Getting prepared for First AG Brew

[PieOPah]

Well, I am still waiting for my free equipment from my wife's work collegue. I just hope that he hurries up as I am getting rather impatient Saying that, I think that the weather being as hot as it is it is probably a good idea that I wait till things cool down before considering my next brew.

Anyway, just want to run a couple of things by you guys....

I will be using a Bucket in Bucket setup for my Mash Tun. For my first couple of brews I will be doing a Batch Sparge but will eventually be investing in a Spinning Sparge Arm (or making some form of contraption to do the same thing...).

The type of sparging I will be doing is irrellevant at this stage, more a couple of concerns regarding my equipment (or lack of).

My set up will consist of a Bruheat Boiler, a Bucket in Bucket Mash Tun and my fermenter.

Now one thing I hear thrown around is the problems with Hot Side Aeration (HSA - just like the crappy health care advert!). So, with my limited kit, I will need to boil my water in the kettle. Add this to my MT. While mashing I will need to heat up more water in the kettle. This leaves me with my Fermemnter (A Better Bottle) as a transfer vessel. I will have to sparge into the fermenter and then syphon this back into the kettle once it is empty.

I guess that with a batch sparge I could always put the heated water into the fermenter and the sparge from there. However, once I get into Fly Sparging, this will be more difficult since I will need the kettle to maintain the temperature of the sparge water.

Is HSA as bad as some people make out? Does anybody else have a setup similar to what I will have? I would prefer to avoid having to buy another boiler if I can avoid it.

Thanks

[mysterio]

Hey, congrats on taking the all-grain plunge! It's really not that difficult and you have nothing to worry about.

My set up is not dissimilar to yours, see in 'my AG setup' thread I sparge with water from the kettle, collect the runnings into my bottling bucket, then connect a rubber pipe to the bucket tap and run it back into the kettle. I fly sparge but batch sparging is just as good and theres no reason why you can't get a great efficiency. All I can say about HSA is I've never experienced it, but I'm always pretty careful not to splash the wort when it's hot. Just use common sense when you're running the wort from vessel to vessel and you'll figure out a good way of doing it.

The biggest worry you'll probably have is hitting your strike temperature so make sure you calculate the temperature properly and above all insulate your mash tun with a duvet or something.

[bitter_dave]

I use the bucket mt you describe and it works well.

I batch sparge, and I do this:
1) drain wort from mt until wort level is below the 'false bottom' (if you drain the entire mt every time, the deadspace under the false bottom will make it harder to get enough extract before your boiler is filled).
2) Add water direct from the kettle at 80 C to just above the level of grain. Stir. Leave 10-15 mins to settle.
3) Drain as before to just below the false bottom (ie so the grain is not in contact with the extract)....
... repeat steps 2 and 3 until the gravity of the spargings are below about 1010 (or 1005 according to wheeler). Remember to cool sparginings in a test tube before measuring their gravity)
4) drain the lot!

I find this works fine; if anyone has any suggestions for improvements of course I'm interested to hear them.

You won't need another boiler btw. Taps are good for transfering hot liquids via tubing - I'm not sure I'd want to syphon hot liquids. If your better bottle has no tap, another fermenting bin with a tap would mean you could collect your wort in that and, when finished, transfer the wort to the boiler.

[PieOPah]

QUOTE (Daft as a Brush @ Jul 17 2006, 01:03 PM)

As I have a bad back, when the bucket is half full I lift it onto the counter top and run off into the boiler (on the floor at the moment).
It sounds like you do what I am planning on doing. One thing that confuses me though is that while sparging you take the bucket you are sparging into and empty this into the boiler. However, isn't this where your sparge water is already? DO you transfer your sparge water to a seperate vessel beore starting your sparge?

Thanks

[PieOPah]

QUOTE (bitter_dave @ Jul 17 2006, 01:07 PM) I use the bucket mt you describe and it works well.

I batch sparge, and I do this:
1) drain wort from mt until wort level is below the 'false bottom' (if you drain the entire mt every time, the deadspace under the false bottom will make it harder to get enough extract before your boiler is filled).
2) Add water direct from the kettle at 80 C to just above the level of grain. Stir. Leave 10-15 mins to settle.
3) Drain as before to just below the false bottom (ie so the grain is not in contact with the extract)....
... repeat steps 2 and 3 until the gravity of the spargings are below about 1010 (or 1005 according to wheeler). Remember to cool sparginings in a test tube before measuring their gravity)
4) drain the lot!

I find this works fine; if anyone has any suggestions for improvements of course I'm interested to hear them.

You won't need another boiler btw. Taps are good for transfering hot liquids via tubing - I'm not sure I'd want to syphon hot liquids. If your better bottle has no tap, another fermenting bin with a tap would mean you could collect your wort in that and, when finished, transfer the wort to the boiler.
Thanks both. Good to know that there are others who are doing what I am planning.

I think my biggest problem is that I have spent far too much time hanging around forums occupied by Americans..... I thikn that they can be quite intimidating when it comes to the kit that they use

Good to be reassured by people in the same boat as me

[tribs]

QUOTE (Daft as a Brush @ Jul 17 2006, 12:21 PM)draining it into the boiler then returning this to the counter top (do this before the boil so you dont have to lift boiling wort).
I brew with the boiler on the floor, then lift it onto the counter after chilling (the wort, that is B)).

[Bigster]

my set up is very similar to daabs - not surprising the number of tips he gave me.
Only difference being my bad back is not so bad and can (just) manage to pour full fermenter in to boiler but considering getting another tap for one of my fermenters to get a HLT therefore speeding up time to boil but over the top really.

My biggest concern is/was the stuck sparges but I think this is not a problem with the bucket in a bucket .

Good luck

[johnmac]

QUOTE run off stops when the sg reads around 1006 adjusted for temperature.

What would that be as a direct reading, at sparge temp?

[johnmac]

Thanks DaaB. That makes my mashing look even more efficient, except I'll have a rather large volume, at low SG.

[PieOPah]

I use Beersmith (Mainly to store my recipes) and this has various calculators, one of them being a hydro adjust calc. You put the temp, reading and I think hydro calibration temp. This then tells you what your actual reading is. The good thing is, it remembers all the previous entries so you won't need to re-enter things like the calibration temp.

Another great calc that Beersmith has is mixing 2 different gravity worts. You put in the volume and grav of each and it tells you the FG. Great when toping up a fermenter with water

[Western Brewer]

Good luck with your first AG. Can't wait to do mine. Would like to try a Summer Lightning clone but not sure if that is being to ambitious for a first AG. What do the resisdent experts think?
Mark

[PieOPah]

I would have thought taht summer lightening is a fairly standard recipe. It only uses 1 grain type. Even then I would have thought that no matter how complicated the recipe, the mash is going to be fairly standard regardless....

[mysterio]

As far as ales go, I don't particularly see any recipe being more challenging than any other as long as you stick to a moderate original gravity (~1.050). The things that you can screw up on (mash temperature etc) are going to happen regardless of the grain bill/hop additions.