So, the first brew day on the all-grain set up is over. After running around all morning attempting to get things in order and a few what seemed like minor bumps in the road, Batch A of Seminole Sunset was made. Lessons were learned:
- Bigger brew pot needed - after the 60 minute boil, we had considerable loss of wort. I believe we're at 4-4.5 gallons of beer. Not a big deal, but this might hurt the beer, but we'll see.
- Slower sparge - I built the three-tier system with the idea of fly-sparging. We did this, but in a much faster manner than I wanted. Need to slow down the sparge and I think we figured out how to do that, but was too late.
- Lower 2nd tier of system - gravity works well, but we need more height to ensure we don't lose flow.
- Get refractor - our OG readings seemed off and well, they were. But I forgot that OG is effected by temperature, so our original reading was dead on, but with the wort being 150 degrees it seemed wrong. The good thing is, we were ok, the bad thing is - we probably wasted some time debating it and reran the wort through the sparge just in case.
- Need help - I had the help of a friend during this day, which was great as we had to lift coolers of hot water, and it was great to bounce ideas off him as things went off through out the afternoon.
All in all, it was a great afternoon. The beer looked and smelled great. The color was dead on. The taste was dead on, and it turns out the OG was good too - we just ended up with a smaller batch then planned. It was a great afternoon to brew, not hot, sunny and having a friend there to drink while we waited 60 minutes during mash and 60 minutes during boil definitely adds to why I like beer and brewing so much, it fosters friendships.
On the Batch "B" with a few slight variations, mainly hops and yeast - going to keep the grain bill the same.
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