New Beginnings! AG No.1

[crookedeyeboy]

Well I did it.

The beer is now in FV awaiting some time and TLC. What a day!

I am currently watching Lord of The Rings and relaxing after an exhausting day. I still cannot believe it is only 8pm I feel like Ive been brewing for a week!

The day started with having to take my other half to work as she was doing some overtime, Perfect time for me to go to Screwfix and buy the 15mm coupling I needed for the mash tun. Bought the item in question and headed home at about 9am after raking the shelves of B&Q to find some rubber washers.

Once home found problem number 88466746.2b. To keep a long story short lets just say I had to ditch the copper piping and ball valve tap for a nice simple plastic tap affair on the mash tun.

A bit more drilling and faffing and I was on my way with some help from house mates at about 11am. Like I say it has been a long day as I didnt sit down till about 7pm....Im sure it shouldnt take this long?!?!?!?

Had a leaky mash tun to begin with so had to pour the liquor back into the HLT and start again, another setback. After that and a few adjustments to the coupling for the manifold in the mash tun I was again on my way.

I have to say the immense satisfaction along the process was astounding. To do this kind of hobby at home is great...

Mash ok. Batch sparged and no stuck mash to say it was the first time ive used any of this equipment. Mash tun stayed at about 64C.

I did have a lot of questions that came up at the time but my brain is a little addled now so i shall post them at another time!

Boiled the wort and hops for two hours in the kitchen and all i can say is that all those stupid adverts on TV should be advertising Hop n Malt plugins for the home not stupid 'pine fresh'!! What an amazing aroma.

Now where I got stuck is that I feel I have lost a lot of liquid along the way. Brew length was 23lts. Mash was 11 lts. Sparged with 12 litres. But I have not even got 20 lts at the end...I am sure this is just one of the many points along the learning curve I have to take in and adjust.

I am now going to eagerly anticipate the next few days and the outcome of my hard efforts of my first brewday!

Roll on the next one.......

[Horden Hillbilly]

Well done that man!

[crookedeyeboy]

WHy thank you! Im feeling like a man who has climbed a very high hill....however I cant quite see the horizon yet!

[Horden Hillbilly]

WHy thank you! Im feeling like a man who has climbed a very high hill....however I cant quite see the horizon yet!

You will when you taste your 1st ag brew.

[crookedeyeboy]

I don't think I've done the batch sparging/liquor top up part right but we shall see....

[adm]

Nice one fella!

(And I get to say it this time): Welcome to the dark side.....

If you have a hydrometer, check the gravity of the wort...if it's higher than you wanted, you can dilute it back (with pre boiled water). Use the "sugar points" method:

For example, if you ended up with 20L of 1.050 wort, multiply 20 by 50 (discard all the leftmost bits on the gravity reading) to give you 1000 sugar points. If you actually wanted 23L, then add 3L of water. This will give you the same amount of sugar (1000) but in 23L of water, so divide by 23 and your new OG reading will be 1000/23 = 1.043(and a bit)

[Eric]

Good man, well done. Sounds like you had a good day. I must warn you, it only gets better.

[DC]

Hi Crookedeyeboy, Glad to hear you have made the jump to the Dark Side May the force be with you Sounds like you might have miss calculated the quantities when allowing for losses to grain & trub etc ! But I wouldnt worry too much about that for your 1st AG It gets easier every time ! I have just done AG No 4 today and it was a breeze ! Once you taste your 1st AG there will be no stopping you I would suggest putting another brew on A.S.A.P if you have room to store another brew ! As once you start drinking your 1st one it wont last long And the worst thing that can happen is you run out of beer before your next brew is ready !

Good job mate

Cheers DC

[Dennis King]

always good to see another virginity gone it will get quicker and easier with experience.

[haz66]

Well done and welcome to AG.
Dont worry i think everyone`s first AG is a bit of a mare, i know mine was, but the beer still tasted great.

To achieve a final volume of 23ltrs you need to take into account the evaporation and what you lose in the dead space
of your mash tun and boiler.

For example i start of with 36 ltrs of water to usually end up with between 23/25ltrs in the FV
11ltrs to mash and then 25ltrs heated to sparge, 20 ltrs used to sparge and 5 ltrs set aside and boiled in a pan and used to top
up boiler along the way.

