

The recipe:

JSGA Clone
Size: 28.0 L
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 77.0%
Calories: 316.1 per 750 mL

Ingredients:
3.36 kg Pilsner Malt
1.12 kg Pale Wheat Malt
1.12 kg Munich TYPE I
0.35 kg Caramunich TYPE I
22.0 g Pride of Ringwood (8.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
21.0 g Amarillo (8.5%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
21.0 g Amarillo (8.5%) - added during boil, boiled 5 min
21.0 g Amarillo (8.5%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
1.4 ea Fermentis US-05 Safale US-05
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Any advice or recommendations are much appreciated, especially if I've overlooked or forgotten anything.

Cheers

Trev



$12 Fridge

 

[PostModern]

Good to see another AHB brewer turning to the darkside.

One thing I would suggest is, now that you have all the steps planned out, to put them in chronological order rather than a process based order. Step 1, get the HLT in place. Step 2 start heating the strike water in the HLT. Then take it from there.

Looks like a decent recipe. Enjoy the brew day. Take it easy and don't sweat it. Everything will work out fine.

 

[stueywhytcross]

be sure to calibrate them mashmaster dial thermometers before you start. mine was about 10degrees C out before i calibrated it.

good luck.

 

[trevc]

Thanks.

I have a digital thermometer with probe, and it was reading exactly the same as both mashmasters out of the box. I'm assuming they're ok.

How do you guys calibrate, boiling distilled water?

 

[Maple]

For calibration, I check with boiling water and and Ice bath (more ice than water). also good to see how close to any additional thermometers it is at any given temp like room temp, boiling and ice.

 

[Osangar]

A mate and I have started with similar equipment. The result is both brilliant and problematic for us.

The first we did was an American pale ale, it is about 10 days into the bottle conditioning. So yesterday, we decided to try our first creation, while we did two more brews, a light ale and amber ale.

Problem is the American ale is so fantastic, we drank at least of the 25L we made. Hrmm.

The good thing is the equipment is perfect, the process is much easier that I had imagined when I was doing kit and kilo

 

[reg]

Good luck Trevc with the day.
I did my first AG yesterday and enjoyed the process.
Good way to spend the day, save money, be creative and have an excuse for a beer.

It is definately an addiction though, looking at what else I can buy now.

I already have all the ingredients for the next brew....

 

[trevc]

Alright, I might test with boiling water soon.

Sounds like your brew turned out great Osangar. Waiting for beer to condition is the most painful part. Carbed and cold? TIME TO DRINK!

Yeah, so many toys. refractometers look fun. A dedicated HLT would be good as well.

 

[Screwtop]

Alright, I might test with boiling water soon.

You don't mash at boiling temp, calibrate against a known accurate source at mash temps 65C would be good.

Screwy

 

[trevc]

Thanks for the tip Screwy. Any recommendations for finding a steady temperature source in that range? How does everyone usually calibrate their gear to mashing temps?

I'm fairly confident in my digital thermo, it came out of a still. The face that the two mashmasters we're showing the exact same temp as the digital was encouraging too.

 

[Cortez The Killer]

heat water to around that temp 65*C

stick in the thermometers you have and see if any are out

cheers

 

[Crusty]

trevc,
Can't wait to see how your first AG pans out. I am doing this exact recipe in about a week or two. My first AG also. I am mashing in a Rubbermaid cooler with 12" stainless false bottom. My boil kettle is a keg conversion & has to serve a couple of purposes until I can get a 70 litre boil kettle. I have to use it as my strike water kettle & collect wort into another vessel & transfer it all back to the boil kettle. I am using an immersion chiller. What are you using?
I am ordering a couple of Mashmaster thermometers this week with my grain order & am ready to take the plunge from Kit to AG.
Very exciting.
Good luck & may the beer gods be with you.
Crusty

 

[trevc]

trevc,
Can't wait to see how your first AG pans out. I am doing this exact recipe in about a week or two. My first AG also. I am mashing in a Rubbermaid cooler with 12" stainless false bottom. My boil kettle is a keg conversion & has to serve a couple of purposes until I can get a 70 litre boil kettle. I have to use it as my strike water kettle & collect wort into another vessel & transfer it all back to the boil kettle. I am using an immersion chiller. What are you using?
I am ordering a couple of Mashmaster thermometers this week with my grain order & am ready to take the plunge from Kit to AG.
Very exciting.
Good luck & may the beer gods be with you.
Crusty

Cheers mate, thanks. I'm confident it'll go well. My HLT/boil kettle are the same pot. No big deal transferring. I'm also doing no-chill... seems the easiest

I've bought and drilled a 90L Alu pot. If the first batch goes well, I'll only be doing double batches from now on.

 

[Crusty]

I've bought and drilled a 90L Alu pot.

Where did you get that from trev?
Crusty

 

[schooey]

Thanks for the tip Screwy. Any recommendations for finding a steady temperature source in that range? How does everyone usually calibrate their gear to mashing temps?

I'm fairly confident in my digital thermo, it came out of a still. The face that the two mashmasters we're showing the exact same temp as the digital was encouraging too.

I dunno what others have done, but I went to Science Supplies and bought a reasonably priced good quality glass stick type thermo. Quoted accuracy was something like +/- 0.2 deg from memory

When I tried to calibrate the dial thermo, I did it really low with some ice water, and then put some almost boiling water in and found it was about 4 degrees out. Then I realised I was being a fool because I'd only ever be using it between about 40 deg C and 85 deg C. when I calibrated it here, its only about a half to one degree out over this range, I can live with that.

 

[trevc]

Crusty:

http://www.cheflink.com.au/productcart/pc/...?idCategory=219
90L was $150 delivered, 4mm thick... seems heavy duty enough.

Great tip schooey, thanks.

 

[WitWonder]

I would think 75% efficiency is probably a bit optimistic for your first batch - maybe drop it down to 65% and if you're over you can always add some boiled (cooled) water to get the gravity down?

Always good to get stuck in and do the first few and try and calibrate your equipment as you go along. the drinkable beer will come later! Good luck!

 

[trevc]

Thanks for the further suggestions. I'm going to buy one of the glass thermometers made for a still. They guarantee some accuracy at least, and I can calibrate the mashmasters against it.

Has anyone else here used the beerbelly false bottom for their first AG? I'd be curious to hear what sort of efficiencies were managed. A couple of people told me they regularly get around 80% or slightly more, so that's where I came up with 75% from. Perhaps I was a bit too optimistic

 

[randyrob]

Hey Trevc,

I have nothing constructive to add except all the best on your first mash, it's a slippery slope!

that first post is GOLD you have put alot of though into the process

my first batch of ag was like the first time i made love (with someone else)

sloppy, messy, i didnt know what went where or what i was doing but in the end had something to brag about with my mates even if it didnt taste that good...

Rob.

 

[trevc]

my first batch of ag was like the first time i made love (with someone else)

sloppy, messy, i didnt know what went where or what i was doing but in the end had something to brag about with my mates even if it didnt taste that good...

Haha... nice one Thanks for the kind words. I'll just make sure we're not drinking Belgians on the day, or things get a bit foggy quite quickly.

My goal is to produce a nice drinkable beer. I'll be happy with anything decent for my first AG. Luckily, my mates aren't too picky about what they drink.

I'll spend more time tweaking in subsequent batches. I'd like to try the Smurto JSGA with more malt, bringing it to just under 6% abv, with the hoppyness to back it up.