Finished brewing Dead Ringer today. The extract version I did earlier this year was awesome and gone in less than a month.
I built a mash-tun per Denny’s guide using a 45 qt cooler. The spigot is in the center of the long side so the braid angles to the right corner.
Mash water: 4 gallons (@ 175F) (+ 1 gallon of boiling water at the end of the mash)
Hit the 152 F temp (I think… small pocket thermometer) and heat loss over the hour was not measurable.
The first runnings yielded ~2.75 gallons (based on my hastily crafted notched wood stick). That left 2.25 gallons in the mash tun so looking back I must have gotten clogged…
Next I added 4 gallons of sparge water (185 F) and stopped draining when I hit about 7.33 gallons
OG was 1.059 so definitely short of the 1.064 I was trying to hit.
Overall it was a great way to spend 5 hours and I really enjoyed the process. Any ideas on improving my efficiency?
Sounds like everything went well for your first time, cheers.
If you put 5 gallons into the fermenter, you got 68% BHE. 74% would have hit 1.064. Respectable #'s.
Everybody sucks the first time they mash grain. By everybody I mean me.
If the first sparge did stick on you, that could drop your effeciency some right away, leaving the heaviest run in the tun.
Mash a bit longer and make sure you’re really getting those water infusions stirred in good should get you 75-80.
So whens the next brew? ASAP? :cheers:
Mashwater 3.3 calculates the grain absorbtion at ~1.44 gallons.
You lost 2.25 gallons? That is a lot of dead space. Maybe it is because the drain is on the long side. Can you try just putting 3 or 4 gallons of water in the cooler and draining it to see how much is left in there?
Improve your effiecency? If you went to the store to get the ingredients, run the grain through the mill 2 times. The stores don’t want you to have a stuck sparge so the gap on the mill is larger than you would do at home.
[quote=“Wrathius”]Mash water: 4 gallons (@ 175F) (+ 1 gallon of boiling water at the end of the mash)
Hit the 152 F temp (I think… small pocket thermometer) and heat loss over the hour was not measurable.
The first runnings yielded ~2.75 gallons (based on my hastily crafted notched wood stick). That left 2.25 gallons in the mash tun so looking back I must have gotten clogged…
Next I added 4 gallons of sparge water (185 F) and stopped draining when I hit about 7.33 gallons
OG was 1.059 so definitely short of the 1.064 I was trying to hit.
Overall it was a great way to spend 5 hours and I really enjoyed the process. Any ideas on improving my efficiency?[/quote]
You would have about 1.5ish gallon grain absorbtion, so you really only had 0.75 gallons in your tun. Good job, think I hit like 54% my first time doing AG. Get a grain mill or double crush and I bet your efficiency will shoot up.
Thanks for the tips. I’ll buy ingredients locally this time and do a double grind at the LHBS.
Re getting a mill-- I won’t be doing this for a while… It’s going to take a few months for my budget to catch up after the 15 gallon pot + mash tun (with stainless ball-valves)
I wasn’t planning on brewing again for a while after this but all grain has given me the bug again. I can’t wait to do another batch to try to get better efficiency.
Do you recommend messing with ph? I’ve never tested my water and of course didn’t treat the water on this batch.
