All grain first time?

[Tony C]

I have bought a couple of all grain kits, from Worcester Hops of a Theastons Old Peculiar clone.
Having a go at all grain with my son and a load of equipment that we have collected together.
I have a 60l kettle, cooler box mash tun, not sure of capacity and a 60l fermentation vessel.

The info from WH is 14.9 litres mash liquer.
If the cool box can hold 30l + about 11kg of grain, could I get away with doing both kits together, or would I need to mash and sparge them in one hit?

 

[labrewski]

U thinking of mixing 2 different kits together??
If so it will make different beer altogether I expect
Each kit will have it's own flavours

 

[Tony C]

No, they are both the same grains in kit form from Worcester Hops.

 

[chopps]

If it's your first time with all grain, I'd do them one at a time.
The first one is a good learning exercise and the second one is likely to benefit.
Unless you're in a hurry.

 

[Tony C]

It isn't a hurry thing, more like a quantity thing, we both would like to end up with 40 pints each.

 

[labrewski]

Should be no problem so just a bigger batch

 

[An Ankoù]

It isn't a hurry thing, more like a quantity thing, we both would like to end up with 40 pints each.

I see your point, but if it's your first time, you don't really know how your kit works (until you've tried it a couple of times) and your knowledge of the processes is academic rather than practical. I'd seriously consider doing the brews one at a time to iron out any teething problems. If you did one today and one tomorrow you'd still have 40 pints each. You also need more than one fermenting vessel. Get a couple of 30 litre food-grade buckets with a lid and a tap. Anything fancier is more costly, but won't make better beer.
It seems a fairly-priced kit from Worcester hops.

 

[MmmBeer]

With this being your first all grain brew, you will make some mistakes, we all did. You could make it as one big batch, or make two batches, one the day after the other into the same fermenter, but making two completely separate batches will help you learn the process better and give you a better chance of at least one really good beer.

I have made an old peculiar clone, from a recipe rather than kit about five times now, I kegged one batch yesterday. It's a reliable beer to make and is a nice drink.

 

[Tony C]

I totally take all your points on board, and do appreciate the advice. But my son has his own family and doesn't live with us. Which is why a 10 gallon batch is first.

Will be difficult enough to socially distance as it is without having to try brewing two days.
Plan is to mash and ferment at mine, then he will take 5 gallons away in a barrel to condition at his.

 

[chopps]

Enjoy the brew day Tony. Let us know how it goes.
Remember there's almost-live technical support from the forum if you run into questions

 

[Tony C]

Cheers @chopps and everyone else for the offer of real time support and words of wisdom.
Wish me luck. Today's the day!

Will be going for it with my auld boy today. 10 gallons of Old P. coming up, we hope. Kettle should be on by 12, so here goes.

First question of the day, apologies in advance for the basic knowledge I am obviously lacking..
Recipe says 14.9l of Mash liquor, so 29.8l for the two kits. Do I need to over compensate to allow for liquid retention of the grain, so that I end up with 14.9l liquor out at the end of mash, or is that the right amount to start with?

 

[Dads_Ale]

The 14.9 is the right amount to start with, so for the two kit you will need the 29.8l.
You may not want to put the full amount in to start with though if you mash tun is 30l as it may overflow when you add the grain. You cam always add the water as you go if the mash is too stiff.

 

[Tony C]

Well that was a day n a half.
Started as planned about 12, discovered a leak in the hlt, so was running around looking for ptfe before we could get going.
That and a few other schoolboy errors, like inly turning one of the kettles on when it came to boiling off the mash, we finally transferred the iiquor into the FV at about 2030

Took an age for the mash tun to drain, must need to look at that setup.
Everything else worked as expected.
Left the fv over night to cool and will be taking final og reading before pitching the yeast this morning.

 

[Tommo 2]

Everyone who’s on this forum will tell you the same thing guys , ain’t no one not had a brew day from hell at some point , goes with the turf the best thing for it is probably RDWHAHB

 

[Tony C]

Not totally put me off, but can't really spare that sort of time, when a decent extract kit is affordable and can be put together in less than an hour

How long would you normally expect a mash tun with 30l of water and 11kg grain to drain out, before you start sparging?
How long would you then expect the sparging to take?
I also should have used some sort of bag for the hops, as that caused problems when trying to empty the HLT/Boiler.

Yeast was pitched this morning at 20.1C and a gravity of 1060.

 

[Tony C]

Turned out nice
TC

 

[An Ankoù]

Not totally put me off, but can't really spare that sort of time, when a decent extract kit is affordable and can be put together in less than an hour

How long would you normally expect a mash tun with 30l of water and 11kg grain to drain out, before you start sparging?
How long would you then expect the sparging to take?
I also should have used some sort of bag for the hops, as that caused problems when trying to empty the HLT/Boiler.

Yeast was pitched this morning at 20.1C and a gravity of 1060.View attachment 43209

WIth the tap fully open, I'd expect between 10-20 minutes. But normally you start sparging as soon as the liquid level has fallen to the level of the top of the grains. You can sparge slow or fast: you decide on the flow through the tap and just keep the level of liquid just above the grain bed. Slower sparging is more efficient- I reckon between 30 - 60 minutes, but others take longer. If you do it quick then you compromise efficiency so just add more malt. It's always a trade off between time and ingredients.

It's going to take you two or three goes before you start getting a feel for how you want the process to proceed, so don't lose heart.

 

[Dads_Ale]

View attachment 44420
Turned out nice
TC

Was it worth the effort?
Missed your previous post but my sparging can take over an hour, you can’t rush quality.

 

[Tony C]

Turned out cracking. Only tried one bottle but that holds a lot of promise.
I now have a mesh to cover the drain pipes with, so things should improve, as it took about 4 hours on my first try.