Low Original Gravity in Mac&Jack's Clone
OK i understand what you did now and honestly I'd probably dump this batch. But don't worry about it because we'll help you brew good beer. First, I suggest reading up on how to brew all grain. Here's a couple of good sites:
BobbyM"s All Grain Primer
John Palmer - How to Brew, Section 3: Brewing Your First All Grain Beer
You kind of had the right idea by keeping your grains at 155F but next time combine all of the grain to mash for 60 minutes. When brewing all grain there's no need for separating grains that are mashed and steeped. When mashing use a grist ratio (quarts of water to pounds of grain ratio) of 1.25-2 quarts to 1 pound of grain. I use 1.5qt/lb so I'd add 15.75 quarts of water or almost 4 gallons of water to the 10.5 lbs of grain.
Now in this recipe you're shooting for a mash temperature of 155F. You can't add 155F degree water because your grain is at a lower temperature and will absorb some of that heat. I usually shoot for adding water 10-12 degrees hotter than the mash temp I'm shooting for. Then I mix the water and grain, stir like crazy for a couple of minutes so there's no hot or cold spots and take a temperature reading. It should be around your target temp but don't sweat it if its a couple degrees off. Now you're mashing and this will take 60 minutes.
After 60 minutes you want to separate the grain from your wort. Most people build or buy a mash tun and all that is is a container that holds your grain and water that lets you drain out the wort but keep the grain in the vessel. I use a cooler that has a stainless steel braid that's connected to a ball valve. The braid acts as a filter only lettign the wort out of the cooler. Collect your wort into your boil kettle. I usually end up collecting about 3 - 4 gallons depending on the recipe.
While you're mashing you're going to want to heat up water for sparging. Sparging is rinsing the residual sugars from that grain that didn't dissolve into the the wort you just emptied into the kettle. The simplest way to do this is to batch sparge by adding more hot water back into the mash tun, stirring, waiting a short time (maybe 10 minutes) and draining into the kettle. When Bruguru instructed to "collect enough wort" he was saying to sparge with enough water to collect a specific volume of wort that after boiling will result in 5 gallons. Because of the shape of my brew kettle I have a large evaporation rate so I usually need to collect 7.5-8 gallons of wort if I want to end up with 5 gallons after a 90 minute boil.
Once all the wort is collected boil for a half hour and throw in your 60 minute hop addition (1 oz Centennial in this case). Follow the rest of the recipe and you should be in good shape.
Hope this helps and feel free to ask any questions but I highly recommend you check out the two websites I linked above.
Just a thought, since it hasn't been mentioned so far.
Did you crush your grains?
My sincere thanks to those who replied, especially FirePitBrew. I use a stock pot that holds l6 qts. max. The 9 lb. of M.Otter in an XL grain bag barely fit in. To paraphrase the character in "Jaws", I'm gonna need a bigger pot.
You are just tossing the loose grain into the water, not in a bag, right? And when bruguru said he "mashes in overnight", what does that mean?
You'll most definitely need a bigger pot if you want to do a 5 gallon batch. I do 6 gallon batches and I use a 10 gallon pot and a propane burner (turkey fryer) for boiling though some people are successful at boiling a large pot on their stove top. I even did my first all grain brew on the stove using 2 different pots and it worked pretty well.
I just toss the grain and water into the cooler - no bag. The link for BobbyM's pdf shows a few pics of his mash tun which is similar to mine. The first one is a picture of the grain being mashed... just water and crushed grain sitting in a cooler. The next couple of pics show the Stainless steel braid and ball valve that I was talking about before.
A usual mash time is 60 minutes and a usual all grain brew day takes about 6 hours. Sometimes this doesn't fit into everyone's schedule so Bruguru will start his mash before going to bed and then drain his mash tun when he wakes up, sparge with more water then start his boil. I've never done this before so I can't really speak too much on it but it works for some people.
Wildcats wrote:
And when bruguru said he "mashes in overnight", what does that mean?
I would plan on doing your mash and boil on the same day, until you get the hang of it. There are a lot of things that can go wrong (and will, from time to time) with a "normal" brew day. With mashing overnight, you have to be careful with the grain temps. or lactobacillus will form and you will get a sour flavor to your beer.
You're on the right track though, don't give up, it will get easier.
Mashing is just taking the crushed malt, and putting it in a cooler, or pot, or somthing with a strainer on the bottom of it. Definately read up on mashing. When I mash overnnight, I have a 10 gallons gott cooler, and get my temps correct, get my mash going, and put my bbq thermometer, and stick the probe into the middle of the mash. I then screw the top on, and set the digital temp gage on the top of the cooler. I don't lose more than 10 degrees in a 12 hr period. As given to fly said there are some risks here, if it drops below 140 degrees in that 12 hr period bacteria can set in rather fast. On the other hand, you can extract alot more of the good stuff this way, and also take 2hours off the next day, making your brewday a rather managable 5hrs.
That does not mean that you can't mash at 140, or hell even 138 if you wanted too, but you couldn't do these mashes overnight..
read up, and ask questions you will be fine
bruguru wrote:
On the other hand, you can extract alot more of the good stuff this way, and also take 2hours off the next day, making your brewday a rather manageable 5hrs.
Are you saying that you have 5 hours total spread over two days, or that the next day after mashing is a 5 hour session?
Because my entire all grain session is about 5 hours.
you can also check out youtube videos for info on doing all grain. it sometimes helps to see someone doing something rather than just reading about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMHLqnWCNjE
That's one I found when I was first learning about all grain brewing.
i'm saying that taking the mashing process out of the day, makes it a 5 hour process. I'm talking about setting up, getting my sparge water ready, getting my Wort into the kettle, 90 minute boil, getting my yeast ready, my pump, cooling my wort, getting it into my fermenters, and clean up. Yes, 5 hrs the next day.
Yes, cleaning your mash tun is part of the brew day. Yes cleaning your pump, and your plate chiller is part of the brew day, lol.
brewchez, just because you don't clean your mash tun until the next time you brew doesn't mean that your saving time, it just means that you have that to do later, ha ha.
I don't even clean the mash tun next time. I just put more grain in there on top of the other stuff a month later.
If I am really strapped for time I do an extract batch and just run extract through that old grain bed.
I thought that's what everyone does.
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