First AG brew day

This weekend I’ll be whipping up a batch of NBs Sierra Madre pale ale AG kit. The kit calls for 2 packs of cascade hops at flame out, would it hurt to add only one at flame out and save the other for dry hopping?

Also would welcome any advice or brew day tips to make the brew session go smother.

Thanks in advance for any input.

Advice: Write down all your steps beforehand, if possible, measure hops, wait to have a beer until your beer is in the fermenter, and make sure you have a good thermometer.

Hops: I would add them both at flameout and grab some more Cascade if you want to dry hop.

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Thanks, I do have a good thermometer. Would be a good idea to make an agenda as well. And lay everything out in order of addition.

YES… getting organized is fantastic. Brewing is kind of simple, but it’s a lot of small things to remember. Thinking through, writing everything down, and organizing really makes things simpler. There are lots of posts on here from people saying they put in their aroma hops as bittering hops, forgot to add an ounce of hops, skipped their Irish Moss, or pitched the wrong yeast. These are simple things that are unfortunately easy to mess up. A checklist is simple insurance that you won’t forget a step along the way, especially considering that an all grain brew day can take up to six hours.

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I would agree with @pietro. If anything I would brew it as the recipe calls and add an additional hop at dry hopping.

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Remembering my first brew day, my advice?

I remember losing my thermometer. Not good! Like the others are saying, write down your steps, and organize your equipment. Make sure to have the information that you will need on hand so you an reference it. In the heat of brewing, notes are amazing. :beers:

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Geez, a little challenge makes fer an interesting brew day :grin:Sneezles61

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Little on the topic, but in brewing with all grain sometimes the biggest issue I’ve ever had is getting a stuck mash. Nothing like opening your mash tun valve and nothing pours out. Sometimes I’ve had to just stir the grain bed, but another time it was so stuck that I had to empty the mash tun into the brew pot, clean out the false bottom and then dump the contents back into the mash tun.

Then I started lautering with the hot water. Usually this happens to me when doing a high gravity batch as the grain load is much higher.

Very important to not panic and keep your head about you! :smile:

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Well I did it. Survived my first AG brew day. Seemed to go well. Learned a lot about my set up… Almost didn’t add enough water to my HLT. Did 4 gallon next batch I’ll do 5 just to be safe. Heated my strike water to 160 ended up with 149. Had to add boiling water to get 152. Same with sparge water heater to 180 ended up 176, so I had to add a tic of water to get 170.
My OG was 1.054. Called for OG st 1.052. Not sure if this is a problem or not. Boil finished with just a tad over 5 gallon.

The homemade wort chiller worked great. Only took 12 minutes to cool down to 64 degrees.
Start to pitch was about 5 hours and 20 minutes.
So I feel pretty good about the way everything went.
But being new to the hobby it could have went bad I just didn’t know it.

Wasn’t sure if I should have added a little water to bring OG down to 1.052 so I didn’t. I assumed .002 wouldn’t be that bad.

Thanks to everyone for the guidance and advice.

CHEERS; BeerBelly.

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You had a good brew day. Two points on the OG is nothing to worry about and not something to even think about fixing.

You can give yourself a pat on the back.

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