Quantity of water for mash/ sparge ??

[Spin]

I've been brewing from kits for a while now, making various adaptations and have finally decided to make the jump into all-grain brewing. I would love to make beers that have real flavour rather than expensive junk from the shops. For my first attempt I have ordered the grains and yeast required for the following Porter recipe from this website. I hear that a Porter recipe is good as a first attempt. Which was pure luck really as I wanted to try a Porter recipe anyway as I love Porters. My Hop & Grape 10 gallon brewery with twin heating element should be arriving in the next few days also. Woohoo!!!

The recipe is as follows:

Fullers London Porter

25 litre batch
OG 1053
ABV 5%
140 units of colour
33 EBU

OPTIC PALE MALT 4300 gms
CRYSTAL MALT 568 gms
BROWN MALT 683 gms
CHOCOLATE MALT 115 gms

HOPS 90 minute boil

FUGGLES 86 gms (I'll adjust this depending on the strength of the hops)

Add 10 gms Fuggles last 15 minutes

Use Wyeast 1968 London ESB yeast.

I have read through the how to section on all-grain on this site but am still unsure about what quantities of mash/ sparge water to use. I heard somewhere that 2.5L per Kg of grain was right. ?? Then just add the rest as sparge water allowing for boil off ?? Sorry if this is a silly question but I'd really appreciate any advice to make my first batch a success.

[Parva]

Here's how I do it :- viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19662&p=225407&hilit=parva#p225407

[Spin]

That's excellent Parva !! Exactly the information I needed. And my equipment and grains etc have arrived today, so happy days. Looks like I will be spending some of my weekend making a mess.

[Parva]

That's the very kit I've been using to make my beers and it works very well. One thing you must do if you're using the standard supplied hop strainer that comes with the H&G boiler is drill some additional holes in it, the slots it comes with block easily and you end up with a stuck run off. It's a common problem that many of us have faced. Either drill the underside in-between each slot with a couple of 3mm holes or (as in my case) I didn't have a 3mm drill so used a 5mm, 1 between each slot. Also, top tip, use a hammer and nail to 'dent' the spot where you wish to drill as otherwise the drill just slides everywhere. I know it goes against the grain to start butchering stuff before you've even tried it so by all means see how it goes first but if you experience the blocked hop strainer syndrome, that's what you must do to fix it.

Another top tip (and apologies if I'm teaching you how to suck eggs), nothing pre-boil needs to be sanitised. Indeed I just rinse the spent grain from my mash tun and that's all the cleaning it gets before the next AG brew gets underway. It's only post-boil where you have to be sure the FV and anything else that comes into contact with the wort is sanitised. Other than that, good luck with the first AG brew, take it easy and don't worry if things go wrong, we've all dropped clangers but inevitably end up with good beer.

[Spin]

Thank you so much for all that great advice. I really appreciate it. I drilled the holes as you said in my boilers manifold/ strainer. Is the strainer in the mash tun ok or does that really need doing aswel? I still haven't got around to making my first brew yet. Might aswel wait until the bank holiday weekend now so I can take my time with it. Making beer is like making love to a beautiful woman (I guess).

[Parva]

The strainer as supplied with the Thermos mash tun from H&G is absolutely fine, no modifications necessary. I've had some really slow run offs from mine but this was down to a much finer crush of the grains in two sacks of Maris Otter, A quick stir and return the first couple of jugs to the mash tun and continue the run off fixed that. Now I've got those two sacks out of the way batch sparging has returned to normal and running off with the tap fully open presents no problems whatsoever. I was just unlucky to get a more 'flourey' batch of grain than normal but it was no big problem.

The hop strainer in the boiler however is a whole different issue, if that blocks with your cooled wort stuck in there then anything you do has to be sanitary and having experienced it twice (and fortunately got away with it) it's not something you want on your first attempts at AG brewing. Had the issue been with the mash tun strainer it would have been much less of an issue as you can stick a rusty screwdriver in to fix things if necessary (gross exageration but you get the idea).

[Parva]

Something I felt I should add here....

Many years ago I did kits and they were dead easy, 30 minutes to get it to the fermenting stage and then the bottling / kegging stage took the same amount of time regardless of however you got your wort so no difference there.

