All grain

[Beerdrinker32]

whirlpool anything else???

[blandy]

I just let mine settle to the botom of the fermenter with the rest of the other gunk. No problems there.

[rwh]

I built the last part of my setup yesterday afternoon with my ailing father. We had a big discussion about why one would want to get into homebrewing (he wanted to make sure I wasn't getting into the bulk production of cheap alcohol just to silence my demons and thus end up with an alcohol abuse problem). I assured him that it was mainly for the fun, learning all the techniques, refining them, working on recipes, and having a delicious final product to share with friends.

I'm a Gemini, so I tend to go through hobbies like they're going out of style. Once the techniques are mastered, the fun is gone and it's time to move on to the next one. Thankfully there's a lot to learn and master in brewing, so I'm hoping it won't be left by the wayside quite so soon.

Anyway, yeah I now have a 40L aluminium pot, a high-eff wort chiller from grain and grape and a fully assembled mashtun (based on the technique here). I don't have a tap in my pot, so I'll be syphoning to start with. Now I just need to find the time to do my first AG brew.

[gregb]

.. I'm a Gemini, so I tend to go through hobbies like they're going out of style. ...

Also a Gemini, but have stuck with this hobby for over a decade.

Cheers,
Greg

[ACTbrewer]

Careful when syphoning hot wort as it will make your plastic hose (if that's what you use) really really soft.

[rwh]

It won't be hot... I'll have used my wort-chiller on it by the time I syphon. But thanks for the concern!

[ACTbrewer]

[morgs]

.. I'm a Gemini, so I tend to go through hobbies like they're going out of style. ...

Also a Gemini, but have stuck with this hobby for over a decade.

Cheers,
Greg

Can someone plaese prove to me that the stars can affect our existence or our personalities. Why does a " gemini" not stick with its hobby of choice?

[morgs]

Anyone asks me what star sign i am and i just reply that i dont have one. As i don't!!

[Tourist]

I'm a Cancerian and we don't believe in astrology.

[lethaldog]

plaese

thats TOOOOOOO funny

[Beerdrinker32]

your plastic hose (if that's what you use) really really soft.

first go at quoting someone,hope this doesnt go outta style

[Beerdrinker32]

question on mashing, is there a correct ratio of the dough in water vol to the sparge water vol? does it have to be even or do you keep sparging till you reach your desired final vol? doing old mates little crearures clone and want about 20L of beer. so do i basically fill the tun with water throw in the grain wait an hour then pour x amount of water in and drain it? aiming for 66C mash temp. any help appreciated buying the grain tomorrow

[Aussie Claret]

Beer Drinker,
What I do is, mash in with 2.5x weight of grain; I.e 5kgs grain 12.5litres of water. Your grain will absorb 5litres of water and you will lose some to evapouration, trub etc. You need to know more or less what evapouration and loss to trub you will get, a good evapouration figure is 9-15% and a couple of litres to trub, I'm digressing.

So you mash in with 12.5 - 13litres of water wait for an hour or perhaps a little longer.
Mash out using very hot water (near boiling) stir leave for about 10mins, stir to disolve as much of the sugars as possible. (how much mash out water to add?) What I suggest is to try and get two equal run offs from first runnings and sparge water. Lets just say for ease of arguement that you are aiming for 30litres of wort preboil, I.e Two equal run offs of 15litres, so in our example we added 13litres - 5l (loss to aborption) plus dead space in mash tun (estimating 1l) so we have a max. total possible run off of 7litres, but we are aiming for 15litres; therefore add 8litres during mash out.
Drain and recirculate into kettle, close your mash tun tap then add hot water to sparge 15litres. (Temp should be in the 90's) I'm talking about batch sparging here not fly sparging as the technique is different.

Anyway digressing again, so we've added the sparge water, stir and allow to settle for 10minutes, recirclate then drain into kettle. You should have 30litres preboil, but will have 9-15% evapouration during the boil, loss to trub, etc and should end up with around 23l for the fermenter.

Sorry if I've confused you.
AC

[rwh]

You're a gun mate, I'm going to do my first AG in my brand new equipment on the weekend, and now I'll be using your technique because it's the easiest step-by-step instructions I've come across.

[gregb]

Rwh, good luck with the first AG. Enjoy the day, let us know how it all goes.

Cheers,
Greg

[rwh]

Hehe no probs, I'll let you know. If I get keen I might take photos, though it might be complex enough without doing that!

[rwh]

I just broke this down into steps, using your process plus some other input from Palmer.

* Preheat mash tun
* Mash in with 2.5x weight of grain (12.5L @ 73°C)
* Ensure temp is 66°C, adjust with hot/cold as necessary
* Leave for an hour or more, stirring every 15 minutes to avoid cold spots, checking temp each time.
* Mash out with very hot water (8L @ 100°C) to raise temp to ~82°C, stir
* Drain and recirculate, until there is 1 inch above surface of grain bed
* Add sparge water (15L @ 82°C)
* Drain and recirculate
* Total, 30L

Do boil, chill with wort chiller, syphon into fermenter, leaving cold break behind

[Aussie Claret]

I'll go over your method
1. No need to pre-heat mash tun, espiecally if it's plastic
2. Add mash water at 9c higher than you want to mash at, it will drop to the correct temperature, honest.
3. The mash temp depends upon the amount of body you want in your beer, for an ale you can mash 68c, lagers 65-66c.
4. correct
5. correct
6. No this is where you are getting confused, run off the first runnings into a jug until the run off it clear, then run off the clear wort into your kettle, replace the cloudy wort (from the jug) back into the mash tun. Run all the wort out of the mash tun.
7&8. Sparge with 15l of hot water, stir to remove as much sugar as possible leave to rest for 10mins, then repeat the run off procedure.
9. This is an approximate as I don't know exactly how much grain you will be using or what dead space you have in your mash tun. ( I guessed at 1l)
10. Correct, some cold break is ok, but try to ensure you don't transfer any hop debris. When you are doing the boil I skim the hot break off the top of the kettle with a sieve, (it's the foam scum that sticks and rolls around the top of the kettle) if not removed may cause a boil over and also cause haze in your final beer.

Where are you RWH? Update your profile If you are in the Brisbane GC area you could watch a brew day at my place. Sorry just seen VIC. Doing one this weekend.
Good luck
AC

[Ed]

AC, I have to add up to 15C above temp during the cooler months and down to 9C above temp (same as you) in the warmer months. It depends on temp my grain is at.

I was scooping out the break material as well but the problem is, it removes some of that nice malt foam at the same time. That's why one of my all grains didn't come up as malty as expected. The break will be re-absorbed into the boil (Greg originally pointed that out to me) and an addition of 1/2 tablet Irish Moss at 20 mins will precipitate it. I had a taste of what I was removing and would prefer to leave it in. I have also heard since that the removal of malt foam can lessen beer foam stability, and that seemed to be case for the brews that I did it with.

Nice summary of the batch sparge method BTW.

Cheers, Ed