well, I just finished my first all grain batch. I had crazyprsn over and we bottled his WCPA before we brewed. Bottling went fine.

Then we started my AG Blonde Ale. Recipe is posted below. things went fine until we got to the end. I put in some whirlfloc but it never seemed to clear up. Chiller got it down to 80* pretty quickly but the beer was still cloudy. I then measured the OG and it was 1.048 when qbrew estimated 1.059!! What the heck happened?!?! Anyways, pitched the yeast and it's in the LBK now, ready to start fermenting.

I may have mashed a little higher than I wanted to mash, which might explain why the OG was so low. Am I supposed to measure the temp in the grain or in the water?

ya know what, either way I made beer!! I did my first all grain and it will make good beer!! It was also my lightest brew by far and that made me happy.

So, how do I measure temps while mashing? And how do I get my whirlfloc to work better?

Brewer:
Style: American Pale Ale
Batch: 2.50 galAll Grain

Characteristics
---------------
Recipe Gravity: 1.059 OG
Recipe Bitterness: 29 IBU
Recipe Color: 6° SRM
Estimated FG: 1.015
Alcohol by Volume: 5.7%
Alcohol by Weight: 4.5%

Ingredients
-----------
CaraPils 0.25 lb, Grain, Mashed
Crystal 20L 0.25 lb, Grain, Mashed
Two-row (US) 5.00 lb, Grain, Mashed
Vienna (US) 0.25 lb, Grain, Mashed

Cascade 0.30 oz, Pellet, 7 minutes
Cascade 0.30 oz, Pellet, 20 minutes
Cascade 0.40 oz, Pellet, 60 minutes

English Ale yeast 1.00 unit, Yeast, Danstar Nottingham

side note, this was my brew process:

bring 3 gallons water to 161.3*, add grain, let sit at 151* for 60 mins. Bring 1 gallon strike water to 170*. pour over grain and let drain into wort. Add hops, bring to boil and go from there.

I thought the sparge would let me get better efficiency but that didnt happen.

Next time, try heating to 170° for a mash out before you sparge...or, if you've got room in your kettle, do all the water at once and do it no sparge.

But as long as you're getting around 70% efficiency, I wouldn't worry about it and just adjust your base grains to compensate in future recipes.

the 1.059 figured from qbrew was based on 70% efficiency. I have room to do 4 gallons of water and grain and no sparge. I was thinking about doing the mash out next time for sure, regardless of if I sparge or not.

I actually do the "Teapot" sparge too. I pour the teapot onto the suspended grainbag to rinse them. I get quite a bit of wort out of it.

just make sure to stir when you up the heat, so the heat gets distributed to the whole mash, not just the grains/wort at the bottom of the pot

so, based on info from the shoutbox, next time i will heat the strike water to the right temp and then add the grain, still well, cover with a towel and just let it free fall. from there I will raise temps to mash out and then sparge if I want to. Should make things better.

Right on Brotha!

ok, what about the whirlfloc then? added 1/2 tablet with 15 mins left in boil and it just wouldn't separate out very well.

Did you see the weird, thick cloudy crap in the bottom of your kettle? That's what whirlfloc is supposed to help separate out. In my experience, it separates out fine on its own...but I've never used any kind of fining myself, so I can't give you any more feedback than that.

checked it this morning and it's fermenting away. nice krausen on it.

congrats.

Welcome to all grain brewing :-) you will get a ton more break material than with extract or partial mash. You may also have cooled faster than normal? Which will give you more cold break material, either way just do your best to keep that in the pot(why I suggest having at least an extra .5 gallons to 1 gallon so you can leave more behind.

It is difficult to get the proper amount of whirlfloc as every beer will be different

it did seem to cool pretty quickly. from boiling to 80ish in 5 mins. I may try a whole whirlfloc in the next one. I just remember my PM and stepping batches and how well the whirlfloc worked and I didnt see it happening in this batch. Oh well.

I have noticed that I am getting more positive about all this. Normally I would be mad that I missed OG and it won't be as strong etc. but I am just happy knowing that I took grain and made beer out of it!! It's also very light (what I was aiming for) and will be by far my lightest colored beer!!

There is quite a big difference between PM and all grain, the reason you don't see as much break in extract is because it has already gone through that stage once.

Personally I would try using less whirlfloc, it does also matter when you add it, but really I would not worry too much about it, the whirlfloc still did its job well even if it didn't all fall to the bottom still easy to avoid in a large mass.

Either way don't worry too much about the break material just make more wort. Your efficiency will get better over time, accurate temperature and proper pH in the mash are the biggest things to be concerned about. The mash out will not increase eff, the point of the mash out is to stop conversion so you can better control final gravity.

However a warm sparge will help with eff, I sparge with water at 175F because that will not increase the mash temp above the 170 since it starts below that(it takes a lot to raise the Mash temp a few degrees) the warmer sparge will loosen up the sugars.

Also how are you draing your mash? You using a stainless braid? False bottom? As those can effect efficiency as you can get grains that are being missed during the sparge leaving them behind, your crush can also effect it, but usually time can fix that.

