I never use a scale.  The folks at the HB store weigh the grains to know how much to charge me, but that is about it.

Do it!!

I hate to agree with Trent, but JC, if you like hops, throw them in there.

Beer is in the fermenting bucket bubbling away.  First all grain brew went OK.

 

Mash was uneventful  I did one quart per pound and it did not quite fill the 21 quart pot.  I used the oven to keep it warm.

 

I had a little problem with the sparge.  I read that you put some water in first and I should not have done it.  When I put the mash in it went up over the level of the lower bucket and started spilling out.  Luckily I had a helper and he lifted the inner bucket and I drained the excess, which was recirculated back in later.  I also may have had some of the sparge water too hot..  We'll see what affect this has on the flavor, if any.  Good thing that I was in the garage by the way.

 

Lesson learned here.  I do not believe that I need prime the sparge.  I should not have to worry about a stuck sparge because I bought a large grain back which keeps pretty much any grains from escaping, so I can gently stir the grains.  This was not a big deal and I'll know what to do next time.

 

Somehow amid the confusion I ended up will too much volume in the brew kettle.  I had to boil off some wort first, which took at least a half hour.  I got it down to around 6 gallons, added my hops, and started the boil.  The rest was uneventful since I have done it before.  The outdoor burner kicks ass by the way.  Obviously because of the higher volume it took longer to chill the wort,

 

The whole process took under 6 hours.  I cleaned as I went along so there is no mess to deal with this morning.  Mrs PH is happy about that.  I have my glass carboy and will rack to it next weekend.

 

Thanks to all that helped me get started in home brewing.

 

Yeah, I agree.  I over complicated the sparge.  I had a bottling bucket up top and trickled the water in from there.  I don't think that it was necessary.  That grain bag really helps with filtering even when disturbing the grain bed.  Next time I will  skip the bottling bucket and the priming.  I'll just pour the mash in, and gently pour the sparge water in from a large pyrex measuring cup.  Even when the grain bed looked dry there was lots of buoyancy when I stirred it.  Easy fix for next time.  Thanks.

Nice!  The volume appears a bit low.  Been tasting?

Here are some pics from the American Blonde I brewed last weekend. We were planning on brewing 10 gallons so that I could split the batch into two 5 gal batches. Although we ended up with more than 12 gal in the carboys so I guess I need to tweak my effiencies in the software I use.

I decided to make a 2L starter so that I could increase my yeast pitching rate without buying a bunch of vials of yeast. This was day 2 of the starter on the DIY stirplate.

 

 

 

23 lbs of American 2-row barley and 1 lb of Crystal 10. Crushed at the LHBS.

 

 

Half of the grain in the cooler getting ready to start adding the water. 66° grain + 165° water = 151° mash-in temp. I use the Brewsmith program for all these calculations.



7.5 gal of water and 24 lbs of grain mashed at 151° for 60 minutes. Temps dropped to 149° after an hour.

This is where I realized that technology can help but only if you pay attention to the details. The software gave a warning that the mash tun volume was going to be exceeded but for some dumb reason I ignored it. I was supposed to mash out at 168° but the temp only got to 160°. Close enough.

 

Collecting the first runnings to set the grain bed. We ran off a couple gallons and recirculated it back through to filter out the small particles. After that we collected the wort in a couple 5 gal coolers to keep it hot until we could put it in the brew pot. We ended up collecting over 8 gal of wort in the first runnings so we only needed a single sparge with about 6 gal of water.



Got the boil going and just added the 2 oz of Willamette.



Chilling the wort after the boil. Last sighting of the thermometer before it fell in.



Dinner break. Brewing beer can be real work.



Aerating the carboys with the stainless degassing rod.

Approximately 12.5 gals ready to start fermenting. These were bubbling within a few hours. I barely got my half home before the krausen started escaping.

 

 

Day 2 of fermentation. This is why I prefer fermenting in my basement and use blow-off tubes.

 

We used 2 oz of Willamette. Roughly 16 IBUs. Should be a nice refreshing summer brew.