I eventually gave it up because of moans from the wife and the fact that you instantly knew it was 'homebrew', it had that 'twang' that just gave a thin, alcoholic beer, it was beer but not beer that you could buy in a pub and if it were served in a pub, you would never go back to that pub again but hey, it was cheap.

Now things have moved on lots since then and there are reportedly some decent kits out there and then there's the extract market which is supposed to be extremely good. However, AG is allegedly the final and best step any brewer can take.

Well, I got divorced, lost my job, got a big redundancy payment and just happened across these forums and read up on this mystery that is all grain. Frankly, I wish I had done it years ago! The majority of beers I've brewed and the ones I have sampled from other AG brewers just blows anything that even the great JD Wetherspoon can supply out of the water!

I've had cloudy beers and whatnot but they've tasted absolutely sublime and I'm slowly perfecting my technique now, so much so that I'll show you a picture of one of my latest in a minute. I'm not knocking kits or extract brewing, both have their place, AG brewing takes a lot of love and time but the proof is in the tasting and I'm using that Thermos box just like you.

And the pic (an Old Speckled Hen @5.7%, came out a bit stronger than intended) :-

[Spin]

I hope my beer ends up looking as good as that. It's so clear.

I am going to do my first batch over the bank holiday weekend. I will definitely be refering back to the advice you have given me on here during my brew day I am sure. I am just going to try and itemise everything that I have to do so I don't forget anything and hopefully all goes well. I'm well excited about trying all-grain for the first time. Hopefully I'll be able to tweek some recipes to be exactly how I like them. But I'll just try and get all the processes down first.

Thanks again for all your advice. It has given me a very good understanding of the steps etc

[Parva]

Making a checklist is a very good idea indeed. Some things may go wrong on your first trip but you'll invariably make good beer and your technique will only get better as you go. Good luck and have fun.

[booldawg]

For a porter I'd be tempted to mash with 2L of water per kilo of grains as a stiffer mash will give your beer more body which is what you're looking for in that style.

[Spin]

Thanks, I will try using 2L when I finally get around to making it. I am hoping to do it tomorrow afternoon. Just need to buy a shower connection to use the tubing for connecting up my wort chiller to the kitchen tap. Then I'll be well away

[booldawg]

Hope it all goes well Spin. You wont regret to jump to AG!

[Mitchamitri]

Am I the only person who doesnt actually care if their beer is cloudy?

I made a wheaty beer thats come out far clearer than it theoretically should have and a best bitter thats cloudy as, well, this country., Both taste great!

[DarloDave]

I dont especially care if mines cloudy, but id prefer if it wasnt. Plus giving your mates a perfectly clear polished pint, compared to murky swamp water will impress them 10x more, regardless of taste.

[Spin]

Right then chaps! Cheers for getting me through my first all-grain brew day.
Just thought I'd let you know how I got on.

All went better than I thought it would. No stuck sparges or anything like that. My only real problems were with hitting the correct temperatures for the mash/ sparge and I had a bit of trouble measuring the correct quantities of water as I was using my boiler as a HLT.

I ended up mashing at 65c which dropped to 63c after leaving it for 1 hr 15 mins. I had to add an extra 2.7L boiling water to acheive 65c. I then knocked this amount off my top-up volume. Looking back, I should have left it for longer with the temperature being a little on the low side. I was aiming for 67c to get some residual sweetness, I can imagine it will turn out drier now. I added the water to the mash tun at about 75c but I was faffing around with other things so I think the temp might have dropped a bit, and I was tipping water into the mash tun with a measuring jug which may have reduced the temp.

Then my sparge temp came to about 73c in the mash tun. Which I believe is also a bit low. So hopefully that did it's job properly.

I think for my next brew I need to make a measuring stick or put graduation marks on my boiler so I can accurately measure my water volumes. This time I had to do it with a measuring jug which was very time consuming.

My one other problem was that I only left my wyeast smack pack for about 2 hours, then pitched it into a starter and left that for about another 3 hours. It was quite slow to kick off when added to the wort, but it seemed to be going fine after about 12 hours or so. It's now about 24hrs later and it is looking good. I wasn't expecting it to work as I must have underpitched. Hopefully I don't get any off flavours from stressed yeast.

Anyway, thanks for all the helpful advice and I'll let you know how the final beer turns out.