joshF
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 28/10/12
- Messages
- 310
- Reaction score
- 48
Ok so i did my first all-grain earlier today. I didn't do it 100% myself as i had a mate who had done all-grains before show me bits and pieces but he encouraged me to do as much as possible on my own, keeping in mind i have only done 2 extract brews prior.
My setup is a 38L cooler with 10" dome-shaped false bottom, fly sparge arm, 36L stockpot for the boil, 20L Big W stockpot for my sparge water (have thermometer probe things in both the mash tun and big w stockpot)
My attempt was a little creatures bright ale from the highly regarded recipe by Tony. I scaled it down to a 23L batch in beersmith which worked out the OG to be 1.046 and FG of 1.011 with 75% efficiency.
After my mash and boil, my OG was 1.044 at 21.5 litres into the fermenter instead of 23 (gravity reading was taken at 22 degrees) which i guess is a bit off from my expected results. Despite alot of reading, i'm yet to decipher how to uncover my brewhouse efficiency...
I dont mind losing a couple of litres if i miscalculated something but could this relate to the efficiency of my mash or something with the boiling (don't have a gas setup and my stove took about 25 minutes for the wort to even start boiling !!)
Apart from the discrepancy of my results, it smells and tastes freakin awesome. Very citrusy and has a really nice aroma, resembling a mclaren vale ale or other very citrus/stonefruit kind of ale. The wort sample tasted more bitter than i expected, perhaps my substitution calculations were out when i replaced the hops (used scaled-down cascade but replaced B Saaz with Galaxy hops). Should this initial bitterness usually subside a little with fermentation or god forbid will it get stronger?
Onto yeast, My LHBS recomended using US-05 and said it was a bit more robust and easier to work with than the WLP001, especially being a first all-grain batch.
anyway, can you guys comment on how i went or what i could have improved for next time? It was waaaaaaaaaaay more fun than using extracts and took alot longer but felt like i had more control over the whole overall process and way more satisfaction than extracts! Definitely keen for another try in a few weeks!
cheers,
Josh
My setup is a 38L cooler with 10" dome-shaped false bottom, fly sparge arm, 36L stockpot for the boil, 20L Big W stockpot for my sparge water (have thermometer probe things in both the mash tun and big w stockpot)
My attempt was a little creatures bright ale from the highly regarded recipe by Tony. I scaled it down to a 23L batch in beersmith which worked out the OG to be 1.046 and FG of 1.011 with 75% efficiency.
After my mash and boil, my OG was 1.044 at 21.5 litres into the fermenter instead of 23 (gravity reading was taken at 22 degrees) which i guess is a bit off from my expected results. Despite alot of reading, i'm yet to decipher how to uncover my brewhouse efficiency...
I dont mind losing a couple of litres if i miscalculated something but could this relate to the efficiency of my mash or something with the boiling (don't have a gas setup and my stove took about 25 minutes for the wort to even start boiling !!)
Apart from the discrepancy of my results, it smells and tastes freakin awesome. Very citrusy and has a really nice aroma, resembling a mclaren vale ale or other very citrus/stonefruit kind of ale. The wort sample tasted more bitter than i expected, perhaps my substitution calculations were out when i replaced the hops (used scaled-down cascade but replaced B Saaz with Galaxy hops). Should this initial bitterness usually subside a little with fermentation or god forbid will it get stronger?
Onto yeast, My LHBS recomended using US-05 and said it was a bit more robust and easier to work with than the WLP001, especially being a first all-grain batch.
anyway, can you guys comment on how i went or what i could have improved for next time? It was waaaaaaaaaaay more fun than using extracts and took alot longer but felt like i had more control over the whole overall process and way more satisfaction than extracts! Definitely keen for another try in a few weeks!
cheers,
Josh