First All Grain Brew!

[theobrew]

I'm brewing up my first ever all grain batch today. I'm christening my system with my first ever attempt at Tasty's Janet's Brown.

I just wanted to say thanks to the whole BN Army for support here on the forums and the advice on the shows. I would have never even thought to attempt an all grain brew on my own without it. I'm posting this while waiting for my mash to finish. I'll post more photos and updates while I finish.

See you all tonight with the Dan!


Here is my system that I got. It's just a 35qt SS kettle with a burner and an igloo mash ton.


Here is my first ever mash! Shooting for 154


Can someone read that for me? Does it say 154.2? Thats right... I hit my first ever mash right on target!

[BDawg]

Well done.
Hitting temp is a good thing. I assume you will batch sparge this. Split your water into 3 batches if you are going for best efficiency. You want to strive for consistency and that is a good part of it.

I find it is very much like washing your hands when you are out camping and you have to try to rinse off the soap in the sink or a bowl with no running water. If you put all of the rinse water in at once, you get most soap off, but there's a lot left on your hands. If you split that same water into two parts, first rinsing in 1 half, then draining and refilling the rinse water, and rinsing in the second, you get more soap off and your hands feel cleaner at the end but there's still a bit of soap residue. However, rinsing in 3 parts removes far more soap than the other two, and leaves the least residue, even though you use the same amount of rinse water for each attempt.

This is exactly the same as removing sugars from grains in a batch sparge, and the physics of it works the same.

Hope this helps and makes sense.

[theobrew]

Yea I am batch sparging. Because its a big beer most of my boil volume came during the original mash sp my first batch sparge will be my only one. I uped the temp to try and get as many sugars as possible. Because this is my first attempt I have some dme on hold waiting in case I need it.

[PrymalInstynct]

Good call on the DME I was under my estimated efficiency for the first couple AG brews and once I had the technique and equipment profile dialed in on beer smith I got way more consistant.

[theobrew]

Good call on the DME I was under my estimated efficiency for the first couple AG brews and once I had the technique and equipment profile dialed in on beer smith I got way more consistant.

I got it just in case but I actually came in over on my gravity. I'm at 1.068 @ 100degrees. I did add one extra pound of base malt to compensate efficiency but I guess I didn't need it. So far no horror stories for my first brew day. As long as I sanitize well all should be good!

[spiderwrangler]

I'm brewing up my first ever all grain batch today. I'm christening my system with my first ever attempt at Tasty's Janet's Brown.

Good choice, my first AG was JBA too...

[snowcapt]

A damn fine beer. Ive made it many times, now, and it never gets old.
Cheers to your first all grain brew!

[animaldoc]

+1 to snowcapt

I was just thinking it might be my next batch as I haven;t brewed it in a while.

Yep. Yep. A good beer.