my first all grain brew

hi everybody, just joined so im in a learning curve.
my names hudson foster  i live in Northern Ireland and have brewed extract brews for about three years now. came across Brewsmith on utube. listened to Brad and his podcasts and have made up my mind to do an all grain brew. The information on this site is so easy to follow. I am a perfectionist, have watched most of the Podcasts, and have decided now im going to do my first all grain brew. I would love to hear some comments from some of you experts, and any tips or hints would be greatly accepted. the mind boggles when i listen to some of them experts.

1 i have assembled my brewing set up as follows. I have 55ltr kettle with 1/4 gate valve to allow trandfer to secondary fermenter. i am heating using gas ring. I have second ring for heating sparge water. I have freezer modified to seperately control cooling temps. I have my Co2 system ready for finalizing my beer.

2 I have drank Lager all my life, so i am going in at the deep end and am going to brew a Pilsner. I have read and listened to everyone on brewsmith, and i have decided on the following reciepe, and method.

3 Reciepe for Pilsner Lager  mash 90 mins and boil 90 mins.
  5kg Munich base malt
    27grms Hallerta Mittlefruh hop pellets  -60mins
    27grms Saaz hops    -20 mins
    10grms Saaz hops      -0 mins
    2 11.5 grms Salflager Yeast S-23
    Guysum
    Irish moss
  4  Directions
      Boil 1 pint of water and add 1 cup of Extra Light Dry Malt and boil for fifteen minutes. cool and
      add two pks of Salflager yeast  then cover and leave in a cool area to hydrate and begin fermenting.
 
  5  Line the 50 ltre kettle with grain bag and add 45lts water and heat to 68%c.               
      ease of heat and mash in the 5kg of Munich malt, and  add two spoon fulls of Malic Acid as my
      water is PH 8 and i reduce to 5PH. Stir well for two minutes.   
   
  6  maintain temp at 63%c for 45mins then raise temp to 68% for the second 45mins. stirring
      ten minutes
    7 After 90 Mins lift out Grain bag and place in sieve on top of kettle. Pour the strike water
      which was heated on other gas ring, to get as much remaining sugar as possible, and bring
      Wort level back up to 45 -47 ltrs. remove grain bag and bring Wort to rolling boil, add two 
        spoonfulls of Gypsum to adjust Wort PH.
     
      8 After 60 mins boil add 27grms Hallerta hop pellets
        After  75mins boil add 27grms Hallerta  hop pellets  and two tea spoonfulls of Irish Moss.
     
      9 After  85 mins add Wort Cooler to kettle and cool sample and take Gravity  reading looking
          1050
     
      10  AT  90 mins turn off heat and turn on Water to Wort Cooler and cool quickly to  15%c.
           
      11  Transfer  Wort to Fermenter and add 15grms Hallerta hop pellets.

        12  Use air stone and filtered pump to airate Wort  add Liquid Yeast and leave at 15c for
              4hrs to start fermentation.
        13  Move to freezer and leave to ferment @ 12%  After two weeks Move to room temp for
              rest and then move back to Freezer at 6%c for three weeks to lager.
        13  Ready to keg or bottle#
           
            I sourced all this info from Beersmith and God willing i have a Beer better than anything i
              brewed to date. I was thinking of adding 1kg of Light Dry Malt Extract to the boil to
              maybe give more body and head retension. Anyone any ideas on this.
              to anyone who replies to this with  any tips i thank uou very much.
                                in N Ireland we say cheers ye boy yee.  hudson
             

Welcome,  Hudson!  Sounds like you have it pretty much under control. One thing, in case you aren't aware, be sure to not cover the kettle while boiling,  especially with Pilsen malt. There is a lot of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) released during the boil,  and you do not want that to remain.

Also,  if possible,  find a way to keep your grain bag off the bottom of the kettle if you are adding direct heat so as not to scorch the grains. This can be done using clips around the kettle opening to hold the bag up,  or a false bottom if you have one.

As far as the additives (gypsum,  etc...) be sure that it is necessary for the water you are using. Water chemistry for brewing is a hobby all its own. If you are not sure,  is probably best to leave it out this time.

It sounds like you have planned very well, and I'm sure the resulting beer will be awesome!

