Homebrew - All Grain APA

This was my first all grain. To make it extra special I drunkenly made my own recipe using Beer Smith to guide me.

Ingredients

All grain with 6 lbs of grain.

• 5 lbs - 2 row
• 1 lbs - Crystal 40L
• 1.0oz - Cascade Pellet Hops (Bittering)
• 0.75 oz - Fuggle Pellet Hops (Aroma)
• White Labs English Ale WLP002

Method

• Heat 7.5 quarts of water to 169.
• Add all the grains to the mash tun and add the water. Mash for 60 minutes, stir half way through.
• Heat 9.75 quarts of water to 168.
• Drain the wort slowly and sparge. Try to keep some water above the grain bed.
• Add water to achieve a boil volume of 4.3 gallons.
• Bring wort to the boil.
• 0 Add bittering hops. (Cascade)
• Boil for 30 minutes.
• 30 Add aroma hops. (Fuggle)
• Boil for 5 minutes.
• 35 Add a tea spoon of Irish moss and the wort chiller.
• Boil for 10 minutes.
• 45 Cool wort to 65 degrees and pour through a strainer into a fermenting bucket.
• Take a hydrometer reading, add the yeast and ferment for 3 weeks.

I realized that I could fit maybe 1 more pound of grain in my mash tun. It is worth a try next time. My mash water dropped to 159 after adding it to the grain, it was 152 at the half way mark and 144 at the end. I am not 100% sure those temperatures are correct, the last one seems low given the middle reading. I topped up the boil with 0.3 gallons to make it 4.3. This was terrifying in a 5 gallon pot, I would not do that again. After adding the wort chiller the boil never really got going again, next time I must make sure I have the stove up high when I add it. By the time the wort was in the bucket I had around 3.75 gallons. The OG ended up lower than the target of 1.052, I got 1.039. Shows my process needs some work (or my calculations).

Starter:     24 May 2013
Brew:        27 May 2013, OG 1.039
Bottle:      16 Jun 2013 (20), FG 1.000, ABV 5.1%
Ready:       09 Sep 2013 (79)
Summary:     Primary 20 days, Condition 79 days

Due to a surplus of homebrew I left these a long time before drinking them. The head looked great and had plenty of retention. I was really happy with the color. It smelt quite malty and did not have any weird homebrew smells. The taste was similar, malty and a little bitter. It was very smooth to drink and all of the flavors were mellow. No green homebrew tastes or any strange stuff. All things considered I was very happy with how this turned out. Perhaps next time I will up the grain by a pound and maybe add another .25 oz of hops to counter it. To do the same volume I need a bigger boil pot though, 4.3 gallons in 5 gallons is way too sketchy.

Starter

Brew

Bottle

Ready