[crookedeyeboy]

Thanks loads for your encouraging comments....it was a great day and I was so shattered afterwards!

I'm kinda itching to get another one on but I need to wash a load of bottles!! Addictive!

Thanks for comments on dead space etc. Especially the last comment as that makes perfect sense to have more HL to start with.
I think Ill do that next time, the TT Landlord states 11 lts mash and then 12 lts for sparging, if I up the sparging liquor up to 23-25 lts I should be well away.

Just one quick one, when GW's book states you should'nt go below 1005 when sparging is he talking about the wort coming out of the mash tun and not what you have collected in total? I assume this is what he means as the collected wort read 1052. I didnt check the wort actually running out of the mash tun but will do next time.

Also a bit worried that I topped up twice. Once when I had collected all the sweet wort (1052 topped up to read 1042....which was supposed to be the OG) and again before adding the yeast/cooling in to the FV, again this was diluted to 1042 which I now realise IS the OG not the wort collected earlier....

Sorry if Im rambling just want to clarify at what point I should be getting certain readings etc...

Ill get there in the end with the help of you lot Im sure!!

Cheers

PS - I nearly forgot, whilst doing all this brewing we were all getting thirsty and were nearly going to go and buy some ale when someone said I had a load of bottles from a Woodfordes Wherry kit I had done about 2-3 months ago. I explained that I had buggered that one up as an experiment and hadnt conditioned it with sugar. As part of the experiment I bottled what was left in the keg after 2 months into bottles about two weeks ago, tried it last week and it was awful, no body and flat as a pancake. HOWEVER!!! We opened some up last night after nearly putting it down the sink and it is amazing!! Not as good as an AG I should imagine but by George I'm going to drink the lot!! haha what a great end to an already shattering but majorly exciting day!

[Horden Hillbilly]

Just one quick one, when GW's book states you should'nt go below 1005 when sparging is he talking about the wort coming out of the mash tun.

That refers to the last runnings from the mash tun when the sparging is complete. If the gravity goes any lower, you risk extracting "undesirables" which will spoil the flavour of the brew. I usually aim to stop sparging in the 1008-1010 range to be on the safe side.

[escapizm]

e="crookedeyeboy"]I don't think I've done the batch sparging/liquor top up part right but we shall see....[/quote]

Well done, im on AG#4 and the three prior id apparantly done wrong!

Batch sparging 101

23litres based on my efficiencys etc for crude idea i also start with 36 litres i use asda bottled water rather than treat my water, by the time ive lost fluid in mash tun (it really is about 1litre per kg of grain) and also evaporation (mines 18%) and then to trub in bottom of boiler i get 23 litres in the FV.

Have you downloaded GW beer engine of here http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/calculators.htm i can recomend it also use the batch sparge calculator from same page.

1) add 11 litres or so at 72 deg C to mash tun
2) add grain & stir
3) leave 90 mins
4) ADD 1st BATCH SPARGE FLUID of 8 litres at 80 deg C, stir, leave 10 mins and drain off
5) add 2nd bach sparge of 17 litres or so at 80 deg C, stir, leave 10 mins and drain off

[crookedeyeboy]

As usual...most helpful!!

Thanks I shall definitely increase the amount of liquor I heat and use.

[haz66]

Just one quick one, when GW's book states you should'nt go below 1005 when sparging is he talking about the wort coming out of the mash tun and not what you have collected in total? I assume this is what he means as the collected wort read 1052. I didnt check the wort actually running out of the mash tun but will do next time.

To be honest i`ve never bothered testing the wort as its collected from the mash tun, i just fly sparge 20ltrs
and my beers have always been good, so rather than try and cock things up i just do it the same every brew,
i think a lot of the homebrewing process is if it works for you then go with it, if it turns out wrong then change it.
I`ve now done 53 AG brews and still havn`t got round to treating my water properly, all i know is its soft water so i add
a bit of salts to the mash water, in time i will look into it further but at the moment my beer tastes good enough to me
the way i`m doing it.

But at least you`ve come to the right place for help and advice on all things homebrew, i doubt my beers would be what they
are without a lot of help from people on here, and no matter how silly you think your question is, someone will give you a serious
answer to help you on your way.