It's a lot to learn but it will get easier :-) always things to tweak though

thanks stink. I've already modified my next batch to be a 2.75 gal batch, leaving behind 0.5 gallons in the brew pot.

I used my chiller to whirlpool the wort, I wonder if that just brought everything up into solution since it was already below 100. I might not do that next time.

Right now I just do BIAB. I wanted to sparge yesterday to help increase efficiency but I don't think I will sparge next time. I'll just do 4 gallons of water to temp, add the bag and grain, stir every 15 mins, raise the temp to 170 and stir the grain one more time before pulling it and draining it into the wort.

I also plan to ask for a bit finer crush next time. I don't have a crusher, I just let whoever I order from do it.

Getting a finer crush, upping the mash time to 90" and doing a mash-out before you pull your grains can all help improve efficiency with BiaB.

Always stir well before you take a temp reading, and take the reading in several locations. You might want to just stir and check temps every half hour or so, rather than every 15"...temps should hold pretty well.

what crush should I ask for? I dont want to ask for a "fine" crush and get them and they are too crushed. Ordering from brewmasters warehouse BTW.

When I wa ordering from Brewmaster's Warehouse and getting my grains crushed for BiaB, I always asked for an extra-fine crush in the comments section, and it typically was excellent.

rock on, I'll give that a shot on my next order (ESB). I'll also add that it's for BiaB and I'm sure they will give me the best crush.

I would not order a special grind from Brewmasters. They are well
known for their standard grind giving high effeciency. Lots of
BIAB'rs report lowish effiency and just up their base malt slightly
to compensate. If you start messing with longer hotter mashes
and sparges it could have other effects on the beer like tannins
or too much residual sweetness. Just keep on with what works for
you and make slight adjustments until you dial it in and you will.
Your hooked now. Congrats

hmmm...I have never asked for anything special from BMW, and like HJ said, the "standard" crush I have been getting is working out pretty great IMO. going no sparge and hitting mid 70's on the reg...simple and works for me!

oh, fwiw, give yourself PLENTY of time for your shipment to arrive! BMW has gone from like a 3 day turnaround to like 2 weeks. no bad mouthing them (I still order from them for all my AG recipe needs!), but just giving you a heads up

I was planning to order tonight so that I will hopefully have it for brew day next sunday the 22nd.

My recent order from BMW arrived within a week! So maybe they're all caught up from the holiday rush?

well, once i get home and see what specialty grain I am out of, I will order tonight and let everyone know how long it takes!!

wow that is fast for BMW! that is great if they have it all figured out down there...my past 2 orders had taken for-ev-er to arrive. I'd have to double check on the dates, but definitely leaning hard on the 2 week time frame. like I said, the products and people I have talked to there are great, so I keep on going back to them

I ordered my dark lager grains last monday afternoon and got
it friday afternoon. I'm only an hours drive away but you now
how fedex is, they pony express it all over the state before
it gets to you.
Just to give you a visual on Brewmasters, it's in a strip mall
about the size of payless shoe store in a high traffic location.
They are kinda limited on their hardware but have a nice grain
grinding room in the back of the store away from the retail area.
They now have a lot of wine kits in stock. Sometimes they have
50 corny kegs, the next time zilch. Big freezer full of hops
and fridge full of yeast of about everything.
They always have stacks of
buckets and boxes of brewing books. Big calender marked with
dates of their brewing classes. They are always busy grinding
orders but walk in and you are #1 vip getrdonenowgladtoseeyacomebacksoonandgoodluckwiththebeer.

oh wow. I had envisioned a bigger operation. well good for them to not have only to come up the the brew builder, but to also support the BN, and to supply home brewers across the country! I can imagine their ingredients are always fresh too since they keep on rolling through orders

I should have listened to you guys and NOT ordered fro BMW. I had to call and cancel this morning. It's taken too long and I was promised it would ship yesterday. I ordered from AHS and I expect it to ship Monday and get here Wednesday or Thursday.

I may try BMW again later this year.

On the bright side, I now have enough grain and DME to make my next 6 batches!!

ESB, Simcoe/Vienna SMaSH, Citra/Pale SMaSH, American Brown kit (2 batches), Witty Monk. Should cover me until the end of February. Pipeline will be super strong at that point I hope.

I ordered the Vienna, Pale Malt and brown ale kit all unmilled. I want it to stay fresh and I'm hoping my LHBS will mill for me for a little cash. Anyone have any luck with this?

A lot of LHBSes will mill for free, as long as you're also buying something there.

Or so I've heard. I've only had grains I've bought at the LHBS milled at the LHBS.

My LHBS charges to mill, even if I buy the grain there. Another reason I hardly buy from them. But I don't know how soon I will brew some of those so I got the grain unmilled.

As long as you store the crushed grains well (cool, dark place free of bugs and mice), you should be fine.

