. Before I could start with this all grain, I had to build two very important components for the brewery.
First and a must have for all graining is the Mash Tun. I converted a 48 quart Coleman cooler. I removed the old spicket saving the gasket to be later. I installed a 3/8" bulkhead fitting, using the gasket on the inside of a washer on the inside of the cooler. For the outside of the cooler, I got a waterhose gasket on the inside of a washer. With the tightening nut on the inside, I tightened the bulkhead fitting just snug enough to compress the gaskets so it doesn't leak. I leak checked it by filling it up with warm water and letting it set for awhile. But this isnt a mash tun until you install a false bottom. I used 3/8" copper tubing with holes drilled in it about every 3/4" apart. I bent it in a M shape and connected the ends with a 3/8" tee connected to the bulkhead fitting. Im not sure if this was the best approach at a "false bottom". I am thinking that it left too much space for the runnings under the false bottom, thus I left too much in the cooler. This contributed to water loss during the 1st and 2nd runnings. I actually had to do almost a gallon fly sparging to get my 6.25 gallons of wort. I think I am going to make a "false bottom" out of a 3/8" stainless steel faucet hose to see if it worked better.
Second, I had to build a wort chiller. I wort chiller is very important so that you can chill down the boiled wort quickly so you can pitch the yeast. The wort really needs to be chilled down to 80*F in about 15-20 minutes. This helps preventing a nice sugary wort for being comtaminated. I built this by buying a 20' box of 3/8" copper tubing for $25. I spread out the coils vertically to fill the brew pot evenlly and bent a 90 for the outlet. For the inlet, I bent a 90 from the bottom of the coil to run vertically to the top of the brew pot. I bent a 90 the same heighth of the top of my brew pot so I can connect to a water hose. Its easy to make just be careful to not kink the tubing when bending. I bought a bender for $12 it will do 1/4", 5/16", and 3/8" tubing.
Ok now to brewing, I used this recipe:
- 41/2 lbs German Pilsner Malt
- 41/2 lbs Red Wheat
- 8 oz ara Munich Malt
- 4 oz Cara Wheat
- 2 oz Chocolate Malt
- 4 oz Special B Malt
- 1 oz Spalt Hops
- White Labs WLP300 Hefewiezen Ale Yeast
For this recipe, I will be using the Batch Sparging method.I used a batch sparging calcutator that I found on http://www.onebeer.net/ to get my 1st and 2nd runoff water amounts. Really if you know how much wort you should end up with add .125 gal per lbs of grain being used. That will be the total amount of water and divide that by 2 and that will give your amounts for the 2 runoffs.
I heated my strike water to around 180*F to get my mash temp of 155*F. I poured the 3.75 gal strike water into the mash tun and let it set until the temp was around 165*F. I then "doughed in", poured the grain evenlly into the mash tun. I let that mash for 1 hour, and began to heat my 2nd runoff water.
After an hour of mashing, I collected the 1st runoff into the brew pot. When doing this, I used a 2 qt pitcher to catch the runoff until it ran clear. Carefully, recirculating the cloudy runoff to the grain trying not to disturb the grain bed. Once the runoff stopped, I poured my 2nd runoff water into the mash tun 3.75 gal @ 175*. I will let this mash for 20minutes of so.
After around 20min, I collected the wort, using the same method as the 1st runoff. Recirculate until the run off is clean. Now I should have around 6.25 gal of wort.
Now the fun begins, I began heating the wort to a boil. When you notice the temp getting close to 210*F and the wort begins to foam turn the burner down to prevent a boil over. Wort will boil over so be watching it very carefully as it reaches boiling point, very important.
Once you have the boil under control, add your bittering hops and set a timer for 60min.
Give it a good stir, and kick back and have a beer. If you are adding flavoring hop add them at the last 15min mark, and if you are adding aroma hops that will be added at the last minutes.
Now get your sanitized wort chiller ready. I had to use a pre-chiller because my water comes out of the ground at about 80*F in June. I just used a storage bin with the lenghth of my water hose rolled up in it. I filled th bin up half way with an ice bath. It worked great, my wort was down to 80*F in around 18 min.
Once the wort was down to 80*F, I racked it to my sanitized Primary fermenter. I also got a sample to check with the Hydrometer. It was 1.058 my target was 1.052. Yea, I was surprised. Maybe because I added a can of Mr. Beer Honey Brown malt that I had in the pantry.
Now since, I forgot to get a bottle of oxygen form the hardware store, I gave the wort a very vigorous stir.
Now pitch the yeast, and install a sanitized airlock.
This yeast likes to ferment around 75*F, so I just turned the A/C down a bit the put the fermenter in a dark place. I will post the progress of the fermentation so stay tuned.
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