Here we go!

[splitter]

Ordered the grain and yeast from hop and grape (arriving tomorrow),
borrowed piles of old gear and been given a loads of hops.
Time for the darkside!
Been cleaning and testing all the equipment today,
no problems that cant be fixed so first AG brew day should be saturday.
Have a couple of kit ales maturing so going to have a go at a stout.

Splitter's Stout
3.5kg Pale Malt (Maris Otter)
0.4kg Choc Malt
0.5kg Roast Barley
0.5kg Flaked Barley

56g Fuggles (last 60min)
5g Goldings (last 10min)

Safale04

Going for a 90min Mash at 67celsius and a 90min boil.
Hoping for a 75% efficiency but time will tell!
Thanks to my fave uncle dave I now have two boilers (6 and 4gallons),
a homemade cool box mash tun, two fermenters and
a copper 'cooling coil', plus thermometers, sieves, etc.
Finaly I am ready, roll on sat.
Will keep you posted!

[splitter]

Have also been given a load of old (1 year) Pale malt (loose in a snap-lid bucket).
Anyone think its worth throwing a kilo of this into the recipe in addition to the original 3.5kg.
Could it cause me any problems?

[Horden Hillbilly]

Been cleaning and testing all the equipment today

Have you done a dry run to ensure that it is all set up ok? This was one of the things I did not do when I did my first ag due to my over eagerness & found myself hurriedly cutting plastic tubing to size for my sparging set up!

Good luck with your brew, once you have done a couple of ag brews I am sure you will be over the moon with the results.

[splitter]

Good advice as always daab.
Even tho it does seem a shame to waste it, its not going into this one.
Been doing a dry run this arvo HH. only problem was leaking tap on one of the boilers which just needed the seal replacing. Glad i found out now rather than first thing sat morn![/quote]

[bitter_dave]

Good luck with it Splitter, sounds like you are well prepared

[AT]

Good luck Saturday Splitter

[Garth]

have a good one Splitter, nice looking recipe

it's quite uncanny the amount of people start their OG brewing career with a stout. ....nice.....

don't forget the piccies

[Vossy1]

Good luck and most important of all, enjoy yourself

[splitter]

thanks guys.
grain arrived today and i just made my yeast starter.
one more question before i start, i think i read somewhere that you should use about 3gallons of water in the mash but cant find it now.
is this right?
Is there a formula for working it out based on the amount of grain used?

[spearmint-wino]

Have a good brewday and welcome to the darkside. There's no going back now, young spargewater...

(to ressurect and old thread )

[SteveD]

Have a good one tomorrow. A stout is a good opening gambit. For a 'normal' weight mash I just bung in about 12-15L liquor, whatever feels right. If the grain is getting to 9-10kg I'll use about 20L. Mash stiffness is a parameter with only a minor if at all detectable effect in the homebrew environment, so don't worry about it. More important is that it's manageable and you can stir, mash out any lumps, and equalise the temperature, without breaking your arm off. Some lager mashes use up to 5L/Kg so don't be afraid to add more liquor if you feel you need to, eg, to adjust the temperature.

[iowalad]

Enjoy!

[splitter]

Thank for the promp replies.
Have brought forward the brew day as seem to have house to myself.
What better thing to do on a friday night?
Now have grain mashing at 67degrees. better get that boiler on for the sparge.
will let you know how it goes.

[Jim]

Good look, Splitter - you're going to have a late night!

[splitter]

well it looks like wort, it tastes like wort, could it be?
went like a dream. just on the hot break now, looking fwd to seeing what sort of og/efficiency i get.
thanks again to all on this forum, couldn't have done it without you.