First crack at AG

[PRW]

Hi all,

Decided to try my hand at brewing and after doing a bit of reading decided to cut straight to the chase and go AG.
I'm a chef by trade and spend all my time banging on telling people that food tastes better made from scratch, so why would beer be any different.

I've decided to start small with a stove top BIAB SMASH (who doesn't love a good acronym), aiming for 4-5l to go into the carboy.

For malt I'm using Pale malt from Voyager
For hops I'm using Mangrove Jack Galaxy pellets
For yeast I'm using some generic premium Ale malt, granules

As a total noob I've read post after post about recipes, setups, etc, but got tired of staring at a screen looking for the answers so I figure I'll just go for it and post pictures and updates and all you gurus out there can tell me where I did or didn't go wrong.

So,
In a stainless steel pot, I heated 6L of tap water
Using a stick blender, I smashed up 1.2kg of Pale Malt.
I waited until the water reached 72C, then added the malt and brew sock, temp reading 66C
Lid's on and I'm 20 minutes into an hour mash.

Planning on a hop schedule of:
5g@60
6g@15
6g@5

No chill and pitch the yeast at 20C

What could possibly go wrong?

I figure I want to get a couple of low-volume-low kit (LVLK brewing, all my fellow tight arses out there feel free to use this term, like I said who doesn't love an acronym). That way if i stuff it up or figure it's not for me, I'm about 20 bucks out of pocket.


This is the stick blended malt


Close up of savaged malt


Brew sock with grain in pot


Put her to bed

Will update as things progress.
Would love to hear anyones thoughts so far.

Westy
Central Tilba

 

[dblunn]

Congratulations, you're an All Grain Brewer!

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

So far you seem to have it covered.

What was your SG into the fermenter

 

[PRW]

Ok, now for the update

After an hour mashing, the temp was still 66C. I have a piss weak electric stove top and I left it on 1 as I figure that would just hold temperature, which luckily it did.

I took then removed the bag and hung it over a bucket to let the excess drain. Once it was cool enough I gave it a big ol squeeze.

The SG was 1028 @56C when I measured it, but have no idea what that means. That was pre boil, though, which is happening now. Going to let it cool somewhere nice and secure overnight and pitch the yeast into the fermenter tomorrow morning.

Again, will keep posted and all feedback welcome.

Westy

 

[PRW]

So far you seem to have it covered.

What was your SG into the fermenter

Winging it like a pro mate,
SG was 1028 at 56C, still that was after the mash, boiling now for hops, will keep you updated on the read going into the fermenter.

 

[Reman]

That's 1.042 after temp adjustment, very respectable. Guessing it will 1.048-1.050 after the boil.