That said, uncrushed will always last longer, so as long as you can get 'em crushed, you're definitely safe this way. Good luck!

you could probably just use a food processor or blender to "crush" the grains... though in reality you'd be chopping and pulverizing the grain. but, since you're doing BIAB, you don't need the intact husks for a grain bed anyways, so no worries... you just want the kernel/endosperm/germ crushed to expose the starches. you could grind it into a powder and still be fine... and probably get super crazy efficiency lol. i wouldn't get in the habit of doing that... but it's a way around having to pay your LHBS to crush the grains (which is complete BS, btw... none of the LHBSs i've shopped at have ever charged to crush. super lame).

hmm I would be concerned about tannin extraction from pulverizing the grain husks?

I suspect that as long as your temps and pH were ok, you'd have minimal tannin extraction. Sure, it'd probably be more...but maybe not so much that it'd ruin the beer.

yeah, if the temp and pH are lept under control, you should be fine... since temp and pH are what cause tannins... at least according to the tannin episode of Brew Strong. just be careful during mash out, as you'd be flirting with tannin temps (regardless of crush method).

yeah just doesn't sound like he treats his water so pH could be a problem

uh, good point. a couple scoops of 5.2 stabilizer in the strike water would be good insurance.

But if he switches to no-sparge BiaB, pH becomes ALMOST a non-issue, since all of the water is added at once, there will be plenty of buffering from the grains.

sounds like quite a nice discussion went on while I was away!! I'm doing no sparge BiaB for the next few brews but I will invest in some 5.2 stabilizer when I sparge.

In the mean time, how much do I need to worry about PH levels while doing BiaB?

not at all if you add some pH stabilizer to mash, as well... in fact, the directions on the little tub of powder (and one of the guys from five star chemicals - the company the 5.2 stabilizer - said on one of the BN shows) says to only add the stabilizer to the mash.strike water, and not to the sparge water.

so I should prolly pick some up then and never really worry about checking PH levels?

yup. does it get nay easier? lol

Eh, if you're going to continue to do no-sparge BiaB, I wouldn't even worry about it.

I've only used it once, on the joint brew I did with psuchunk03, and I've never measured pH levels.

On some lighter beers (things like cream ales or pilsners), I have sparged with distilled or a blend of distilled and tap--but that was more to reduce the mineral content in the finished beers, with lowered pH of the sparge water being more of a just in case kind of thing.

Personally I have heard horrible things about using the 5.2 stabilizer like adding flavors you do not want and it actually does not do a decent job of adjusting it. I have used it once or twice a long time ago, and probably had larger problems back then to realize if it made any effect good or bad

But if you want def try it out and let us know your results

I may add it to the next order but I won't go out of my way to get it.

On my second tub of 5.2 stabilize and never had a problem...

I doubt it'll cause problems for most brewers, but then again, it's probably not needed for most brewers.

What would be awesome to see is for several brewers to do a series of brews of different styles, both with and without 5.2 stabilizer and compare the finished beer. An analysis of their brewing water would be nice as well.

oh yeah, and not sure if anyone has explicitly said, but make sure to stir the mash so all the dough balls break up... other wise, not all the grains will be wetted and you'll lose their enzyme and starch contribution. if i catch one, i usually push it and smash it against the side of the pot so it breaks up. you gotta stir and stir and stir when you're mashing in... then, stir for another five or 10 minutes, just to make sure everything is all broken up. you gotta stir the mash. love the mash. talk to the mash. bond with it. i'd imagine that is what holding a newborn child is like... you know, you made it. you love it. you're bonding with it. stir.

awesome prose there chunk. next AG day is this weekend so I'll be sure to try this and check back.

I did find a very nice resource if anyone is interested: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/biab-brewing-pics-233289/

bottled this yesterday, things didn't go well. I was going to pig this batch but I lost the gasket (among other bad things happening) so I had to bottle.

I ran out of priming sugar so I had to use regular sugar along with the batch of priming sugar I already made for the pig (different amounts). Beer was super cloudy so I popped it in the freezer to help settle things. Some things went down but it was still cloudy.

Bottling went fine, sanitized just enough bottles to get this batch bottled and they are now carbing. Still really cloudy, hopefully it will settle out after carbing and conditioning.

On the plus side, it tasted really good, awesome hop flavor and I made an all grain beer!!

Fermenter is now empty, ready for my all grain ESB tonight.

If I remember rightly this was a pale ale, is that correct? It was dry hopped as well? It could be hop haze that is making the beer cloudy.

yeah, this turned from a blonde into a pale ale. It was not dry hopped.

checked on this last night, seems to be clearing well in the bottles. just lots of stuff in there that needed to settle out under pressure I guess. kinda low ABV on this one, gonna let it sit until the super bowl and chill a couple that day and try them.

I threw one in the freezer to try it. it needs the 2 weeks in the fridge to absorb the carbonation but this is really, really good!! the wife likes it as well. I'll throw the rest of the batch in the fridge tomorrow and enjoy in 2 weeks. Amazing flavor and aroma. Super happy with my first all grain!!

Congrats cardinalsfan.

I had another one of these last night with some homemade chili and frito pie. Poured super clear and light, looked JUST like a commercial beer. Great flavor and aroma, good bitterness as well. I am VERY happy with this one, it may be my best so far. The wife likes it as well. I'll have another this weekend and post the pics.

Had one more last night. Starting to lose the aroma it once had. I'll dry hop this next time I make it.