My Brew Day

It'd been quite awhile since I did an all grain batch so since I had the day off today I decided to try one again. I do 5 gallon batches using the batch sparging method. This was only my 3rd, or maybe 4th, all grain so I'm still fairly new at it. I've read alot about all grain and batch sparging and got to the point where I was getting more confused that clearing things up. From what I can tell people pretty much do what works for them and there's no one right or wrong way. With that in mind I decided to jump in.

I'm attaching the recipe I used.

Anyway, things didn't go well from the start. I heated my 13.75 qts of water to 188 degrees and put it into the cooler/tun to preheat the tun. When the water got to 178 degrees I added and stirred in the grains but the temp only came down to the mid 160's, if I remember right. (I forgot to note the exact temp) I didn't want it too hot so I stirred in 2 qts of cool/cold water and of course it brought down the temp too much, about 144 degrees. So then I hurried up and heated up another 2 qts of water to boiling and stirred it in and it brought the mash temp up to 152 degrees at which time I closed the top and put the blanket on it and called it good.

I checked the temp again after about 40 minutes and it was at 147 degrees and that's where it stayed. I then drained the tun and did a double sparge using about 6 qts each time which brought me to 6 gallons in the boil pot. I screwed up in the sparging too. My first sparge I got a brain cramp and only heated the water to 170 degrees which of course didn't bring up the mash temp to 168 I was looking for. The 2nd sparge I heated to 190 but still didn't get the mash to 168.

In the end I took a gravity reading before starting the boil and it was 1.032 @ 120 degrees. I did the boil and transferred into the primary after cooling it. I was quite a bit below 5 gallons so I added water and ended up with an OG of 1.046 @ 75 degrees.

Not sure how it will all come out but it should still be beer at least. Now I have to figure out what to tweak on my Beersmith profile for next time. I just find it very frustrating not being able to hit my target temps. Makes me consider trying fly sparging.

Brewdays Fu*&%Ng Rock! Everything seems to conspire against you. Sometimes everything is on track. Sometimes everything goes south. (no offense to my red neck rebel cousins) You still have fun When it's all said and done... poof! "This was awesome brew"

There is always a minor disaster. There is always a great tasting beer a few weeks/months down the road. IT IS NOT THE DESTINATION, BUT TH JOURNEY!

Learn from the mistakes. Improve on the victories. Have a blast along the way!

I must agree with Ziggy.  If everything went right on brewday, I would be very suspicious of the brew gods.  With all the stumbling I do through brewdays, I still have trouble finding a better beer on a shelf in some beer isle than the one I can brew. I have never even come close to throwing any ale I've brewed out.  And the more I learn the better they taste.  You can't find a better resource then right here, to learn this craft.  So brew on and drink up.

Thanks guys. Brew on I will. I started the day with 3 home brews on tap. This evening, after having a few pints with my brothers, I'm down to one on tap. And one in the primary. Time to start thinking about brewing another soon.

I did another brew session today brewing up an English Ale recipe I came up with. Things actually went alot smoother than the last time with me pretty much hitting the temps I wanted to when I wanted to. Sure helped doing another one so soon after the last one. I was able to remember things and use my notes from the last time to help this one go smoother.

It was a nice day out and must be the bees liked the smell of what I was doing because I had to battle them on the deck during the boil. When I brought the wort in to cool it I found 2 of them floating in the wort! So I'm calling this version of the beer (2B)

On a more concerning note, after reading in different places on line that it should be safe to use the same batch of sanitizer that I used when I transferred my previous batch last night, I used it for my brew session today. Last night I also sent an email to 5 Star asking what the life of the sanitizer was. I didn't get a response until my brew session was over and I now have a concern that I shouldn't have done what I did. The sanitizer was cloudy which I was told is an indication that I probably shouldn't be using it.

Too late now, lesson learned. Hopefully it doesn't cost me my first batch of my own recipe beer. Time will tell.

I brewed up a Porter today that went pretty well once I got going. Before that my burner broke, which through me off a bit.  It definately helps to get as much planned out before hand as you can. Write down how long mash and boil times need to be, and have ingredients measured.  It just helps things run a bit more smoothly once you get going, especially if you have been sampling previous homebrews.