I am taking the plunge after 4 extract kits. My first kit will be a NUT BROWN ALE. I will be using a round 5 gallon cooler with a false bottom. I know it will take me a few times to get dialed in with my equipment but are there any general guidelines I can use on my first batch. I will be plugging in numbers to Beersmith 2.0 and I will be taking a lot of notes. I’m just trying to get within walking distance of my OG. LOL. If anyone has some simple suggestions I would love to hear them.
Make sure you warm the cooler before dough in. You shouldn’t get any drop in temp if your cooler is warmed up.There are calculators for pitch temp. Trust them. Make sure your thermometer is working. Just stir it up and close the lid, don’t keep peeking. As long a as you hold your temp you’ll be good. Remember after your first running whatever sparge water you add will be what you get so only add what you need to reach your starting boil volume. If you accidentally go over just boil off until you get your volume. You’ll be good, it ain’t rocket science, have fun.
In a 5G batch, 1lb of DME will add about 9 points. So keep that in mind. Take a preboil SG. Figuring an average 1 hour boiloff of 1 G(you can test that with plain water ahead of time), you can do the math to predict your postboil SG. If you figure to be around 10 points low, you can add 1lb DME lateboil. If around 5 points low, add 1/2 lb. If it’s appropriate to the style, you could add sugar or honey instead of DME. They also come in around 8-9 points per lb. for a 5G batch.
Now, if you’re better than expected on your OG, you can always top off with a little water, just like you might with a partial boil extract batch.
Do you know your water? (If you’re using tap water, do you have access to a water report? Or are you using distilled or RO water?) Are you measuring pH? If so, how? If not, why not?
Beyond that you will benefit by doing a dry run ahead of time. Bring a volume of water equal to what you will be mashing your first time to mash temperature. Record how long that takes. Add your heated water to your mash tun. Does it leak? How much does the temperature drop due to your tun? Understand that adding grain at room temperature will drop it further. Now put the lid on your tun, let it sit form an hour and measure the water temperature again to see how much heat you lose over an hour. Factors that affect that include how thick you plan on mashing plus how much head space is left in the tun. Practice draining to your boil kettle to see if there are any leaks during that process. Fill you boil kettle with a volume of 150 - 170 degree F water that equals the volume of wort you plan to boil for your first batch. Make note of this initial volume. How quickly can you bring it to boil? Practice adjusting your heating source so that you get a steady but not too vigorous boil. You want it strong enough to drive off DMS precursors but not so vigorous that you have a boil-over or evaporate too much water. Boil for an hour and then calculate your boil-off rate. If you’re using a chiller, practice with that to see if there are any leaks and how quickly you can chill. It will be different if your previous experience is with partial-boil extract batches. All of this information will help you dial in your process and minimize the chance of nasty surprises on brew day. Good luck!
Sorry, that dry run stuff is a waste of time IMO. Just brew it and adjust on your next batch. Unless your water is crap I wouldn’t worry about that yet. Don’t make it more complicated than it is. 8)
That being said, if it’s your first run with your cooler, I would advise putting some water in to make sure it doesn’t leak and to find out what your dead space is. Fill the cooler until the output is submerged to test for leaks then open your valve until it stops draining. Then dump your remaining water into a measuring vessel. This will give you your dead space loss. Take good notes on your first brewday, you can learn a lot by doing it. Also, it’s not nearly as scary as it seems!