Cheers!

hi i was aware of keeping the lid off,  I also have a false Mess bottom in my kettle/Mash Tun. re the Gypsum ill leave out and take a PH reading in secondary fermenter, before adding Yeast. i am watching all the Beersmith podcasts, and trying to
learn and understand the exact water requirements to enhance my brewing method. although when i listen to Charlie Bamford at the minute he baffles me, but ill get there. So many experts on Beersmith all full of hints and tips. Better than any book. i can see it all explained in front of me.
One day in the UK I will hopefully compete with the best of the home brewers. 
I do have a proper Mash Tun and next Brew i will do the full Proccess.                       
Thank you for your kind words    hi ye boy yee      hudson

hi i wonder if someone can help me. in my first post i said i was going to carbonate my brew in the  keg with Co2,which i know how to do.  I am going to try and carbonate a second keg using light dry malt extract, as my previous beers seem to taste better carbonized with sugar.
I would like help to find the amount of Yeast, and the amount of light DME, amd the amount of water to carbonate a fifty ltr Keg. i know to boil the water add DME and cool before adding yeast to make a Yeast starter. its just the quantitys i intend to then bottle some from the keg using a Blickman beer gun. By the way i took a Demjhon bung sliced halfway through, tapered the bottom to fit standard beer bottle. this fitted over the beer gun shaft kike a glove and i was able to control the transfer of beer from the keg to the bottle. which ment i had no sediment in my bottles.
                and advice would be great    hudson   

Hi hudsonswan.
I have been brewing allgrain for 3 years now, meaning I am not an expert, but I have some experience in allgrain brewing now- mostly ales.
I studied your brewing plan and I am really impressed
I just think that maybe jrowland74 has a point in not experimenting with the water the first time.
I live in Denmark in a place where the water is too hard. I brewed a pilsner november last year and I also considered to do something but finally did it without preparing the water. Instead I used 0,5Kg Acid malt for 23 Liter (together with 5 Kg Pilsner malt). The result was really good- at least for a first try with pilsner
I am not sure, I understand your Hop scedule. Perhaps the first step was missing. What hop and how much in 90 minutes ? Also I am not sure about 90 minutes. If hop is boiling too long or keeping the lid on as you write, you can get some ugly taste like overcooked vegetables. I would think 60 minutes.
In my batch, I used 90 g Saaz hop boiling in 60 minutes for bittering and then 50g Saaz the last 5 minutes for aroma.
By the way, I allways carbonate with normal white (or sometimes brown) sugar and it works very well- only one time I needed to boost the beer in the keg, because it was too flat

I've been kegging for years and never conditioned in the keg. The main reason is that you get more sediment, so the first few pours will be yeasty. 

What I do remember from reading about the subject is that you use less sugar than if you were bottling. I don't remember the exact amounts, but it would be worth looking up. Also, I don't think it is necessary to add more yeast.  Unless you've got a really big beer and the yeast is pooped out, the yeast that's already in there should do the job. When I would bottle I never added more yeast to condition the beer, and it always carbonated just fine. I see no reason why it would be any different in a keg.  If anything it would just create more sediment.

Like I said though, I've never actually done it.

hi all
The reason i keep the lid on. this is for the ninty minute mash, because im maintaining the heat for the two step Mash, and even though i stir every ten minutes, keeping the lid on helps to maintain an even temp in the mash. certainly dont have the lid on for the boil.

Because the boil is ninty minutes and because i dry hop in the Fermenter for  Aroma i see no point putting in hops at the start of the boil as because its a ninty minute boil the second half of the boil the hops are of more benefit.
the reason i ask about carbonizing is that some people seem to ferment Lager to almost dry and then introduce fresh yeast and DME to carbonize. that why i was hoping someone on the forum could tell me what kind of ratio between DME, Water, Yeast to carbonize a 50ltr keg of fully fermented Beer.

i

The bloody thing posted before i got finished. just wanted to say, these are my opinions and i stand to be corrected on anything ive said. These are my thoughts on how to brew. I am about to start this brew and was just looking for any hints or tips from the experts on the forum
              hudson

hi Millmoors  just wanted to know how strong was the hop taste in your beer. I like beer with just a slight hop taste. wondering if your hop amounts left a strong mouth feeling. In Ireland Guinness brought out a new beer called Hop13. First pint or two was nice but two beers of that strength was enough. had to go back on Tennants which is a lovely balanced beer. as i have already said i dont see the need to hop at start of a ninty minute boil as im doing. If yours isn't two strong then i might increase my hop amounts, especialy my first at 60mins for bittering, and because im dry hopping in the Fermenter, the other hop at75mins should be suffice.
                                    look forward to how your taste was      hudson