My First All Grain!

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

David Woods

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 11, 2019
Messages
153
Reaction score
58
Location
East Sussex
So going for it after many weeks of deliberating!

1695155388919.jpg

How many of you felt like this??
One good thing is the beer I will drink whilst stressing out!

Thank you to all that have helped, advised and encouraged. Wish me luck

Dave
 
So going for it after many weeks of deliberating!

View attachment 90062
How many of you felt like this??
One good thing is the beer I will drink whilst stressing out!

Thank you to all that have helped, advised and encouraged. Wish me luck

Dave
Are you going to give us a clue as to what you're going to brew or is that posted in a different thread?
 
Good luck. I’m sure you’ll love it.
I remember doing my first all grain brew like it was 12 years ago.. 😂
What are you planning to do? My first one was an Old Tom clone from the GW book 👍
 
Yes sorry - going to try a hoppy IPA - recipe given to me by a very kind person on the forum. More concerned about a possible boil over! Going the All in one route. I will report back and may even have a link to a video! Boil over won't be included though.

The wife doesn't know what all the fuss is about :oops: "it's only beer!"

Dave
 
Well finally got around to doing it! and had a very major issue! very stressful!

Firstly when I was about to do it I got Covid - great start so I delayed. Then I delayed further as we are prone to power cuts here and it started getting windy which usually brings on an outage. Then eventually...

I planned everything perfectly, got everything ready and off I went.... Using my brand new Brew Monk and the mash started bang on temp and all was going great - until the Brew Monk stopped working!

Still had power but the BM was dead - oh my god, just what I needed on my first attempt! I was using an extension lead but that was fine. Is there a fuse in the BM - god knows and couldn't get to it anyway if it's in the bottom. No fuse in the BM plug.

So major panic ensued and I decided it was the adapter I was using - totally my fault as the BM comes with a Euro plug but it has a very thick lead so didn't want to fiddle that into our small 13A plugs so I sourced a decent quality Euro to UK adapter, not from Ebay or the like so I assumed all would be OK - big lesson learned - that thing had packed up!

So I frantically found a plug and wired it to the BM and the thing came back into life. Problem was I had lost 15 -20 mins faffing about and the temp had dropped a lot, I also lost track of the timing so had no idea how long the mash had been going or how long was left to go - and where before the recirculating wort was sitting nicely just above the lid with the holes it wasn't anymore and attempts to speed up the flow did nothing so I assumed some holes/gaps had appeared in the grain bed and instead of filtering through was just running through a gap!

So what to do? well I continued and I was steaming as much as the boil and I revisited some long lost and fruity swear words!. The rest of the process went fine, I decided to use a hop spider but what a bugger to clean up! I transferred to a no chill cube and bunged it in the fermenter this morning so time will tell.

Thing is, I hit the SG numbers perfectly - bang on in fact and it tasted lovely but I have no idea what damage was done by this problem. I didn't have any Iodine so couldn't tell if conversion had happened so I just let it go on longer than my estimated 60min mash.

I realise this is my fault but come on Brew Monk - £420+ you would think they could afford to put a UK plug on it!! Beware do not use this with an adapter and good luck fitting a UK plug to this very thick lead.

I also forgot to attach the Bazooka filter - any thoughts?

I will report back when it's done - it was a bloody hard and stressful day!! And I didn't realise how much steam this thing produces during the boil!

Dave
 
Last edited:
Well finally got around to doing it! and had a very major issue! very stressful!

Firstly when I was about to do it I got Covid - great start so I delayed. Then I delayed further as we are prone to power cuts here and it started getting windy which usually brings on an outage. Then eventually...

I planned everything perfectly, got everything ready and off I went.... Using my brand new Brew Monk and the mash started bang on temp and all was going great - until the Brew Monk stopped working!

Still had power but the BM was dead - oh my god, just what I needed on my first attempt! I was using an extension lead but that was fine. Is there a fuse in the BM - god knows and couldn't get to it anyway if it's in the bottom. No fuse in the BM plug.

