OK guys,
On the weekend had my first run at doing all grain. Had a mate helping me Saturday night so that helped a lot, this was after watching him do his AG brew in the afternoon. Did a single batch of Sparkling Ale and a double batch of Irish Red (I did the Irish Red Sunday). Surprised at how fast the hot break/foaming from the boil disappears doing the AG, seems to go on a bit longer when doing extract beers.
1. Firstly, now that I have mentioned hot breakthe amount of hot break left in the bottom of the kettle was mind blowing, especially with the double batch. How do you guys combat picking up crap off the bottom of the kettle when transferring to wort cubes, fermenters etc?
2. When is the right time to stop with the sparging. I used batch sparging for my brews, and after 3 sparges of the Irish I had to stop as I had filled the kettle. The kettle is only a 50L job. Will need to get a bigger one I think before I attempt another double batch. I think the wort in the third running was sitting around the 1020 SG still, and had color still but I had to stop. The SG reading may be a little off kilter due to temperature. Using a refractometer but still a little green with adjusting for temp.
3. Had some weird temperature issues occur. The first was due to not stirring the infusion water. Using a Mashmaster controller and a 2400W element on the HLT to heat the water so hitting and maintaining temp was not an issue, but we found that there was a cold water pocket sitting in the bottom of the HLT, below the level of the element, which gets drawn first. We found this after our first water addition. Note: Lesson learnt. Realized when the dial thermometer didn't hit the expected range. Just meant a protein rest while we bumped up the temp a bit. Second problem is that, we added water, the gauge indicated correct strike temp but the temp dropped rapidly. Lost I would guess 6 degrees over about 30 minutes. Crazy stuff. I did a dry run on the mash tun the other week with a different thermometer, and the temp was help for an hour with only a 2 degree temp drop. I didn't pre heat the tun either so this was damn good. The thermometer I used on the weekend was calibrated an hour before I began. Only thing I can think of with this is that the probe only comes about 1 Inch into the tun. Maybe it is getting cooler near the very edge but the core is holding it's heat. How far do your probes extend into the mash? I am waiting to ferment both brews out to see how they faired.
Apart from that, I liked the look of both brews. They looked awesome. The first runnings color from the Irish Red was to die for. Any help or suggestions as always is greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Ken
On the weekend had my first run at doing all grain. Had a mate helping me Saturday night so that helped a lot, this was after watching him do his AG brew in the afternoon. Did a single batch of Sparkling Ale and a double batch of Irish Red (I did the Irish Red Sunday). Surprised at how fast the hot break/foaming from the boil disappears doing the AG, seems to go on a bit longer when doing extract beers.
1. Firstly, now that I have mentioned hot breakthe amount of hot break left in the bottom of the kettle was mind blowing, especially with the double batch. How do you guys combat picking up crap off the bottom of the kettle when transferring to wort cubes, fermenters etc?
2. When is the right time to stop with the sparging. I used batch sparging for my brews, and after 3 sparges of the Irish I had to stop as I had filled the kettle. The kettle is only a 50L job. Will need to get a bigger one I think before I attempt another double batch. I think the wort in the third running was sitting around the 1020 SG still, and had color still but I had to stop. The SG reading may be a little off kilter due to temperature. Using a refractometer but still a little green with adjusting for temp.
3. Had some weird temperature issues occur. The first was due to not stirring the infusion water. Using a Mashmaster controller and a 2400W element on the HLT to heat the water so hitting and maintaining temp was not an issue, but we found that there was a cold water pocket sitting in the bottom of the HLT, below the level of the element, which gets drawn first. We found this after our first water addition. Note: Lesson learnt. Realized when the dial thermometer didn't hit the expected range. Just meant a protein rest while we bumped up the temp a bit. Second problem is that, we added water, the gauge indicated correct strike temp but the temp dropped rapidly. Lost I would guess 6 degrees over about 30 minutes. Crazy stuff. I did a dry run on the mash tun the other week with a different thermometer, and the temp was help for an hour with only a 2 degree temp drop. I didn't pre heat the tun either so this was damn good. The thermometer I used on the weekend was calibrated an hour before I began. Only thing I can think of with this is that the probe only comes about 1 Inch into the tun. Maybe it is getting cooler near the very edge but the core is holding it's heat. How far do your probes extend into the mash? I am waiting to ferment both brews out to see how they faired.
Apart from that, I liked the look of both brews. They looked awesome. The first runnings color from the Irish Red was to die for. Any help or suggestions as always is greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Ken