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Getting ready for first All grain and have a few questions.

dobmaster

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Oct 19, 2014
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Hello, thanks for this great forum!
It help to answer most of my questions and it is a very interesting read.

It will be the first time is use my all grain equipment (Converted 50L Kegs) and first time tuning it out on BeerSmith.

So i choose to do it simple and purchased a American IPA kit from a "local" home brew shop. (+ 1 or 2 oz of homegrown Chinook for dry hopping)
Link to recipe : https://www.ontariobeerkegs.com/v/vspfiles/assets/images/grainkit%20-%20obk%20american%20ipa.pdf
Before i go all out on a custom Heady Topper Clone i want to be used to my equipment and be confident my BeerSmith setup is accurate.

Questions for you experience All Grain brewers :

- Water volume.... The recipe calls for 6.25 Gal "Pre-Boil vol" and 5.25Gal "Post-Boil vol".
Using BeerSmith im having a hard time to tweek it ? When i set up the Batch size at 5.25Gal the est pre-boil go up to 8+gal...and when i manually stet the pre-boil to 6.25...the IBU that were pretty close to the recipe chart are now way up ? ( i have adjusted the alpha acid%)
Im guessing i have some tweeking to do in the equipment set up...but ? iv tried a few things but cant get it rigth ?
Maybe it as something to do with the Mash efficiency set up?


-Mash schedule.... The recipe calls for a Sacch'rest : 150c for 60 min. 
In BeerSmith im getting lots of different options but cant find one that is similar to this ? most are 45min ?
Im also conserned about the water volume and temp at this stage ? should i trust BeerSmith...or do follow the ratio and method from "How to Brew"

-Water PH…. I have read a lot on this…and its quite a complex and technical issue.
For the first few brew…i would like to keep it simple. But i also dont want to waste my time ?

For the “drama & story telling” factor i would love to use my local spring water source witch i can’t find any info on beside that its good…VERY popular (on weekend there is a line up of people waiting to fill up jugs)Its a Mountain spring similar to what we could find in Vermont. Using PH test strip im getting a reading of 6.2

My second option is the house tap water witch is good, we drink it everyday no smells…a little chlorine(no smell) and a test strip PH of 4.6

I know…its far from enough info to have a simple answer….
Both option seams absolute opposite ?
Witch one would you use for a American IPA?

Thanks in advance for your help. I will keep you updated with the results.
 
Do you know the boil of rate of your equipment? You need to have that info to "tweak" The equipment profile in BeerSmith.  That is just one of several variables that you will need.  The amount of water increases because if you have your equipment profile set the program uses that to determine what your pre-boil amount will be.

I hope that I am explaining this correctly.  Maybe BrewFun will straighten me out.
 
My first five or six brews were trial and error getting the quantities correct and hitting the gravity. I found that bit quite difficult but once I started getting consistant results I could move on to improving my technique in other areas. My first brews were all over the place but I still ended up with something drinkable which was encouraging. The thing that makes brewing so absorbing for me is that I never, ever stop learning. With every batch I always think I could have done something better.

Set up your equipment profile in Beersmith first. Look on YouTube to find out how. Once that's done you can enter your recipe using the water and ingredient quantities as written in the kit instructions. You can then use the scaling button in Beersmith to scale it to your desired batch size which adjusts the quantities to give you the same beer.

You'll need to guess stuff like your boil off rate but if you use the beersmith default setting you won't be far out. You can tweak it for your next brew to suit your equipment and get better figures next time. Everybody needs to do that to some extent.

For your mash profile I'd suggest you choose 'Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out' because its simple and works every time with modern malts.

Batch sparge because it's simple and very effective. I started off using that method then moved on to fly sparging. I soon went back to batch sparging because it's quick and easy and in the practical world there's too little difference in efficiency to worry about in my opinion.

Your straight tap water will give you perfectly acceptable beer to start off with. You can use a camden tablet if you have one but don't worry if you haven't. Your water profile will make a slight difference but you don't need to worry about it at first. People made beer for thousands of years using whatever water was available to them.

Reading the forums can make it appear quite daunting but you'll soon find you can get lots of things wrong and still get results.

The best advice I received when I started was to get stuck in, keep it simple, gain experience and have fun. You'll be suprised how good your beers will be.
 
Regarding Mash profile: From the mash tab simply double click on the the line in the profile that says "Mash In". This opens a Mash Step window for editing. From there you can put whatever temp you want the step to be (rather than the default). I also change the "water to add" to an even number of quarts to make measuring easier.

Almost everything can be adjusted and customised in Beersmith, but it is not always obvious how to change things.

Good luck, and make sure you have a good grain crush (personally I don't trust the homebrew store to do it right - usually too course for good efficiency- took me a quite a few batches to figure out where that problem was).
 
Thanks for all the great advise.

I will be crushing my grain, use my tap water, keep records of all the readings i can (specially the boil of rate) to fine tune my equipment set up and mostly enjoy my brew day!

Cheers!
 
If you haven't already read it, read the first post pinned at the top of the "All Grain/Advanced page" (http://www.beersmith.com/forum/index.php/topic,5140.0.html). It will walk you through the equipment profile set up and save you a bunch of time.

You might also consider downloading Martin Brungard's water calculation spreadsheet at:    http://www.beersmith.com/forum/index.php/topic,5140.0.html. You can start with distilled water until you get an analysis of your tap or spring water. Be sure to read the first sheet TWICE before you try to use Bru'nWater.
 
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