So major panic ensued and I decided it was the adapter I was using - totally my fault as the BM comes with a Euro plug but it has a very thick lead so didn't want to fiddle that into our small 13A plugs so I sourced a decent quality Euro to UK adapter, not from Ebay or the like so I assumed all would be OK - big lesson learned - that thing had packed up!

So I frantically found a plug and wired it to the BM and the thing came back into life. Problem was I had lost 15 -20 mins faffing about and the temp had dropped a lot, I also lost track of the timing so had no idea how long the mash had been going or how long was left to go - and where before the recirculating wort was sitting nicely just above the lid with the holes it wasn't anymore and attempts to speed up the flow did nothing so I assumed some holes/gaps had appeared in the grain bed and instead of filtering through was just running through a gap!

So what to do? well I continued and I was steaming as much as the boil. The rest of the process went fine, I decided to use a hop spider but what a bugger to clean up! I transferred to a no chill cube and bunged it in the fermenter this morning so time will tell.

Thing is, I hit the SG numbers perfectly - bang on in fact and it tasted lovely but I have no idea what damage was done by this problem. I didn't have any Iodine so couldn't tell if conversion had happened so I just let it go on longer than my estimated 60min mash.

I realise this is my fault but come on Brew Monk - £420+ you would think they could afford to put a UK plug on it!! Beware do not use this with an adapter and good luck fitting a UK plug to this very thick lead.

I will report back when it's done - it was a bloody hard and stressful day!! And I didn't realise how much steam this thing produces during the boil!

Dave
You worry too much. In the great order of things, if your first one goes wrong and you have to chuck it, so what? It sounds as if it's going to be ok though. Brewing's supposed to be fun; if you need tranquilisers then maybe it's not for you!

Only joking.
Well done on overcoming a load of problems on the first brew. I wish I'd had you around on my first brew!
Hope the beer's a good one.
 
Congratulations!!!

I consider it a good brew day if I only make one or two errors. I have lots of stories. Even last weekend, I did my like gazillion home-brew and I decided to leave my plug in my boiler as I filled it. Soaked the plug completely. Water was dripping out everywhere. Numpty!! I was pretty much ready to sparge at that point so I had to go and get 15L to 77C on the stovetop and walk back and forth across the house to batch sparge (instead of fly sparging). Soaked the floor in the process. (Hubby was not impressed) Efficiency and OG were still fine.
You learn to roll with it!!! :beer1: I hope you love your beer. Or learn loads! Or both!
 
I decided to use a hop spider but what a bugger to clean up
Yes, hop spiders are a pain to clean. I have attached a short length of silicone tubing to my cold tap which I can use to easily fill/wash brewing kit. This has the advantage that if you pinch the end of it, it turns into a mini pressure washer which is a much easier way to clean the spider.
 
Ha ha, that sounds like a dream first ever brew day to me.

1. If the temperature was correct at the start of the mash I don’t think the drop in 15 minutes will cause a major issue. I’ve had similar from accidentally kicking the plug out of the wall and not noticing for 15-20 mins
2. A longer mash is fine. I sometime mash overnight, as do others. If you hit you planned OG then happy days.

So long as you remembered to chuck the yeast in I’m confident you’ll end up with beer 👏

Oh, and if you are thinking that soon you will be having a perfect brew day every time then don’t. I have been brewing AG for nearly three years, and over 100 brew days in, I could count on one hand the number that have gone exactly to plan with no issue. I have made beer every time though 😉
 
Yes, hop spiders are a pain to clean. I have attached a short length of silicone tubing to my cold tap which I can use to easily fill/wash brewing kit. This has the advantage that if you pinch the end of it, it turns into a mini pressure washer which is a much easier way to clean the spider.

I stopped using a hot spider because it clogs and I was concerned about how much it was restricting the flow.

I now put all my hop additions in supermarket fruit and veg bags and chuck then in the kettle at the correct timings. You can squeeze them out at the end and, although a bit messy to clean, they do clean up well and dry in no time.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top