Very First AG

Mashing
1

Well, it’s finished, and it’s in the primary fermentor.

Here are some details (sorry if it’s boring).

Recipe: Belgian Wit

4 lbs Belgian Pilsen
4 lbs White Wheat malt
1 lb Flaked barley
1 lb Flaked white wheat
1 lb rice hulls
1.5 oz. Saaz (40 min)
.5 oz Orange peel (5 min)
.33 oz Coriander (5 min)
Yeast: Belgian wit. I used the WLP400 with a starter

Everything seemed to go OK, but my OG was 0.040, which seemed a little low. I may have oversparged a bit, because I collected 7 Gal of wort, with a little left over. I boiled it down to just under 6 Gal, cooled it and ended up with about 5.5 Gal in the fermentor. Is there anything I could have done to raise my OG? Should I have put the left over in the boil pot and boiled it down? Could making too much sparge water have lowered my OG? the left over sparge ended up on my compost with the grains.

Paul

2

Adding more sparge water will of course lower your OG unless as you point out you boil longer to drive off more water. I usually do a 90 mins boil what did you do? Still it’s a light style so you have a lighter version of it…

3

It was pretty close to 90 min. I really didn’t star the 60 min. timer until it had boiled down to about 6 1/2 gal.

4

Dude, you made beer! Rejoice!!!

:cheers:

5

Yes I did! It’s chugging along very nicely with a good 4 inch krausen. What surprised me was when I tasted the wort how wonderfully sweet it was. Very different from the taste of extract. I do thank everyone who offered advice.

Paul