hemogoblin
09-26-2003, 05:04 PM
Some of you may recall my pictorial account of making my (our) first all-grain batch, which can still be seen right here. (http://www.pubversive.com/beer/)
Well it has been a month, and I am pleased with the results. Yum! The beer is amber-brown with a great, rocky head, although it took longer than usual to carbonate in the bottle (about two weeks). It has a wonderful, clean aftertaste rich in grain-ey complexity. Not very sweet at all; a bit dry (low mash temp.? It was 152F). Alcohol I'd estimate is about 5%.
I was not impressed with the vitality of Wyeast American Ale yeast; it was rather slow and sluggish, though maybe I was just asking too much of it.
The beer has a slight but noticeable tannin bite, which is mellowing with age. I think we allowed the sparge pH to get too high, and for my next batch (in a few days) we will use some citric or lactic acid in the sparge water and speed it up a bit.
I will also bypass the hopback this time, as so far I get nicer aroma from dry-hopping.
But over all, all-grain was great! Pretty easy too. Get a digital thermometer! about $16 from Target.
What we learned:
Acidify the sparge water
Grind grain a little finer at the store
You CAN hit the strike temperature; the math works
sparge slightly faster
use bigger "floaters" on top of your lauter tun to brake the water
if your beer's not carbonating in the bottle, shake em up and wait a few more days
a pile of spent grain on your compost heap stinks like hell
once again -- beer only improves with age, so be patient
I hope some people wil find this helpful ....
Cheers! H.
Well it has been a month, and I am pleased with the results. Yum! The beer is amber-brown with a great, rocky head, although it took longer than usual to carbonate in the bottle (about two weeks). It has a wonderful, clean aftertaste rich in grain-ey complexity. Not very sweet at all; a bit dry (low mash temp.? It was 152F). Alcohol I'd estimate is about 5%.
I was not impressed with the vitality of Wyeast American Ale yeast; it was rather slow and sluggish, though maybe I was just asking too much of it.
The beer has a slight but noticeable tannin bite, which is mellowing with age. I think we allowed the sparge pH to get too high, and for my next batch (in a few days) we will use some citric or lactic acid in the sparge water and speed it up a bit.
I will also bypass the hopback this time, as so far I get nicer aroma from dry-hopping.
But over all, all-grain was great! Pretty easy too. Get a digital thermometer! about $16 from Target.
What we learned:
Acidify the sparge water
Grind grain a little finer at the store
You CAN hit the strike temperature; the math works
sparge slightly faster
use bigger "floaters" on top of your lauter tun to brake the water
if your beer's not carbonating in the bottle, shake em up and wait a few more days
a pile of spent grain on your compost heap stinks like hell
once again -- beer only improves with age, so be patient
I hope some people wil find this helpful ....
Cheers! H.