1st all grain, no kit on cooker, 2 Different 1 gallon Smash

[Fastline]

I'm currently 30mins into the mash of my 1st all grain, I've got two nine litre pots a sieve a small bag & probably going to bring the bottling bucket into play.

Plan to ferment in two demijons

Ive used kettle and hob to get 6 litres of water to 75degrees then added 2kg of marris otter stirred up with a kitchen spatula to break lumps up, temp was a little high in places so stirred and added a small amount of cold water to get temp down to 69degrees.

Plan to use centennial hops for battering and aroma.

Good old Nottingham for yeast.

The mash was drained into the bottling bucket through a muslin bag in the bottom of a collider

*** Updated***

8 litres of sparge water brought up to 80 degrees c on the stove, used kettle to fill this as seemed quicker than the hob

I temporarily put half the grains in a 3litre jug the rest in stayed in the first 9l pot

Then transferred 4 liters of sparge water to pot with grains and put the jug of grains in the remaining 4 liters of sparge water

Gave both pots a stir and left to sit for 10mins, then drained through the collider into bottling bucket

Collected about 12 litres of wort

Pre boil was 1030 @ about 65 Degrees I thought pretty low but we will see

As I've got two pots I've split the wort 6 litres in one pot and 6 in the other

This gave me the idea of doing two different single hop brews.

So doing 5 grams of Cascade in one and 5 grams of Nugget in other pot 60mins boils.

Will add same hops at 5mins from end 10 grams to really get the aroma of each.

One ring on the cooker seemed to heat much faster, so there was about 20min difference between pots, having two countdown timers was handy here.

Nugget pot was first to finish its 60min boil, cooled the pot in a sink of cold water, stirring the wort seemed to help it cool quicker and changed the water a few times.

Same deal for the Cascade Pot.

So first all grain turned into 2 separate brews at the same time.

1050 OG
lots learned

[liamtmt7]

Congrats on starting your first AG!

Im currently (wort chilling as I type) on BIAB #20, its great fun and very addictive.

Are you planning on liquoring back? On Brewmate 6 litres with 2KG of MO, allowing for boil off, losses and trub would be ~ 2 Litres of 22% beer!!

[Fastline]

Pre boil was 1030 I thought pretty low but we will see

As I've got two pots I've split the wort 6litres in one pot and 6 in the other

This gave me the idea of doing two different single hop brews

So doing 5grams of centennial in one and 5grams of nugget in other pot 60mins boils

Will add same hops at 5mins from end 10grams to really get the aroma of each

[bobsbeer]

Well done. Your journey to shineyitis has just started.

[liamtmt7]

Sounds like a good plan!

[Fastline]

Took ages to fill the demijohns, filtered through a muslin bag, hops kept blocking so had to squeeze last bits out and empty hop matter but done it

Noticed at end I had used cascade hops and not centennial, not to bothered all a learning curve

My original pre boil gravity probably out as that was reading at mash temp so adjustment to be made there

Anyway final gravity was 1050 at about 24degrees

I rehydrated a pack of nottingham, cooled the brews down in the sink

Ive done 4 or 5 kits and probably all the talk on here got me interested in the all grain idea
Ive got loads of shiny stuff waiting to be put together so already hooked on that just got to get the time to build brew shed

But lets see how these mini brews go

The two brew kettle idea seams to work well and may be something I adopt on a slightly larger scale when I build my 3 vessel system well maybe 4 vessel now

Lot of effort the all grain thing, my cooker took ages to bring the pots to the boil, but seemed to be busy all the time

[liamtmt7]

Good stuff, hope it works out for you.

On the cooker front, is it gas or electric? I have gas and can sit my pot over 2 burners to get up to mash temp and again for rolling boil, then reduce to one.

Mote expensive in terms of gas consumption but quicker brew day

[Fastline]

Small electric cooker glass top, main reason took so long.

I put the demijons in builders bucket filled with water and fish tank heater for crude temp control

Not sure what this beer would be called, looks a little pale ale like

[Oswald Bastable]

[quote="Fastline"]Not sure what this beer would be called, looks a little pale ale like[/quote]

Yep, Maris Otter + hops + neutral-ish ale yeast = the quintessential pale ale.

OB

[Fastline]

Looks like above I missed detail on sparge, ill edit original post later in case anyone wants to replicate what I did

The mash was drained into the bottling bucket through a muslin bag in the bottom of a collider

I had 8litres of water brought up to 80 degrees c on the stove, used kettle to fill this as kettle seemed quicker than the hob

I had temporarily put half the grains in a 3litre jug the rest in the first 9l pot

I then transferred 4 liters of sparge water to pot with grains and put the jug of grains in the remaining 4 liters of sparge water

I gave both pots a stir and left to sit for 10mins, then drained through the collider into bottling bucket

I had collected about 12 litres of wort

I cleaned the two 9 liter pots out and put 6 litres in each and started the boil

[Fastline]

Well they are both fermenting nicely

[Fastline]

Update on the fermentation, I think the Nottingham has almost done already, it was churning nicely when I looked on Sunday, checked it tonight seems to have calmed right down, tops dropped

Ive got a coopers English bitter or a werry I might chuck on the yeast cake, be a first on reusing the yeast

[Oswald Bastable]

I do a lot of small batch (4 litre) brews while perfecting recipes and often pitch a simple cider on top of a used ale cake with great success. If you do decide to pitch on top of a full cake make sure you have a blowoff tube fitted rather than an airlock - there's a ton of yeast there and it will likely go off like a rocket.

OB

[Fastline]

Well and truly hooked on the grain, placed a little order at the malt miller for 10No 1Kg bags of all different grains so i've got a little stock and can do some more adventurous all grain brews caramalts, crystal, chocolate, ect. Got some more hops and a nice big grain bag, which should make it much easier.

Excellent communication from the Malt miller emails and texts, they use DPD as courier company who I have always found to be brilliant to.

Had it delivered to work so i've been sniffing mags of malt every chance I get.

Crystal Malt made the breaking bad fans laugh when they see it.