…and am glad I gave it a try. I really enjoyed the process and am already planning my next brew day! I brewed a recipe I found for a Sculpin clone, and plan on adding some grapefruit zest to the secondary a few days before bottling. It was a good learning experience seeing where the mask temp ends up after the grain is added to the water at the strike temp (I ended up a couple of degrees short of where I planned and adjusted the temp with a hot water addition). Also got a better idea of how much wort loss the new brew kettle looses during the boil. Based on my calculations I hit a 69% efficiency, which I was happy with but is something I want to get a little higher.
Any suggestions on my planned approach to adding the grapefruit zest would be much appreciated.
Cheers! I also brewed my first all grain beer yesterday. It was certainly fun, and a great learning experience. I think I did it all correctly :lol:
As for the grapefruit zest, you may want to make a tincture with some vodka. Letting the zest soak in the vodka will extract flavors from the zest. This also ensures sanitation of the zest. :cheers:
I would not worry about a couple of degrees off. I find that if even after stirring you can find four different temps in the mash in different spots, just go with an average
Efficiency wise. 69% is not that bad. Base malt is cheap, just add more if you can not improve it some. After a few batches you will start to know your system better and correct any problems. One of the biggest ones I have had was figuring the strike temp with a new system. You can try to calculate all you want but just knowing how much you missed by the last time makes for an easy fix. Something like “gee I was a couple of degrees to low so next time I will raise the strike temp a couple”. It also helps to have the grain at room temps before mashing in. I goofed once by crushing the grain the day before then leaving in in the cold garage I brew in overnight. Never gave a thought to how much it would drop the temp. Like you I just heated the mash up with hot water but have a SS mash lauter tun and can also heat with a low flame and stirring to prevent scorching the mash.
Before you know it you will be able to do AG blindfolded.
